Classic Poem

A glistening display of odorless pomade.
Blond hair urbanely parted. A front too broad,
Which in some happier generation might have shone
Proudly with laurels of unwithered green.

Eyes meaningless and grey, disposed to tears
While life remains so lovely and obscene
Gross lips, priapic. Crooked nose and ears
Alert to Shelley, Dante and Verlaine.

Four limbs cylindrical, discreetly clothed
By Brooks in browns and Anglo-Saxon greys;
Yet underneath the straight thighs of a faun,
A torso maladroit and eagerly male.

At heart a man already centuried
When Troilus saw the threatened towers of Troy,
Or it may be a burning archangel
Whose plumes were shrivelled in Satanic wars.