Everything he touched turned rhapsodic,
The teeth, the tongue, the inside of his mouth,
The breath, his lips, were liquid and melodic.
But he wrote a song that was wrong.
Now his lyre’s unstrung. It hangs there,
A skeleton instrument, dry and bare.
“The Revenge of the Tits” was the name of his song
And he sang it with his usual, glorious touch.
The men liked it. The women, not so much.
His theme was an idle dream
That occupies many a head,
Absent-mindedly, and maybe sadly, lying there in bed—
Deeply, many times, thought—but never said.
Why shouldn’t this appeal to the poet?
To speak what is often thought, but never spoken?
He spoke. And this is why his lyre is crushed and broken,
And why they found him, the sheriff’s men,
Cut in the gorge. He will never sing again.
He sang truly.
But his fans became unruly.
I saw them in that dim Thule,
Shady like the route my lover took,
When she and I put down the book.
His theme was—all women are in prison:
Imprisoned by their delicacy and tits,
Either passive, or aggressive and shunned,
And he sang it. And he was torn to bits.
To avoid his death
There was nothing the singer could do.
They ended his rhapsodic breath,
So I breathe softly and delicately around you.
I am the singer in the gorge, with my tiny piece of cloud above,
And I always, always, always, always sing of love.