If the wicked didn’t get such kicks
Out of doing evil, ladies,
These cherries would taste even sweeter,
Plato and Emerson would suffice,
And the sight of Miss Angela
Soaping her breasts in the cold lake
Would be all we need of paradise.
Women understand that. The blue sky,
The sweet breeze that came to make us amorous
That's just the world's oldest bluff.
While we were rolling in the hay,
They were scheming how to squeeze us,
Between their long dirty fingernails, like bedbugs.
Besides, one is always speaking from
Underneath a pile of fresh corpses.
Is that so? Yes, my dream girls.
Even while imbibing too many Bloody Marys
Before lunch, even while doddering
Like an old bumblebee from flower to flower
Making everybody howl with laughter...
***
From "A Wedding In Hell" by Charles Simic, a poet on an ever shorter list of poets that make poet laureate, Billy Collins envious. I learned of Collins' admiration for Simic when I heard him in August giving a joint presentation with Paul Simon.
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/paul-simon-and-poet-laureate-billy.html
