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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