Fish

So . . . they said,

With their wine-glasses delicately poised,

Mocking at the thing they cannot understand.

So . . . they said again,

Amused and insolent.

The silver on the table glittered,

And the red wine in the glasses

Seemed the blood I had wasted

In a foolish cause.

Game

The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers

Sneered languidly over his quail.

Then my heart flew up and laboured,

And I burst from my own holding

And hurled myself forward.

With straight blows I beat upon him,

Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him.

But my weapon slithered over his polished surface,

And I recoiled upon myself,

Panting.

Drawing-Room

In a dress all softness and half-tones,

Indolent and half-reclined,

She lay upon a couch,

With the firelight reflected in her jewels.

But her eyes had no reflection,

They swam in a grey smoke,

The smoke of smouldering ashes,

The smoke of her cindered heart.

Coffee

They sat in a circle with their coffee-cups.

One dropped in a lump of sugar,

One stirred with a spoon.

I saw them as a circle of ghosts

Sipping blackness out of beautiful china,

And mildly protesting against my coarseness

In being alive.

Talk

They took dead mens souls

And pinned them on their breasts for ornament;

Their cuff-links and tiaras

Were gems dug from a grave;

They were ghouls battening on exhumed thoughts;

And I took a green liqueur from a servant

So that he might come near me

And give me the comfort of a living thing.

Eleven OClock

The front door was hard and heavy,

It shut behind me on the house of ghosts.

I flattened my feet on the pavement

To feel it solid under me;

I ran my hand along the railings

And shook them,

And pressed their pointed bars

Into my palms.

The hurt of it reassured me,

And I did it again and again

Until they were bruised.

When I woke in the night

I laughed to find them aching,

For only living flesh can suffer.

Fish

So . . . they said,

With their wine-glasses delicately poised,

Mocking at the thing they cannot understand.

So . . . they said again,

Amused and insolent.

The silver on the table glittered,

And the red wine in the glasses

Seemed the blood I had wasted

In a foolish cause.

Game

The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers

Sneered languidly over his quail.

Then my heart flew up and laboured,

And I burst from my own holding

And hurled myself forward.

With straight blows I beat upon him,

Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him.

But my weapon slithered over his polished surface,

And I recoiled upon myself,

Panting.

Drawing-Room

In a dress all softness and half-tones,

Indolent and half-reclined,

She lay upon a couch,

With the firelight reflected in her jewels.

But her eyes had no reflection,

They swam in a grey smoke,

The smoke of smouldering ashes,

The smoke of her cindered heart.

Coffee

They sat in a circle with their coffee-cups.

One dropped in a lump of sugar,

One stirred with a spoon.

I saw them as a circle of ghosts

Sipping blackness out of beautiful china,

And mildly protesting against my coarseness

In being alive.

Talk

They took dead mens souls

And pinned them on their breasts for ornament;

Their cuff-links and tiaras

Were gems dug from a grave;

They were ghouls battening on exhumed thoughts;

And I took a green liqueur from a servant

So that he might come near me

And give me the comfort of a living thing.

Eleven OClock

The front door was hard and heavy,

It shut behind me on the house of ghosts.

I flattened my feet on the pavement

To feel it solid under me;

I ran my hand along the railings

And shook them,

And pressed their pointed bars

Into my palms.

The hurt of it reassured me,

And I did it again and again

Until they were bruised.

When I woke in the night

I laughed to find them aching,

For only living flesh can suffer.