O Chatterton

O Chatterton and others in the attic
Linked in one gas bracket
Taking Jeyes’ fluid as narcotic;
Drink from the earth’s teats,
Life neat’s a better poison than in bottle,
A better venom seethes in spittle
Than one could probe out of a serpent’s guts;
Each new sensation emits
A new vinegar;
Be a regular
Fellow with saw at the jugular.
On giddy nights when slap on the moon’s mask
A madman with a brush has slapped a face
I pick a stick of celery from the valley
I find a tripper’s knicker in the gully
And take another nibble at my flask.
What meaning, voices, in the straight-ruled grass,
Meaning in hot sock soil? A little cuss
Can’t read sense in the rain that willynilly
Soaks to the vest old dominies and drunks.
Dissect that statement, voices, on the slabs.
Love’s a decision of 3 nerves
And Up and Down love’s questions ask;
On giddy nights I slap a few drunk curves
Slap on the drunk moon’s mask.
Rape gulp and be marry, he also serves
Who only drinks his profits
And would a-wooing go around the graves.
Celibate I sit and see
Women figures round my cell,
Women figures on the wall
Point their little breasts at me;
I must wait for a woman’s smile
Not in the sun but in the dark;
The two words stallion and sterile
Stand in a question mark.
The smiling woman is a mad story,
Wipe it away, wipe a crumb
From the preacher’s table.
I offer you women, not woman,
A home and a dowry:
3 little lusts shall your dowry be,
And your home in a centaur’s stable.