Bowed like a foetus at the long bar sit,
You common artist whose uncommon ends
Deflower the secret contours of a mind
And all around you pitying find
Like severed veins your earthly friends...
(The sickness of the oyster is the pearl)
Dead bottles all around infect
Stale air the exploding corks bewitch --
O member of this outlawed sect,
Only the intolerable itch,
Skirt-fever, keeps the anthropoid erect.
Husband or wife or child condemn
This chain-gang which we all inherit:
Or those bleak ladders to despair
Miscalled high place and merit.
Dear, if these knotted woods could wake
The dead boy and the buried girl...
(The sickness of the oyster is the pearl)
- Lawrence Durrell
Thanks to Moot's "Poem of the Day" for inspiration.
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