Collected Poems Page 5

  Leaves from the trees to cover what before

  Had been mere taps for secondary purging.

  So good and evil, as we must conclude,

  Succeed in making rude and crude and lewd

  The dumpendebat and the fhairy grot.

  Else why should man and missis play the prude?

  Each knew, however leafily endued,

  Precisely what the other one had got.

  12. THE STATE OF INNOCENCE (1)

  There’d be, if Adam hadn’t sold our stock,

  Preferring disobedience to riches,

  No sin or death for us poor sons of bitches.

  Man would range free, powerless to shame or shock,

  And introduce all women to his cock,

  Without the obstacles of skirt and breeches,

  Spreading his seed immeasurably, which is

  To say: all round the world, all round the clock.

  The beasts would share the happy lot of men,

  Despite a natural plenitude of flies.

  There’d be no threats of Doomsday coming when

  Christ must conduct the dreadful last assize.

  Instead, the Lord would look in now and then,

  Checking our needs, renewing our supplies.

  13. THE STATE OF INNOCENCE (2)

  I’m puzzled. (Bear with me, Father Superior.)

  If Adam’s gorging had not been the means

  Of turning us to compost for the beans

  – Nothing more useful, yes, but nothing drearier –

  And all who issue from their dam’s interior

  Did not end up by pushing up the greens,

  Now what would be finale to those scenes

  Which start with bouts of murderous hysteria?

  Ah but, you say, along with immortality

  There’d be no urge to sin: remember this.

  Thank you. And so – predestinate causality,

  And no free will (but Adam had it: yes?).

  What puzzles me is: would we incur fatality

  If we fell down a bloody precipice?

  14. HOLY STARVATION

  We sinners have to eat four times a day

  Or, if we happen to be English, five.

  But man unfallen would have stayed alive.

  If not a single crumb had come his way.

  And even if they’d served him on a tray

  Boiled stones, mashed mud, garnished with poison iv-

  Y, he’d survive – indeed, contrive

  To thrive on shit like any flower of May.

  Everyone thin, carting an empty belly

  About, knowing no gustatory bliss

  In wine or trout or grouse in aspic jelly;

  With jam a joke and fowl farci a farce.

  The tongue and teeth for talk – yes; but why this

  Hole, O ye holy buggers, up the arse?

  15. CAIN AND THE LORD

  ‘Cain, where is Abel?’ Silence. ‘Cain, Cain, where

  Is Abel?’ Silence. ‘Cain!’ Then came Cain’s cry:

  ‘Shoving your nose in. How the hell should I

  Know where he is? Or, for that matter, care?

  Am I my brother’s keeper?’ Eden’s air

  Darkened at this, shuddered at God’s reply:

  ‘I’ll tell you where, you killer – done in by

  Your knife, he’s pushing up those parsnips there.

  Out of my sight, start running, up and down

  The whole damned earth, you damned, you cursed; and cry

  Through every bloody street of every town.

  Howl, you unchristian swine, your dismal tune

  Hurl at the stars, then shiver in the sky,

  Weep till you brim the pockholes of the moon.’

  16. CAIN’S CRIME

  Please don’t think, Herr Professor, I intend

  Defending Cain. Better than you, perhaps,

  I know him, but know too the sort of lapse

  Drink will induce – how it can blind and bend

  And break. See Cain drunk, beckoning like a friend,

  Thick stick in fist, an oiled smile on his chaps,

  Wooing his brother hither. Then he taps,

  Raps bone, draws blood, the swine, and makes an end.

  Filthy? Oh, yes. Still, it was far from funny

  Having to hear God hawking up his phlegm

  To spit upon his parsnips and his honey

  But not on Abel’s sheep, no, not on them.

  Born of the breed of men and not of mice,

  Cain growled revolt then cut himself a slice.

  17. THE SECOND SIN

  Reproach him not for bidding crime begin.

  Evil was what he sucked in from his mother.

  The murder of his innocent young brother

  Derived from something deep beneath the skin.

  As two and two make four, so man makes sin.

  Still, there’s a nagging problem tough to smother:

  How did he know when one man cracks another

  With force enough he does that other in?

  Think now. Before Cain played the bloody brute

  No one had demonstrated death as yet.

  This doctrine, then, is murderous to refute:

  That murder is an impulse man first met

  When his teeth met inside that juicy fruit.

  What’s homicide? A thing your father ate.

  18. THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE

  God said to Noah: ‘Listen, er patriarch.

  You and your sons, each take his little hatchet,

  Lop wood enough to build yourselves an ark

  To these specifications. Roof and thatch it

  Like Porto de Ripetta ferry. Mark

  Me well now. Chase each make of beast and catch it.

  And catch a male or female that will match it.

  Then with your victuals, zoo and wives, embark.

  A flood is going to test your wooden walls,

  A world’s end deluge. Tivoli waterfalls

  Will seem an arc of piss in a urinal.

  Ride it until you sight a rainbow. Then

  Jump in the mud and make things grow again

  Till the next world’s end. (That one will be final.)’

  19. NOAH’S ARK

  Elephants, fleas, cows, lions, sheep, wolves, hares,

  Foxes and flies, roosters and stags and stallions,

  Mice by platoons and rabbits by battalions,

  Donkeys and pigs and bugs, monkeys and mares.

  Meat by the ton, cheese, pasta, worms, figs, pears,

  Maize, clover, hay, whey, pigswill, skilly, scallions,

  Bones, birdseed, bran, melons like golden galleons,

  Minced heart for owls and honey for the bears:

  These and much more poor Noah stowed in the boat

  That God made airtight, cosy, close and dark.

  A year and more this barnyard was afloat,

  Heady with parmigiano, goat and skunk.

  How did he cope, our blessed patriarch?

  Ask him. He may respond by getting drunk.

  20. THE NEW WINE

  Drunk, yes. Near his palazzo, safe on shore,

  Noah planted vines and fondly watched them sprout,

  And when he saw the luscious grapes fill out

  (One bunch weighed ten or twenty pounds, or more),

  He crushed the juice in ferment, let it pour

  Down the red lane, and gave a toper’s shout:

  ‘It’s good, it’s fucking good!’ His drunken bout

  First made him high and, after, hit the floor.

  That was strong stuff, he was not used to it.

  Like all us drunkards, snoring at the sun,

  He lay as flat as a five-lira bit.

  But – shame – our patriarch had no breeches on

  And – but I’d better quote you Holy Writ –

  ‘Displayed his balls and prick to everyone.’

  21. THE AGE OF MAN

  If it is true, as
the priests say it is,

  That every ancient patriarch and prophet

  Took a long time for old age to kill off (it

  Was, in some cases, nine damned centuries),

  They must have been damned short of maladies –

  No stone, hard chancre, or bronchitic cough. It

  Could be they postponed their trip to Tophet

  With secrets still unsold in pharmacies.

  Such agelessness would wreck our modern age.

  That lad, see, fifty years in his high chair,

  A hundred more at school, would choke with rage

  (Himself a dad now, in or out of matrimony)

  Waiting for dad to die and bless his heir,

  Trying to run up bills against his patrimony.

  22. THE TOWER

  ‘We’d like to touch the stars’, they cried, and, after,

  ‘We’ve got to touch the stars. But how?’ An able-

  Brained bastard told them: ‘Build the Tower of Babel.

  Start now, get moving. Dig holes, sink a shaft. A-

  Rise, arouse, raise rafter after rafter,

  Get bricks, sand, limestone, scaffolding and cable.

  I’m clerk of works, fetch me a chair and table.’

  God meanwhile well-nigh pissed himself with laughter.

  They’d just got level with the Pope’s top floor

  When something in their mouths began to give:

  They couldn’t talk Italian any more.

  The project died in this linguistic slaughter.

  Thus, if a man said: ‘Pass us that there sieve,’

  His mate would hand him up a pail of water.

  23. ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE (1)

  The Bible, sometimes called the Jewish Chronicle,

  Says, midway between Noah’s and Aaron’s ark,

  That Abraham played the grand old patriarch

  And sacrificed to God, with fine parsonical

  Language that all that blood made sound ironical.

  He took a donkey from the donkey-park

  (Chewing up chicory and grass in stark

  Lordly disdain, as if it wore a monocle)

  And called to Isaac: ‘Pack the bags and load

  This donkey, get the boy to bring a nice

  Sharp axe, then kiss your mother on the cheek.

  Bring coats and hats, we’re going to take the road.

  The blessed Lord requires a sacrifice.

  The time has come to teach you the technique.’

  24. ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE (2)

  They ate, while day was cooking in the east,

  Some breakfast. When their journey had begun,

  Abraham led them in an orison

  That lasted for a hundred miles at least.

  Then the old swine or, if you wish, old priest

  Said: ‘We’ve arrived. Shoulder that burden, son.

  And as for you – ’ (meaning the other one)

  ‘ – Wait here. You toom,’ he told his fellow-beast.

  They started climbing. Halfway through their climb,

  Isaac said: ‘Where’s your victim wandered to?’

  ‘Wait’, said his father. ‘All in God’s good time.’

  They reached the top, where knife-edged breezes blew,

  And Abraham said: ‘A victim, yes. Well, I’m

  The priest, son, and there’s only me and you.’

  25. ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE (3)

  ‘No, no!’ The boy knelt in his innocence

  – The right position for that butcher-dad

  Who raised his axe above the hapless lad,

  Ready to do paternal violence.

  ‘Stop!’ cried a voice. ‘I think we can dispense

  With filicide.’ An angel. ‘You’ve just had

  A Godsent test, and passed it, I might add.

  Baaaah – here’s a sheep. Quite a coincidence.’

  To cut it short (I’m sick of the damned story),

  The sheep was slain, and all the four went home,

  The ass to pasture, Isaac to his mother.

  As for the slab he nearly made all gory.

  It’s a prized relic, hidden safe in Rome,

  At Borgo-novo, or some place or other.

  26. JOSEPH THE JEW (1)

  Some merchants, so it’s said, near signed the pledge and

  Gave up the drink when they heard something odd:

  A yell deep in a well. ‘A child, by God,’

  One said, sticking his chin over the edge and

  Peering. They hired a dredger then to dredge and

  He dredged up, dripping like a landed cod,

  Howling like hell, a stinking clayey clod,

  Joseph the Jew, so goes the ancient legend.

  They dried him, cleaned him, gave him fodder and

  Bought him a shirt against the inclement weather,

  But didn’t want to bring him up by hand.

  Seeking returns on what they’d clubbed together

  They sold him off in Egypt, contraband,

  For a few rags and half a trank of leather.

  27. JOSEPH THE JEW (2)

  Joseph grew up. When he was fully grown,

  The lady that he worked for cast him looks

  Whose drift he thought he’d read about in books,

  Sighing, trying to get him on his own.

  She ogled him with many a meaning moan,

  Carefully careless with her eyes and hooks.

  Her hunger could not be assuaged by cooks,

  Only by some raw mutton with no bone.

  One morning, bringing the hot water to her,

  He found her naked, the sweet buxom slut,

  So damped her with the contents of the ewer.

  She grabbed him by his single garment but

  He left it with her, naked but still pure,

  And ran away, the bloody idiot.

  28. LOT AT HOME

  Two strangers, both with staffs, but one a bit

  Lame from the journey, weary but still wary.

  Arrived at the holy hour of the Hail Mary

  (I love anachronising Holy Writ)

  Looking for lodgings. Lot, who had just lit

  His window lamp, saw them, called them and said: ‘You’re very

  Welcome here.’ They smiled: ‘Ah, a good fairy.

  Such kindness. You’ll be amply paid for it.’

  These two were angels. The buggers of Gomorrah,

  Hearing of their arrival, knew it not,

  Else all their hair would have stood up in horror.

  Their pricks stood up instead. They yelled out: ‘You

  Selfish unsodomite, let’s have them, Lot.

  You don’t require their arses, and we do.’

  29. LOT’S WIFE

  The angels now announced themselves to Lot

  And said ‘This town must suffer for its fault.

  No rooftop, cavern, hole or nether vault

  Will hide them when the flames leap high and hot.

  You and your family leave now. Do not halt

  And look back down Longara Road. Do not,

  We say again.’ But hardly had they got

  Away when Lot’s wife turned and turned to salt.

  Ah, woman, cursed by curiosity.

  If all of our Italian women could

  So change, as by that precedent they should,

  They’d soon destroy the salt monopoly

  And bring the price down, though of course we would

  Be forced to live on salt and sodomy.

  30. LOT IN REPOSE

  God, then, assumed the office of a cook

  And baked the Sodomites like salmon trout.

  Only the family of Lot got out,

  Though his wife suffered for that backward look.

  They camped near Zoar, in a stony nook.

  Lot’s daughters, starved of love, began to pout,

  Seeing no sign of penises about,

  And, driven by a fleshly need, forsook

&
nbsp; Propriety. Here at least was their father.

  They gave him wine with a well-salted pasty.

  When he was drunk they fucked him to a lather,

  Not finding this unnatural or nasty.

  No fire rained down. It seems that God is rather

  Inclined to incest but hates pederasty.

  31. EXODUS

  Pharaoh, a rogue in charge of other rogues,

  First drowned the Jews then turned them into slaves,

  Driven to toil by knaves with stones and staves,

  Just where the fertile Nilus disembogues.

  But Moses (the humane dictator vogue’s

  Said to start here), after some narrow shaves,

  Led the Jews out between two walls of waves:

  The buggers didn’t even wet their brogues.

  When the Red Sea swung open like a door,

  The Jews assumed their journey was near done,

  Not having met the love of God before.

  But round and round beneath the desert sun

  They had to frig for forty years and more –

  A fucking waste of time for everyone.

  32. BALAAM’S ASS

  As ancient Hebrew story tellers knew

  The future better than the past, we lack

  Proof that when Balaam rode his donkey’s back

  And, since it halted, beat it black and blue

  The poor beast turned on him and brayed: ‘Hey, you,

  Why did you launch that unprovoked attack?

  If you could see that angel there you’d thwack

  This ass, or arse, more gently than you do.’

  If you believe this, welcome an incursion

  Of awe to learn that donkeys can be pat in

  High class Italian (English in this version).

  Accept the premise and it follows that in

  Pointing you out the donkeys that know Latin

  (Aspeeeerges meeeeee) I cast no foul aspersion.

  33. THE BATTLE OF GIDEON

  300 Jews knitted their warlike brows and,

  Armed with trombones and torches hid in skillets.

  Marched in good order on their foemen’s billets,