The only gift he gave at Christmas came
straight from the horse's mouth, some gaudy fruit
that merely hints at orthostatic strain
and hardly breathes a brushstroke of my mute
but scrupulous drama of hue and form
that leaves me rubicund from the travail
better to keep retroussé critics warm
and protégés in immuring denial.
Oh give me up to trenchermen! Perchance
Gamache or Gomorrah might suit me well
as gluttons are the apple of my eye;
Their intentions are stated in advance
and roistering does much to help dispel
this saboteur, his hordearii.
The only damn that he gave into came
when verisimilitude nudged its way
between the eminence he wants to claim
and things that his fingers wanted to say.
The recitative, inaudible beat
he makes in this case some bogus rejoinder
is that you'll find at my core when you eat
the flesh of which this speech is a reminder.
Oh give me up to compost heaps! Some praise
from larval gourmands wouldn't go amiss
and certainly would bury all the strife
of artistic endeavour, would erase
desires and designs of dead-eyed artists
that will continue, while there is still life.
straight from the horse's mouth, some gaudy fruit
that merely hints at orthostatic strain
and hardly breathes a brushstroke of my mute
but scrupulous drama of hue and form
that leaves me rubicund from the travail
better to keep retroussé critics warm
and protégés in immuring denial.
Oh give me up to trenchermen! Perchance
Gamache or Gomorrah might suit me well
as gluttons are the apple of my eye;
Their intentions are stated in advance
and roistering does much to help dispel
this saboteur, his hordearii.
The only damn that he gave into came
when verisimilitude nudged its way
between the eminence he wants to claim
and things that his fingers wanted to say.
The recitative, inaudible beat
he makes in this case some bogus rejoinder
is that you'll find at my core when you eat
the flesh of which this speech is a reminder.
Oh give me up to compost heaps! Some praise
from larval gourmands wouldn't go amiss
and certainly would bury all the strife
of artistic endeavour, would erase
desires and designs of dead-eyed artists
that will continue, while there is still life.