01 August 2005

Epidermal Macabre

Indelicate is he who loathes
The aspect of his fleshy clothes, --
The flying fabric stitched on bone,
The vesture of the skeleton,
The garment neither fur nor hair,
The cloak of evil and despair,
The veil long violated by
Caresses of the hand and eye.
Yet such is my unseemliness:
I hate my epidermal dress,
The savage blood's obscenity,
The rags of my anatomy,
And willingly would I dispense
With false accouterments of sense,
To sleep immodestly, a most
Incarnadine and carnal ghost.

~ Theodore Roethke

2 comments:

Zack said...

Thought you needed some cross-over comments from members of the other blog. :) I'll be sure to check in on this one occasionally to see all the lovely literate posts you no longer share with the Canterburians. Cheers!

amcorrea said...

Thanks! Yes, those were shouted down pretty quickly, weren't they? But I really did need to construct my own little corner of cyberspace for this purpose anyway.

This Roethke poem is my new favorite. Like Lewis said, "The fact that we have bodies is the oldest joke there is."