This is a poem called "Matthew 8 verses 28 and following."
It's a poem referring to that matter of the Gadarene swine,
and the speaker is the head Gadarene, Gadarite,
whatever they called him.
"Rabbi, we Gadarenes are not aesthetics,
we are fond of wealth and possessions.
Love as you call it, we obviate by means of the planned release
of aggressions.
We have deep faith in prosperity.
Soon it is hoped we will reach our full potential.
In the light of our gross product,
the practice of charity is palpably inessential.
It is true that we go insane.
That for no good reason we are possessed by devils,
that we suffer despite the amenities, which obtain
it all but the lowest levels.
We shall not however resign our trust
in the high-heaped table and the full trough.
If you cannot cure us without destroying our swine,
we had rather you shoved off."
I have an annotated edition of Matthew which tells me
that that's the wrong interpretation,
but I rather like it.
This next is a poem called, "A Late Aubade."
As everybody knows, an aubade is an early morning amorous poem.
This is an amorous poem spoken by a man to his wife in bed
about 11:45, "A Late Aubade."
"You could be sitting now in a carrel turning
some liver-spotted page, or rising in an elevator-cage
toward ladies' apparel.
You could be planting a raucous bed of salvia in rubber gloves,
or lunching through a screed of someone's loves
with pitying head, or making some unhappy setter heel,
or listening to a bleak lecture on Schoenberg's
serial technique.
Isn't this better?
Think of all the time you are not wasting,
and would not care to waste.
Such things, thank God, not being to your taste.
Think what a lot of time by a woman's reckoning you've saved,
and so may spend on this.
You who would rather lie in bed and kiss than anything.
It's almost noon you say, if so, time flies
and I need not rehearse the rosebuds theme of centuries
of verse.
If you must go, wait for a while,
then slip downstairs and bring us up some chilled white wine,
and some blue cheese and crackers, and some fine
ruddy-skinned pears."
That's-- a friend of mine said that's a piece of inexorable
middle aged sexuality.
[LAUGHTER]