2
CHICAGO MAY
XIL
Oh, she's not vicious ! All the world delights in
Bores her the business of digesting food
(When she's not eating) fils her days and nights in,
Eked out with sleep and soddenness, a mood
Of greed, of gluttony, that no one nice
‘Would dignify with the fine name of vice.
‘Vice needs imagination all the time.
Tt is because the common pleasures pall
‘That man turns to monstrosity and crime.
But you have need of none of this at all.
‘You like “what's natural.” Right: for you, in sum,
Like Nature's self, abhor a vacuum!
Oh, but there's mind! ‘There's folk that have a brain,
‘That need the food of spirit and of heart.
There's folk that need love, pity, peace; disdain
All that lacks beauty, passion, wit, and art.
Yours is a mind that does not hesitate
To find a word for such—" degenerate.”
Xm
It poisons me to think such thoughts: they mar
‘The crystal of my orgasm of hate.
How can I fling from facets as they are
‘The unwavering light of it, the focussed fate?
If I could only speak my thought, its curse
Would char you, blast you from the Universe.