The Poetry Society

I am the one you've been looking for,

The singular first person

Here at the death.

The square-ended shout

Has gone up from the stand,

So the Duchess's Cup has raced

Into the records again

In a thunder of wall-eyed no-hopers

And foul-mouthed effeminate midgets in silk,

While round at the back of it all, in the sheds,

Among mowers and oildrums, down on my knees

In a doorway of sunlit Victorian dust,

I done it. I mean, I done this one.

I lie in my caravan, feeling it rock

On its bricks by the abattoir. Windy.

I'm scanning Reveille for creatures like me,

The bad apples of Lustgarten's eye,

From the class that has feeble excuses and onanists' tremors,

The work-shy, enthralled by America,

Reached by race-music picked up at the fair

With the clap and the ravenous

Oil-based charm that makes us at home

Among engines in pieces and under the skirts

Of your daughters. Our sort

Are barbers and butchers gone bad

From a failure of deference.

I do hope you're writing this down

And ignoring my fraudulent idioms.

They look for a soldier. They fancy a Yank

Off the airbase. So let them.

Come rain on the roof, come wind,

I lie here and rock. I'm awful. I've sinned.