Collected Poems by Anthony Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕

where pagans chatter

In Russian, German, English, French and Spanish.

Their message was so simple, strong, unkillable,

The fact they spoke Italian didn’t matter.

No one misunderstood a single syllable.

70. THE LAST DAYS

When the long annals of the earth are done

And Christ’s creation’s melted into shit,

The Antichrist will crawl out of his pit

And preach the dirty word to everyone.

Cursed with a wall-eye that the blest will shun,

A giant body and a face unfit

Even to have tomatoes hurled at it,

A prodigy, son of a monk and nun.

He will be bashed by Enoch and Elia

Elijah too – they’ll spring out of a hatch

In St Paul’s church, between the nave and choir.

Satan will slither up from hell to snatch

His share, snarling it out with the Messiah.

And earth will be a plucked up cabbage patch.

71. THE LAST JUDGMENT

At the round earth’s imagined corners let

Angels regale us with a brass quartet,

Capping that concord with a fourfold shout:

‘Out, everybody, everybody out!’

Then skeletons will rattle all about

Forming in file, on all fours, tail to snout,

Putting on flesh and face until they get,

Upright, to where the Judgment Seat is set.

There the All High, maternal, systematic,

Will separate the black souls from the white:

That lot there for the cellar, this the attic.

The wing’d musicians now will chime or blare a

Brief final tune, then they’ll put out the light:

Er-phwhoo. And so to bed. Owwwww. Bona sera.

72. THE FATHER OF THE SAINTS

Here are some names, my son, we call the cock:

The chair, the yard, the large or little dick,

The tool, rod of love, Hampton (Wick),

Syringe, red robin, Brighton (Blackpool) rock,

The fleshly comforter, the six o’clock,

And Old Blind Bob, the prover, prior, prick,

Jack Thursday, my best friend, the penal stick

The old man, knobkerry, Kentish Knock.

The jelif, truncheon, he, the lower nose,

The cad monocular, the butcher’s lad,

Will, bill, asperger, Holofernes, rose,

The gism-engine, bishop, shagger, shad,

The thruster, monkey, climber without toes,

The sausage and our bad mad glad sad dad.

But let me add

That scholars, studying with midnight tapers,

Use the term phallus in their learned papers.

And one old man I know calls it Priapus.

His wife has no name for it but a frown:

A sign that life has somehow let her down.

73. LOCAL INDUSTRY

One day I reached the deepest of the dumps:

I hadn’t got the nicked edge of a shillin.

I thought of somethin that might work, God willin,

So broke the kitchen shovel into lumps.

Off to the cattle market. There was clumps

Of tourists millin jabberin and shrillin

‘Dis is de Forum’. Where to make me killin?

Some stupid English fart might turn up trumps.

I found one. ‘Sir, just see wot ah dag ap

In me backyard. It’s bin a lawnh tahm id –

A riw aufentic Roman aunty quitty.’

He flashed his winder on the bit of scrap

And said ‘Bravo’ and give me arf a quid.

That’s how we skin ’em in the Old City.

74. ‘SPANIARDS’

Spaniards believe that tuum’s less than meum.

They come to Rome and find each thing inferior –

Temple and castle, inside and exterior,

Obelisk, fountain, column, church, museum,

Even the papal singing of Te Deum,

To anything they have in fair Iberia.

It’s hell’s own job deflating those superior

Sneerers: (‘call that thing a colosseum?’)

I got a bullock’s ballocks once and stowed them

Inside a casket with an ornate lid

Then met a Spaniard, saying as I showed them:

‘Adam’s, se˜nor.’ He blanched a bit and did

The homage that he thought I thought he owed them,

Then yawned: ‘We have his third one in Madrid.’

75. ‘WORK’

Work? Work? Me work? The thought of working puts

Me into a sweat. They never have agreed,

Have work and me. There’s other things I need

Than work. No work then, and no ifs and buts.

Before I get some dinner in my guts

I’m much too weak to work,

After I feed

At half past twelve I like to crash my swede.

Work? Stuff it where the monkeys stuff their nuts.

Work’s holy? Holy? Work? You twat, you should

Look at our priests. Their boss, I heard one say,

Worked for a week and went on strike for good.

For up above, they’re up above such stunts

As work. The saints play with their balls all day,

While the saintesses sit and scratch their cunts.

76. THE BET

Some men were arguing, as men often will,

About their wives. And each with each one vied.

Over his beer, with a grim sort of pride,

Saying: ‘Mine’s ugly.’ – ‘But mine’s uglier still,’

Comparing photographs. ‘Ah, but if looks could kill,

My missis could effect mass homicide.

Just look.’ But Albert, with no picture, cried:

‘Ugly? Come home with me and feast your fill.’

A bet, then? Right. The money was not lacking,

A pound a man. Their winter breaths asmoke,

They homed with him when ‘Time please’ sent them packing.

‘Get ready, missis.’ From upstairs she spoke:

‘Am I to hide me face wi’ piece of sacking?’

‘Nay,’ he called, ‘it’s a bet, lass, not a poke.’

77. TWO USES FOR ASHES

‘The ashes of my dear departed?’ said

The widow, serving tea and cake at five

Five days after the funeral. ‘I contrive

To house them aptly. No, not lapped in lead.

See, they are in an egg-timer instead,

There on the mantelpiece. Ah, ladies, I’ve

Determined, since he did no work alive,

The lazy swine will do some now he’s dead.’

One widow took her man’s remains as snuff,

Achieving an orgasmic kind of sneeze.

She said: ‘The bugger’s appetite was rough.

He entered, without even saying Please,

My other apertures. I’ve had enough,

But as he’s dead I’ll not begrudge him these.’

78. ‘THE ORCHIDACEOUS CATALOGUE BEGINS’

The orchidaceous catalogue begins

With testicles, carries on with balls,

Ballocks and pills and pillocks. Then it calls

On Urdu slang for goolies. Gism-bins

Is somewhat precious, and superior grins

Greet antique terms like cullions. Genitals?

– Too generalised. Cojones (Espan˜ol)’s

Hemmish and too whimsical The Twins.

Clashers and bells – poetical if tame.

Two swinging censors – apt for priest or monk.

Ivories, if pocket billiards is your game.

I would prefer to jettison such junk

And give them geoffrey grigsons as a name,

If only Grigson had a speck of spunk.

79. PRIVY MATTERS

A man sat once, writhing in costive pain,

For a whole wretched hour, crouching inside

A public privy. Though he valiantly tried

To loose the load, his muscles limp with strain,

He could not. Yet again. Again. Again.

But no. He heard a desperate urgent stride

To the neighbour box.