Classic Poem

Or play the strong boy, spit in the world's face, shout
Whore! Ghoul! Harpy! at her. Call her Jakes.
Call her corpse-eating planet, worm's gut. Show
For once the true shape of her and say out
The thing she lives upon. Dig graves up. Pull
The half too rotten mummies from their earth
Like cyst from skin-crease. Crack the swollen tombs
And heave the dead up stinking. Oh be hard!
Show her your own dead darling whose young bones
Rot through the jelly of their flesh beneath
This simpering pink rose …

Peace! sit you down
 And let me wring your heart …
Oh play the strong boy with the rest of them!
Be hard-boiled! Be bitter! Face the brassy
Broad indecent fact and with ironical
Contemptuous understanding take the world's
Scut in your hands and name it! Name its name!
Stare at her dugs with undeceived wise eyes until
The hypocrite green smile fades over and
The guilt look shows! Be foul mouthed! Be blunt!
Tell her the thing she feeds on and the thing
That dandles with her in the sweaty dark
To breed these beauties. Tell her of what seed
She gets her womb up and what festering lust
Lies stewing with her in the adulterous spring.
Stare in her eyes! Sneer! Swagger! Oh be
Hard!
 and rise
and through the arras at the back
Stab to the bloody braving hilt
and hear
The rat squeak after
hear the stuck dust fall!