D.H. Lawrence: Three poems
D.H. Lawrence
(1885-1930)
To Women, As Far As I’m Concerned
The feelings I don’t have I don’t have.
The feelings I don’t have, I won’t say I have.
The felings you say you have, you don’t have.
The feelings you would like us both to have, we
neither of us have.
The feelings people ought to have, they never have.
If people say they’ve got feelings, you may be pretty
sure they haven’t got them
So if you want either of us to feel anything at all
you’d better abandon all idea of feelings altogether.
Intimates
Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly.
I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all request to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct!–
So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have borken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own refection
and that held her spellbound for two seconds
while I fled.
My Naughty Book
They say I wrote a naughty book
With perfectly awful things in it,
putting in all the impossible words
like b—- and f— and sh–.
Most of my friends were deeply hurt
and haven’t forgiven me yet;
I’d loaded the camel’s back before
with dirt they couldn’t forget.
And now, no really, the final straw
was words like sh– and f–!
I heard the camel’s back go crack
beneath the weight of muck.
Then out of nowhere rushed John Bull,
that mildewed pup, good doggie!
squeakily bellowing for all he was worth,
and slavering wet and soggy.
He couldn’t bite ’em he was much too old,
but he made a pool of dribblings;
so while the other one heaved her sides
with moans and hollow bibblings
he did his best, the good old dog
to support her, the hysterical camel,
and everyone listend and loved it, the
ridiculus bimmel-bammel.
But still, one has no right to take
the old dog’s greenest bones
that he’s buried now for centuries
beneath England’s garden stones.
And, of course, one has no right to lay
such words to the camel’s charge
when she prefers to have them left
in the W.C. writ large.
Poor homely words, I must give you back
to the camel and the dog,
for her to mumble and him to crack
in secret, great golliwog!
And hereby I apologise
to all my foes and friends
for using words they privately keep
for their own immortal ends.
And henceforth I will never use
more than the chaste, short dash;
so do forgive me! I sprinkle my hair
with grey, repentant ash.
kemp=mag poetry magazine
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