Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged face
Parades the marketplace, lurid and stricken
By some unutterable chagrin,
Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen nose.
Two pinlegs stagger underneath the mass.
Grievously purpled, mouth skewered on a groan,
Past keeping to the house, past all discretion —
Myself, myself! — obscene, lugubrious.
Better the flat leer of the idiot,
The stone face of the man who dosen’t feel,
The velvet dodges of the hypocrite :
Better, better, and more acceptable
To timorous children, to the lady on the street.
O Oedipus. O Christ. You use me ill.

—————

The End

And that’s the End of the Poem

© Poetry Monster, 2021.

Poems by topic and subject.

Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.

Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.

Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:

Register.

Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)