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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Wagner

Rupert Brooke

Creeps in half wanton, half asleep,
 One with a fat wide hairless face.
He likes love-music that is cheap;
 Likes women in a crowded place;
  And wants to hear the noise they’re making.

His heavy eyelids droop half-over,
 Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.
He listens, thinks himself the lover,
 Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;
  He likes to feel his heart’s a-breaking.

The music swells.  His gross legs quiver.
 His little lips are bright with slime.
The music swells.  The women shiver.
 And all the while, in perfect time,
  His pendulous stomach hangs a-shaking.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Rupert Brooke’s Collected Poems | 1915
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