Monday, May 18, 2009

Letter to W.H. Auden


Letter to W.H. Auden

“Auden defends Byron by asserting the value of light verse and by using him to authorize the coexistence of genuine political concerns with comic art.”—Richard Bozorth, “Politics and Authority in the 1930s,” Auden’s Games of Knowledge: Poetry and the Meanings of Homosexuality

I see your face—on every channel
The Drudge Report—and every panel
FOX-News—interviews you regularly
Wintering in Cadiz—caught at the wheel
Whizzing around—in your maroon Mercedes
Lord Byron—the Don Juan of the jet-setters
Dining with Miss Capote—in Manhattan
Highbrow circles—at ivy-league Princeton
Licking your asshole—if you let them
Your Picasso portrait—better than Stein’s
Showing you arm-wrestling—with Toklas
Sharing tea, marmalade—and a hookah
With Miss Proust—and Miss Bowles there
Vacationing in Marrakech—then touring
The Acropolis—with Chester and some of
Those Greek white-trash—soldiers of his
How I’ll love it much better—when he gets
Old and loses his looks—when the tiresome
Kissing is done—and we can be comfy again
Doing crossword puzzles—after dinner in
Our little Austrian getaway—all mine


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