Conjure up a priest to spit on, sit him
upon a sordid couch, and let him
falter between between the cushions,
waving his arms to be helped out.
His spectacles ski the flesh that shields
his nose, and rattle,
trembling atop the fleshly bulb
that terminates his nose.
Where could he be? I’ll say—
a drinking-palace that’s gone unnamed,
gained through a wide and irregular hole
chopped into the brick of an alley’s wall—
at the jug-bottom of a stopped-up alley.
Wherein, ill-wishers ring ‘round the couch—
leers and heavy shades—who summon all sum
of their shadowy gall, and rack their oesophagi
to drench the half-thought faltering priest,
conjured to flounder in seedy couch.
-2004
