I became the object...
I became the object of an old man’s lust
he was toting his corporation among the grasses of the dunes
where he kept darting his dirty old man’s eyes at my sprawling body
while I was trying to assume an air of insulting indifference
to get him to piss off and leave me to my own devices
but all the time that bay window of his kept looming up
and his advanced age his moustache and the prerogative of
that loathsome belly that he nursed like a dead foetus
licensed him to keep looking me over with the bulging eye of
authority
I ran down to the sea hoping that meanwhile the old shit
would slope off somewhere else to get his rocks off
but from afar lo and behold his breadbasket bobbing after me
back in the sand dunes I gather up my things
and go and lie down as far as possible from the monstrosity
but the wobbling paunch comes heaving alongside me again
then the old fruit starts making obscene gestures at me
and suddenly I boil with rage I want to punch his face in
stamp on his guts and smash his dentures
then plunging a long knife into that shuddering udder
scatter to the winds his rancid liver and lights
to feed the filthy maw of ocean’s scavengers
Translated by James Kirkup
Page(s) 37-38
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The