Classic Poem

Putting on a Greek Head-Dress, Provençal Slippers, and an Imagiste Air, Recites:

╬á╬ù╬æ ╬áOgr;╬ô╬Ø╬öIgr;╬Ø╬ô╬ú

I

Come, my songs, let us sing about something —
It is time we were getting ourselves talked about.

II

The iron menace of the pillar-box
is threatening the virginity of night.
Oh, Lars Porsena, let us be naked and impudent,
as the first day of April,
or Bernard Shaw without a toga.
Let us run up behind people and pinch them
in their too-fleshy ankles,
in the green twilight;
Male and female alike (I hear that they read
you, Walt Whitman) —
Eheu, eheu fugaces — sic semper — sic transit —
et cetera. . . . . . . .
Loosen thy chrome girdle;
Unveil the crux ansata — oh Ardanari-Iswari.

III

TO A VERY CERTAIN LADY

Cybele, Cybele, you have grown sleek and damnably patronizing.
You pat me on the head, indolently, as though I were a green puppy from
Patagonia;
You tell me your love is platonic, and your passion
has cooled to me,
Like a porcelain pitcher in which hot water for shaving
has been standing for hours.

Go to — put on your latest Basque tea-gown
And catch other tadpoles in your cheap net.

Marry, as you most likely will, a Chicago millionaire,
(I can imagine no worse end for you)
And cultivate the Indiana literati. . . . .

Your heart is an empty dance-hall
With lights blazing and musicians playing
on mute instruments.