Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

praise I’ve raised

A cannibal in a hamilcart;

I shope itsall bean great greene fun

Liz luv and you’ve slept your cool

Sunlike a river hooligan

Assort of Rogue Riderhood cum again

In a bally Volga boat-school

My dearest moneybun

‘WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO’

What I’d like to do

To you

Is too painful to be true.

I’d like to

Thrust here

Grind there

Behind there.

Ooooo –

What I’d like to do to you!

‘EIGHT AND TWENTY YEARS’

Eight and twenty years

The Scythians scourged Asia

With insolence and oppression

But King Cyaxares smote them,

Smote them, smote them,

Brought them low.

King Cyaxares – praise him –

Toppled Nineveh’s towers.

King Cyaxares – praise him –

Had the Assyrian by the beard.

Lo, the empire of the Medes

Stretches almost to Babylon.

Praise the son of Cyaxares,

Our noble Astyages,

Who keeps the peace

And maintains our empires.

‘TO BE A KING, TO BE A KING’

To be a king, to be a king

Is a high and mighty thing.

The one who’s wise and not the fool

Shall wear the crown and rule.

And rule.

To be a king, to be a king

Is a high and mighty thing.

The one who’s strong and also clever

Shall wear the crown for ever.

For ever.

To be a king, a king

Is a mighty thing.

He who’s wise and not the fool

Shall rule and rule.

To be a king, a king

Is a mighty thing.

He who’s strong and clever

Shall rule for ever.

‘A DRINK. WHAT IS A DRINK?’

A drink. What is a drink?

A machine for cooling the throat,

Injecting speedy sugar into the pancreas,

Getting high.

Eating’s not a feast.

It’s an existential function.

Administering extreme unction,

The waiter’s not a priest.

A drink. What do they think a drink is? What is a drink?

A machine to wet the dry.

For sugaring the pancreas.

For getting high.

Highballs.

I don’t like it

What? I like it.

I don’t like it.

What? Liking it.

Liking these folks

Who like to be slaves

Liking their cokes

And Gillette shaves

Liking their bosses

And buses and bikes

Like the likes and dislikes.

The people don’t talk

They bully or whine,

They snort or they squeak

I don’t like it.

What? Your liking it.

I don’t like it.

What? Your not

Liking me liking it.

How do you stomach

The stuff that they scoff?

Even its look

Puts me off.

BED

‘Rest’, says my bed.

‘When all is said,

Rest, rest is best.

The day is fled,

All red,

Into the west.

Forget, forget

The men you met,

The book you read,

The bread you ate.

Sleep lies ahead.

Rest your head,

Heavier than

A chest of lead.

I am ready

To hold your heavy head

Steady,

Steady,

Steady.’

‘Heady.’

Ho hez hy hed.

BEAR

‘See – there, there.’

Where?

‘There –

A hairless bear,

Walking about the square.’

But you shouldn’t stare

At a hairless bear.

You wouldn’t care

For folk to stare

If you didn’t have

Your share of hair,

Like that poor bear there,

That hairless bear,

That bare bear,

Bare bear –

‘Black sheep?’

No, that hairless bear

Glaring around

The square.

‘I’M WEARY OF WORKING WITH WORDS THAT YOU WRITE’

I’m weary of working with words that you write

An actor enacting another man’s lines.

But now that I’m seeing her, now it’s tonight,

The things I must say are the things I must say.

It’s she and it’s I,

It’s her and it’s me –

No one but we

Tonight.

No poet need try

To fly in my way

Justify the night

Say sonnets to say.

It’s she and it’s me,

It’s I and it’s her –

And I prefer

It so.

As soon as I see

The flame on her cheek,

Then I will know

Just how to speak

‘HOW DARE I DARE TO DREAM’

How dare I dare to dream

That all I dream is in vain?

And dare I dare believe

That sweet joy

Springs from pain?

How dare I dare to hope

That such a lowly thing as I

Could steal himself a pair silver wings

And fly,

To dare the heavens

Where she in beauty

Dares me –

Unworthy me,

How dare I head the call

That bids me claim the final prize?

I’d stumble and I’d fall – before her eyes.

How dare I dare to dream

That all I dream is not in vain?

And dare I dare believe

That sweetness

Springs from you

How dare I dare to hope

That such a lowly thing as I

Could steal himself a pair of silver wings

And fly.

To dare the heavens

Where she in beauty

Dares men

Unworthy me

How dare I hear the call

That bids me claim the final prize?

I’d stumble and I’d fall – before her eyes

‘HIS BOWELS ARE OF GOLD, HIS VEINS OF SILVER’

His bowels are of gold, his veins of silver.

The blood of his veins is rubies fine-powdered.

His head is a city, strong of wall and turret,

His member is the straightest tree of the forest…

‘I’M SICK OF A KINGDOM WHICH IS A JEWELLED PRISON’

I am sick of a kingdom which is a jewelled prison,

Of the wine of bondage and the roasted meats of

servitude.

Give me the free wind of the morning and the sun

that burns not from malice,

And the brook for wine and the berries and nuts

of the wild wood.

I am sick of kinds and princes, for their words

are an emptiness,

Their favour is water in a furnace, their smiles

are shadows.

A voice within says: the king is but a king,

But you Gyzat, are a man and a free man.

Your nobility outreaches the king’s hand and

outtops his crown.

‘LEX FOR LAW AND ORDER’

Lex for law and order,

Peace within our border,

Factory wheels are turning,

Here’s an end of yearning.

Loyal hearts are burning

With patriotic joy.

Lex is our boy.

‘I WOULDN’T FRIRK URANUS’

I wouldn’t frirk Uranus,

He gives me a pain in the anus.

I wouldn’t frirk with Neptune,

Neptune’s tune is not a hep tune.

So pounce on me, Puma.

You’re no idle rumor, right?

I’m in the humor,

So pounce on me, Puma, tonight.

I don’t want to frirk with Mars.

Mars is covered with stars and scars.

I don’t want to frirk with Venus,

That blind kid Cupid would get between us.

So pounce on me, Puma, etc.

‘HERE ON THE FINAL PYRE’

Here on the final pyre

See that page with its curled ends

Rolling into the fire.

Here’s what the poet sang:

This is the way the world ends:

Not with a whimper. BANG.

‘A BIRD SAT HIGH ON A BANYAN TREE’

A bird sat high on a banyan tree,

Carolling night and carolling day,

And on the heads of the passers-by

And each bemerded passer-by

Cried loud in anger on that bird

Carolling night and carolling day,

Wiping from his eye.

And still that bird upon the tree,

Carolling night and carolling day,

Ignored the plaints of the passers-by.

Let us like birds upon the tree,

Carolling night and carolling day,

Ignore each hairless passer-by,

And say…

‘BEASTS AND MEN ARE MADE THE SAME’

Beasts and men are made the same –

Here a one and there