Classic Poem

I.

CONSIDER the bug,
the sort which curls up if prodded, it
walks
pertinaciously
between blades of grass, cinders and dead twigs
with a long body and synchronising legs
like an Eight out for practise
rowing up the Isis on a June afternoon
with rattling rowlocks and a noise of coaching.
What bugmind
coaxes thee on thy determined journey —
o happy, happy bug!
content in thy dominion
of six feet of earth
well timbered and stocked with a multitude of mitegame.

Having considered the bug,
salute bugmentality
type of presentday wisdom
wherever and in whomsoever met with.
It alone achieves happiness in pettiness
not perceiving more,
shutting up tight at the least interference
from Outside, under protest
in the wise defence of its sacred insignificance.
Bug, I do not like thee.
There, I have crushed thee.

II.

If you look at a car rally from the air,
you at once think of cockroaches
surprised as it may be, in tribal debate
or blackcoated business undertakings
when the lamp is suddenly turned up
in an old kitchen late at night
" at the crush hour in the marketplace. "

Hell, said the cockroach
(putting down a spot of cider, jollyboybug)
that's hard. Us cockroaches
are a peaceable people, eschewing murder
seeking, not unsuccessfully, only the good.
And he rolled over drunk
to be martyred next morning by the housemaid.