DESUETUDE   (for Stuntington Bairns--that Hurt Consul)   I'm like the laird of many rainy acres, A rich man, but gey powerless, young, but jaded, Distrustful of advisers and smooth talkers, Whose joy in dogs and coursing too has faded.   Nothing can make him happy, grouse nor eagle; Nor his clan dying by the castle wall. He finds the dances of his pipers feeble, And no distraction from his vice at all.   His gay betartened bed is like a tomb. His lasses, who revere and love all princes, Can't by immodesty disturb his gloom Or draw a skeletal smile for these advances.   The smith who does his goldwork can't contrive To rid it of its smell of rank corruption. Glencoe and other bloodbaths that survive In history can't rouse his young dejection,   A corpse too old for any warmth to flood Whose veins are greened with Lethe, dry of blood.   Alan Boldero c/o Scatto and Findus, King Elizabeth 2nd Street, Hair           ON THE ISLETS OF LANGERHANS   (King Midas in Reverse)   (for Nicholas Moore)   I'm like the monarch of a damp, cold islet, Live, but cut-off; young still, but, when I smile, it Hurts almost, and my doctors' precepts irk me. I'm bored with living things. Nothing can jerk me Out of this sluggish gloom, nor sport, nor plaything. My family's decline is not a gay thing. Lenny's sick jokes; the ballads of Jacques Brel Don't quite, in face of this cruel sickness, jell. My bedroom iris, scrawled on Thotmes' tomb, Is deadly as the fat dames who presume-- Worshipping princes--to disclose their wares Quite nakedly--but bore this corpse to tears. The Income-Tax Repayment in the bank Can't win from this too-sugared heart one thank You, nor the bloody slaughter in Vietnam Raise in my diabetic bones one damn Of youthful fire; my frozen limbs turn green-- Where flows not blood, but Lethe --with gangrene.   Conilho Moraes c/o The PBS, 4· St. James' Square, S.W.I           SONG   ("Grun, grun... die Welt ist griin Uber uber Die Jungfrau")   Brown blotch grey veins petal of iris on my canopy: cool beauty   Breast and throat ...   Ion, Boy King of gold   Blood, war, the chorus prancing like a fool   Death of the Race   O Rome... Corruption in green veins, snake-coiling Lethe, green   (green as the green of youth) green as decay.   H. N. (Helga Nevvadotoomuch) c/o Lord Godmanchester (Gumster), The John Peelcroft Hadmanchester Podgoets, Night Slide Clubb, P.O. Box IAA, B.B.C.-wise, W. I           TO A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE   (for Rogers Lorentz Greenheart)   (". .. . projected on a raft into a soft green landscape" --William Jay Smith: The Angry Man)   I'm like The Winner of The Competition The one who wrote the strong, rewarding phrase About the sycophants or the condition-- Betes Noires and Bluebirds of The Human Race:   Of how The King of Nowhere wasn't gay And saw the poets die before his palace: How his pop-singer's Jabberwocky lay Kept his head still turned inside-out like Alice;   So that his canopy of rose and iris Made his smooth bed seem only like a grave, And he could find no pleasure in the ladies Nor smile at all the sexy gear they'd wave.   The Agent who could get him cash could never Make such pot-boilings seem less than obscene, Nor could the Kitchen-Sink Sade-Marats ever With all their blood and fucks begin to mean   A thing to this young skeleton, whose art Was pure and bloodless as the River Dart.   Jago McFaithful Fabb c/o MacBeth's Firefighters, Radium I, 2, 3 or 4, P.O. Hoax I aaaaaaaaa, (pub. section) The Stone Tower House W. I           TWO DREAMSCAPES   (for Nanos Valaoritis)   I stand, a too-old king In a too rainy country, curbed By distrust of too-plausible advisers.   Dogs, Other faceless animals Small birds, hawks --but I'm bored: A whole race fails beneath my balcony. The Beatles, dressed like grubs, Sing mournfully "Hey, Jude", But I--I cannot laugh. I suffer from the same malaise myself.   My bed is a mound of flowers,   Lily, iris; The flower-girls offer me charms And suddenly strip Beautiful, clean young bodies.   But this mound is a tomb For this dried-up young mummy. The gesturing girls can't raise a smile   From the dead.   II.   An alchemist makes gold in his crucible; A white-bearded savant With delicate fingers.   He stands close, as in a picture, Before a Dali-like landscape Of bones and blood.   A river twists in the distance; The gold watch has no face, And, instead of hands, The twitching sting of a bee.   A harvest-field of stone Gravestones each bear the legend "Rome..."   But none of this is exciting to my young eyes. No vice of blood can warm the dead. "Join me" I hear my own corpse cry, And, winding through my veins, Instead of blood, The slow green waters of Lethe.   Niches Omolares c/o 105 Piccadilly, W.I           SPLEEN   (for James Laughlin--and all the old directions)   ("It is as though Baudelaire were to be re-written, over the biscuits and sherry, by Waiter Bagehot" --Kenneth Rexroth: New British Poets)   I'm like the Laureate of a clouded empire, Whose words are gold, but powerless: whose entire Youth has been spent on old men's vanities. Bored with mad dogs and life's inanities, Nothing can make him giggle, bird or ape, Nor all his tribe half-dying at the gate: Nor all the loony japes of Lennonese Distract him from this self-imposed disease. He's filled his bed with flowers; it's still a grave. Women, however lewdly they behave, Can't reconcile him to his princely rule, Nor raise one titter from this grave, young fool. The golden tongue of Dylan can't contrive With all its bone and gore to keep alive Through all the bloody rain of death's dominion One sickly cry from this sick skeleton, Nor can Analysis warm up this Case. There's no blood there: just green spleen in its place.   Kenelme Sexnoth Pope The Poetrie Diabblers' Union, New Directions, Norfolk, Conn. (U.S.A.)