Finnegans Wake Book 1 Chapter 7

 SHEM is as short for Shemus as Jem is joky for Jacob. (p169)

A few tough-necks are still get-at-able 

who pretend that aboriginally 

he was of respectable stemming 

(he was an outlex 

between the lines of Ragonar Blaubarb ant Horrild Hairwire 

and an inlaw to Capt. the Hon. and Rev. Mr Bbyrdwood de Trop Blogg 

was among his most distant connections) 

but every honest to goodness man in the land of the space of today knows 

that his back life will not stand being written about in black and white. 

Putting truth and untruth together a shot may be made 

at what this hybrid actually was like to look at.

——————————————————————-

Shem’s bodily getup, it seems, included 

an adze of a skull, 

an eight of a larkseye, 

the whoel of a nose, 

one numb arm up a sleeve, 

fortytwo hairs off his uncrown, 

eighteen to his mock lip, 

a trio of barbels from his mega-geg chin 

(sowman’s son), 

the wrong shoulder higher than the right, 

all ears, 

an artificial tongue with a natural curl, 

not a foot to stand on, 

a handful of thumbs, 

a blind stomach, 

a deaf heart, 

a loose liver, 

two fifths of two buttocks, 

one gleetsteen avoir-du-poider for him, 

a manroot of all evil, 

a salmon-kelt’s thinskin, 

eels-blood in his cold toes, 

a bladder tristended, 

so much so that young Master Shemmy on his very first debouch 

at the very dawn of proto-history 

seeing himself such and such, 

when playing with thistle-words in their garden nursery, 

Grief-o-trofio, 

at Phig Streat III Shuvlin, Old Hoeland, 

(would we go back there now for sounds, pillings and (p170) sense? 

would we now for annas and annas? 

would we for full-score eight and a liretta? 

for twelve blocks one bob? 

for four testers one groat? 

not for a dinar! 

not for jo!) 

dictited to of all his little brothron and swees-tureens 

the first riddle of the universe: 

asking, when is a man not a man?: 

telling them take their time, yung-fries, 

and wait till the tide stops 

(for from the first his day was a fortnight) 

and offering the prize of a bitter-sweet crab, 

a little present from the past, 

for their copper age was yet unminted, 

to the winner. 

One said when the heavens are quakers, 

a second said when Bohemeand lips, 

a third said when he, 

no, when hold hard a jiffy, 

when he is a gnawstick and detarmined to, 

the next one said when the angel of death kicks the bucket of life, 

still another said when the wine’s at witsends, 

and still another when lovely wooman stoops to conk him, 

one of the littliest said 

me, me, Sem, when pappa papared the harbour, 

one of the wittiest said, 

when he yeat ye abblo-kooken and he zmear hezelf zo zhooken, 

still one said when you are old I’m grey fall full wi sleep, 

and still another when wee deader walkner, 

and another when he is just only after having being semi-sized, 

another when yea, he hath no mananas, 

and one when dose pigs they begin now that they will flies up intil the looft. 

All were wrong, 

so Shem himself, 

the doctator, 

took the cake, 

the correct solution being

—all give it up?

—; when he is a

—yours till the rending of the rocks,

— Sham.

———————————————————————-

Shem was a sham and a low sham 

and his lowness creeped out first via foodstuffs. 

So low was he that he preferred Gibsen’s teatime salmon tinned, 

as inexpensive as pleasing, 

to the plumpest roe-heavy lax 

or the friskiest parr or smolt troutlet that ever was gaffed 

between Leixlip and Island Bridge 

and many was the time he repeated in his botulism 

that no jungle-grown pineapple ever smacked 

like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias’ cans, 

Findlater and Gladstone’s, 

Corner House, 

Englend. 

None of your inch-thick blue-blooded Balaclava fried-at-belief-stakes 

or juice-jelly legs of the Grex’s molten mutton 

or greasily-gristly grunters’ goupons 

or slice upon slab of luscious goose-bosom 

with lump after load of plum-pudding stuffing 

all aswim in a (p171) swamp of bog-oak-gravy 

for that greek-enhearted yude! 

Rosbif of Old Zealand! he could not attouch it. 

See what happens when your somato-phage merman 

takes his fancy to our virgi-tarian swan? 

He even ran away with hunself and became a far-soonerite, 

saying he would far sooner muddle through the hash of lentils in Europe 

than meddle with Irrland’s split little pea. 

Once when among those rebels 

in a state of hopelessly helpless intoxication 

the piscivore strove to lift a czit-round peel to either nostril, 

hiccupping, 

apparently impromptued by the hibat he had with his glottal stop, 

that he kuk-ka-kould flowrish for ever by the smell, 

as the czitr, 

as the kcedron, 

like a scedar, 

of the founts, 

on mountains, 

with limon on, 

of Lebanon. 

O! the lowness of him was beneath all up to that sunk to! 

No liked-bylike firewater 

or first-served first-shot 

or gullet-burn gin 

or honest brew-barrett beer either. 

O dear no! 

Instead the tragic jester sobbed himself whey-whingingly sick of life 

on some sort of a rhu-barbarous 

maundarin yella-green funkle-blue windi-gut dio-dying apple-jack 

squeezed from sour grape-fruice 

and, to hear him twixt his sedimental cupslips 

when he had gulfed down mmm-much too mmm-many gourds of it 

retching off to almost as low with-swillers, 

who always knew not-with-standing when they had had enough 

and were rightly indignant at the wretch’s hospitality 

when they found to their horror they could not carry another drop, 

it came straight from the noble white fat, 

jo, openwide sat, 

jo, jo, her why hide that, 

jo jo jo, the winevat, 

of the most serene magyansty az arch-diochesse, 

if she is a duck, she’s a douches, 

and when she has a feher-bour snot her fault, now is it? 

arts-touch-ups, 

funny you’re grinning at, 

fancy you’re in her yet, 

Fanny Urinia.

———————————————————————-

Aint that swell, hey? 

Peamengro! 

Talk about lowness! 

Any dog’s quantity of it visibly oozed out thickly 

from this dirty little blacking beetle 

for the very fourth snap the Tulloch-Turnbull girl 

with her cold-blood kodak 

shotted the as yet unremuneranded national apostate, 

who was cowardly gun and camera shy, 

taking what he fondly thought was a short cut 

to Caer Fere, Soak Amerigas, 

vias the shipsteam Pridewin, 

after having buried a hatchet not so long before, 

by the wrong goods exeunt, 

nummer (p172) desh to tren, 

into Pata-tapa-paveri’s, 

fruiterers and musical florists, 

with his Ciaho, chavi! 

Sat shin, shillipen? 

she knew the vice out of bridewell was a bad fast man 

by his walk on the spot.

—————————————————-

[Johns is a different butcher’s. 

Next place you are up town pay him a visit. 

Or better still, come tobuy. 

You will enjoy cattlemen’s spring meat. 

Johns is now quite divorced from baking. 

Fattens, kills, flays, hangs, draws, quarters and pieces. 

Feel his lambs! 

Ex! Feel how sheap! 

Exex! His liver too is great value, a spatiality! 

Exexex! COMMUNICATED.]

——————————————————-

Around that time, moravar, one generally, 

for luvvomony hoped 

or at any rate suspected among morticians 

that he would early tum out badly, 

develop hereditary pulmonary T.B., 

and do for himself one dandy time, 

nay, of a pelting night blanketed creditors, 

hearing a coarse song and splash off Eden Quay 

sighed and rolled over, 

sure all was up, 

but, though he fell heavily and locally into debit, 

not even then could such an antinomian be true to type. 

He would not put fire to his cerebrum; 

he would not throw himself in Liffey; 

he would not explaud himself with pneumantics; 

he refused to saffro-cake himself with a sod. 

With the foreign devil’s leave the fraid bom fraud diddled even death. 

Anzi, cabled 

(but shaking the worth out of his maulth: 

Guarda-costa leporello? 

Szasas Kraicz!) 

from his Near-a-poblican asylum to his jonathan for a brother: 

Here tokay, gone tomory, we’re spluched, do something, Fireless. 

And had answer: Inconvenient, David.

———————————————————————-

You see, chaps, it will trickle out, 

freaksily of course, 

but the tom and the shorty of it is: 

he was in his bardic memory low. 

All the time he kept on treasuring with condign satisfaction 

each and every crumb of trek-talk, 

covetous of his neighbour’s word, 

and if ever, 

during a Munda conversazione 

commoted in the nation’s interest, 

delicate tippits were thrown out to him 

touching his evil courses 

by some wellwishers, 

vainly pleading by scriptural arguments 

with the opprobrious papist 

about trying to brace up for the kidos of the thing, 

Scally wag, 

and be a men instead of a dem scrounger, 

dish it all, 

such as: 

Pray, what is (p173) the meaning, sousy, of that continental expression, 

if you ever came acrux it, 

we think it is a word transpiciously like canaille?: 

or: Did you anywhere, kennel, 

on your gullible’s travels 

or during your rural troubadouring, 

happen to stumble upon a certain gay young nobleman 

whimpering to the name of Low Swine 

who always addresses women out of the one comer of his mouth, 

lives on loans 

and is furtive-free yours of age? 

without one sigh of haste like the supreme prig he was, 

and not a bit sorry, 

he would pull a vacant landlubber’s face, 

root with earwaker’s pensile 

in the outer of his lauscher 

and then, lisping, the prattle-pate parnella, 

to kill time, and swatting his dead-best to think 

what under the canopies of Jansens Chrest 

would any decent son of an Albio-genselman 

who had bin to an university think, 

let a lent hit a hint 

and begin to tell all the intelligentsia 

admitted to that tamil-easy samta-laisy con-clamazzione 

(since, still and before physicians, 

lawyers merchant, 

belfry pollititians, 

agricolous manufraudurers, 

sacrestanes of the Pure River Society, 

philanthropicks lodging on as many boards round the panesthetic 

at the same time as possible) 

the whole lifelong swrine story of his entire low cornaille existence, 

abusing his deceased ancestors 

wherever the sods were 

and one moment tara-booming great blunderguns (poh!) 

about his far-famed fine Poppamore, 

Mr Humhum, 

whom history, climate and entertainment 

made the first of his sept 

and always up to debt, 

though Eavens ears ow many fines he faces, 

and another moment vis-an-vrerssas, 

cruaching three jeers (pah!) 

for his rotten little ghost of a Peppybeg, 

Mr Himmy-shimmy, 

a blighty, a reeky, a lighty, a scrapy, a babbly, a ninny, 

dirty seventh among thieves and always bottom sawyer, 

till nowan knowed how howmely howme could be, 

giving unsolicited testimony on behalf of the absent, 

as glib as eaves-water to those present 

(who meanwhile, 

with increasing lack of interest in his semantics, 

allowed various subconscious smickers 

to drivel slowly across their fichers), 

unconsciously explaining, 

for inkstands, 

with a meticulosity bordering on the insane, 

the various meanings 

of all the different foreign parts of speech he misused 

and cuttle-fishing every lie unshrinkable 

about all the (p174) other people in the story, 

leaving out, of course, 

fore-consciously, 

the simple worf and plague and poison they had cornered him about 

until there was not a snoozer among them 

but was utterly undeceived 

in the heel of the reel 

by the recital of the rigmarole.

He went without saying 

that the cull disliked anything 

anyway approaching a plain straightforward standup or knock-down row 

and, as often as he was called in to umpire any octagonal argument 

among slang-whangers, 

the accomplished washout always used to 

rub shoulders with the last speaker 

and clasp shakers 

(the handtouch which is speech without words) 

and agree to every word as soon as half uttered, 

command me!, 

your servant, good, 

I revere you, how, my seer? 

be drinking that! 

quite truth, gratias, 

I’m yoush, see wha’m hearing?, 

also goods, please it, me sure?, 

be filling this!, 

quiso, you said it, 

apasafello, 

muchas grassyass, 

is there firing-on-me?, 

is their girlic-on-you?, 

to your good self, 

your sulphur, 

and then at once focuss his whole unbalanced attention 

upon the next octagonist 

who managed to catch a listener’s eye, 

asking and imploring him out of his piteous one-winker, 

(hemoptysia diadumenos) 

whether there was anything in the world he could do to please him 

and to overflow his tumble-tantaliser for him yet once more.

———————————————————————-

One hail-cannon night 

(for his departure was attended by a heavy downpour) 

as very recently as some thousand rains ago 

he was therefore treated with what closely resembled parsonal violence, 

being soggert all unsuspectingly 

through the deserted village of Tumblin-on-the-Leafy 

from Mr Vanhomrigh’s house 

at 81 bis Mabbot’s Mall 

as far as Green Patch 

beyond the brickfields of Salmon Pool 

by rival teams of slow-spiers counter quick-limers 

who finally, 

as rahilly they had been deteened out rawther laetich, 

thought, busnis hits busnis, 

they had better be streaking for home after their Auborne-to-Auborne, 

with thanks for the pleasant evening, 

one and all disgustedly, 

instead of ruggering him back, 

and awake, reconciled 

(though they were as jealous as could be cullions 

about all the truffles they had brought on him) 

to a friendship, 

fast and furious, 

which merely arose out of the noxious pervert’s perfect lowness. 

Again there was a hope that people, (p175) 

looking on him with the contemp of the contempibles, 

after first gaving him a roll in the dirt, 

might pity and forgive him, 

if properly deloused, 

but the pleb was born a Quicklow 

and sank alowing till he stank out of sight.

All Saints beat Belial! 

Mickil Goals to Nichil! 

Not-possible! 

Already?

In Nowhere has yet the Whole World taken part of himself for his Wife;
By Nowhere have Poor-parents been sentenced to Worms, Blood and Thunder for Life
Not yet has the Emp from Corpsica forced the Arth out of Engleterre;
Not yet have the Sachsen and Judder on the Mound of a Word made Warre;
Not yet Witchy-withcy of Wench struck Fire of his Heath from on Hoath;
Not yet his Arco-baleine forespoken Peace-peace upon Oath;
Cleft-foot from Hempal must tumpel, Blame-fool Gardener’s bound to fall;
Broken Eggs will poursuive bitten Apples for where theirs is Will there’s his Wall;
But the Mount-still frowns on the Mill-stream while their Madsons leap his Bier
And her Rill-strill liffs to His Murkesty all her daft Daughters laff in her Ear.
Till the four Shores of deff Tory Island let the douze dumm Eirewhiggs raille!
Hirp! Hirp! for their Missed Understandings! 

chirps the Ballat of Perce-Oreille.

O fortunous casualitas! 

Lefty takes the cherubcake 

while Rights cloves his hoof 

Darkies never done tug that coon out 

to play non-excretory, 

anti-sexuous, 

misoxenetic, 

gaasy pure, 

flesh and blood games, 

written and composed and sung and danced by Niscemus Nemon, 

same as piccaninnies play all day, 

those old (none of your honeys and rubbers!) games for fun and element 

we used to play with Dina and old Joe 

kicking her behind and before 

and the yellow girl kicking him behind old Joe, (p176)

games like 

Thom Thom the Thonderman, 

Put the Wind up the Peeler, 

Hat in the Ring, 

Prisson your Pritchards and Play Withers Team, 

Mikel on the Luckypig, 

Nickel in the Slot, 

Sheila Harnett and her Cow, 

Adam and Ell, 

Humble Bumble, 

Moggie’s on the Wall, 

Twos and Threes, 

American Jump, 

Fox Come out of your Den, 

Broken Bottles, 

Writing a Letter to Punch, 

Tiptop is a Sweetstore, 

Henressy Crump Expolled, 

Postman’s Knock, 

Are We Fairlys Represented?, 

Solomon Silent reading, 

Appletree Bearstone, 

I know a Washerwoman, 

Hospitals, 

As I was Walking, 

There is Oneyone’s House in Dream-colo-hour, 

Battle of Waterloo, 

Colours, 

Eggs in the Bush, 

Habber-dash-erisher, 

Telling your Dreams, 

What’s the Time, 

Nap, 

Ducking Mammy, 

Last Man Standing, 

Heali Baboon and the Forky Theagues, 

Fickleyes and Futilears, 

Hand-married but once in my Life and I’ll never commit such a Sin agin, 

Zip Cooney Candy, 

Turkey in the Straw, 

This is the Way we sow the Seed of a long and lusty Morning, 

Hops of Fun at Miliken’s Make, 

I seen the Toothbrush with Pat Farrel, 

Here’s the Fat to graze the Priest’s Boots, 

When his Steam was like a Raimbrandt round Mac Garvey.

——————————————————

Now it is notoriously known how 

on that surprisingly bludgeony Unity Sunday 

when the grand germo-gall allstar bout was harrily the rage 

between our weltingtoms extraordinary and our petty-thicks 

the marshal-aisy and Irish eyes of welcome 

were smiling daggers down their backs, 

when the roth, vice and blause 

met the noyr blank and rogues 

and the grim white and cold bet the black fighting tans, 

categorically unimperatived by the maxims, 

a rank funk getting the better of him, 

the scut in a bad fit of pyjamas 

fled like a leveret for his bare lives, 

to Talviland, ahone ahaza, 

pursued by the scented curses of all the village belles 

and, without having struck one blow, 

(pig stole on him was lust he lagging it was becaused dust he shook) 

kusky-korked himself up tight in his ink-battle house, 

badly the worse for boose-gas, 

there to stay in afar for the life, 

where, as there was not a moment to be lost, 

after he had boxed around with his fortepiano 

till he was whole bach bamp him and bump him blues, 

he collapsed carefully under a bedtick from Schwitzer’s, 

his face enveloped into a dead warrior’s telemac, 

with a lullo-baw’s somnbomnet and a whot-water-wottle (p177) at his feet 

to stoke his energy of waiting, 

moaning feebly, 

in monk-marian mono-theme, 

but tarned long and then a nation louder, 

while engaged in swallowing from a large ampullar, 

that his pawdry’s purgatory was more than a nigger bloke could bear, 

hemi-paralysed by the tong warfare and all the shemozzle, 

(Daily Maily, fullup Lace! Holy Maly, Mothelup Joss!) 

his cheeks and trousers changing colour 

every time a gat croaked.

—————————————————————

How is that for low, laities and gentlenuns? 

Why, dog of the Crostiguns, 

whole continents rang with this Kairo-korran lowness! 

Sheols of houris in chems upon divans, 

(revolted stellas vespertine ves-among them) 

at a bare (O!) mention of the scaly rybald exclaimed: 

Poisse!

But would anyone, short of a madhouse, believe it? 

Neither of those clean little cherubum, 

Nero or Nobooki-sonester himself, 

ever nursed such a spoiled opinion 

of his monstrous marvellosity 

as did this mental and moral defective 

(here perhaps at the vanessance of his lownest) 

who was known to grognt rather than gunnard upon one occasion, 

while drinking heavily of spirits 

to that interlocutor 

a latere and private privy-suckatary he used to pal around with, 

in the kavehazs, 

one Davy Browne-Nowlan, 

his heaven-laid twin, 

(this hambone dog-poet pseudoed himself 

under the hang-name he gave himself of Bethgelert) 

in the porchway of a gipsy’s bar 

(Shem always blaspheming, 

so holy writ, 

Billy, he would try, 

old Belly, and pay this one manjack congregant of his four soups 

every lass of nex-mouth, 

Bolly, so sure as thair’s a tail on a commet, 

as a taste for storik’s forty-tooth, 

that is to stay, 

to listen out, ony twenny minnies moe, 

Bully, his Ballade Imaginaire 

which was to be dubbed Wine, Woman and Waterclocks, 

or How a Guy Finks and Fawkes When He Is Going Batty, 

by Maistre Sheames de la Plume, 

some most dreadful stuff in a murderous mirror-hand) 

that he was avoopf (parn me!) 

aware of no other shagg-spick, 

other Shak-his-beard, 

either prexactly unlike his polar and-this-is-his 

or procisely the seem as woops (parn!) 

as what he fancied or guessed the sames as he was himself 

and that, greet scoot, duckings and thuggery, 

though he was foxed fux to fux like a bunnyboy rodger 

with all the teashop (p178) lionses of Lumdrum 

hivan-hoesed up gagainst him, 

being a lapsis linquo with a ruvidubb short-ar-tempa, 

bad cad dad fad sad mad nad vanhaty bear, 

the consci-quenchers of casuality prepestered cruss-words 

in postposition, scruff, scruffer, scruffer-umurrai-most and-all-that-sort-of-thing, 

if reams stood to reason 

and his lanka-livline lasted 

he would wipe alley english spooker, 

multa-phoniak-sically spuking, 

off the face of the erse.

—————————————————

After the thorough fright he got that bloody, 

Swithun’s day, 

though every doorpost in muchtried Lucalizod 

was smeared with generous erstborn gore 

and every free for all cobbleway slippery 

with the bloods of heroes, 

crying to Welkins for others, 

and noahs and cul verts agush with tears of joy, 

our low waster never had the common baa-lamb’s pluck 

to stir out and about the compound 

while everyone else of the torchlit throng, 

slashers and sliced alike, 

mobbu on massa, 

waaded and baaded around, 

yamp-yam pamp-yam, 

chanting the Gillooly chorus, 

from the Monster Book of Paltry-attic Puetrie, 

O pura e pia bella! 

in junk et sampam or in secular sink-alarum, 

heads up, 

on his bonafide avocation 

(the little folk creeping on all fours to their natural school treat 

but childishly gleeful 

when a stray whizzer sang out intermediately) 

and happy belongers to the fairer sex 

on their usual quest for higher things, 

but vying with Lady Smythe to avenge MacJobber, 

went stone-stepping with their bickerr-staffs 

on educated feet, plinkity plonk, 

across the seven-span ponte dei colori 

set up over the slop after the war-to-end war 

by Messrs a charitable government 

for the only once (dia dose Finnados!) 

he did take a tompip peep-estrella 

throug a three-draw eighteen hawks-power durdicky telescope, 

luminous to larbourd only like the lamps in Nassau-strass, 

out of his westernmost keyhole, 

spitting at the impenetrablum wetter, 

(and it was porco-ghastly that outumn) 

with an eachway hope in his shivering soul, 

as he prayed to the cloud Incertitude, 

of finding out for himself, 

on akkount of all the kules in Krouka-parka 

or oving to all the kods-eoggs in Kala-tavala, 

whether true conciliation was forging ahead or falling back 

after the celestious intemperance 

and, for Duvvel-sache, 

why, with his see me see and his my see a corves 

and his froker-fosker-fuskar (p179) layen loves in meeing-seeing, 

he got the charm of his optical life 

when he found himself (hic sunt lennones!) 

at point-blank range 

blinking down the barrel of an irregular revolver 

of the bulldog with a purpose pattern, 

handled by an unknown quarreler who, 

supposedly, had been told off to shade and shoot shy Shem 

should the shit show his shiny shnout out awhile 

to look facts in their face 

before being hosed and creased (uprip and jack him!) 

by six or a dozen of the gay-boys.

———————————————————-

What, para Saom Plaom, 

in the names of Deucalion and Pyrrha, 

and the incensed privy 

and the licensed pantry gods 

and Stator and Victor and Kutt and Runn 

and the whole mesa redonda of Lorencao Otulass in convocacaon, 

was this disinterestingly low human type, 

this Calumnious Column of Cloaxity, 

this Bengalese Beacon of Biloxity, 

this Annamite Aper of Atroxity, 

really at, 

it will be precise to quarify, 

for he seems in a badbad case?

————————————————-

The answer, 

to do all the diddies in one dedal, 

would sound: 

from pulling himself on his most flavoured canal 

the huge chest-house of his elders 

(the Popapreta, and some navico, navvies!) 

he had flickered up and flinnered down 

into a drug and drunkery addict, 

growing megalomane of a loose past. 

This explains the litany of septuncial letter-trumpets honorific, 

high-pitched, erudite, neoclassical, 

which he so loved as patricianly to manuscribe after his name. 

It would have diverted, if ever seen, 

the shuddersome spectacle of this semi-demented zany 

amid the inspissated grime of his glaucous den 

making believe to read his usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles, 

édition de ténèbres, 

(even yet sighs the Most Different, Dr. Poin-de-jenk, 

authorised bowdler and censor, 

it can’t be repeated!) 

turning over three sheets at a wind, 

telling himself delightedly, 

no espellor mor so, 

that every splurge on the vellum he blundered over 

was an aisling vision more gorgeous than the one before 

t.i.t.s., a rose-schelle cottage by the sea for nothing for ever, 

a ladies tryon hosiery raffle at liberty, 

a sewerful of guinea-gold wine with branco-monge-paden-opie 

and sick-cylinder oysters worth a billion a bite, 

an entire opera-house 

(there was to be stamping room only in the prompter’s box 

and (p180) ever-the-more his queque kept swelling) 

of enthusiastic noblewomen 

flinging every coronet-crimsoned stitch they had off at his probscenium, 

one after the others, 

inama-goaded into aju-stilloosing themselves, 

in their gaiety pantheomime, 

when, egad, sir, acordant to all acountstrick, 

he squealed the topsquall im Deal Lil Shem-lockup Yellin 

(geewhiz, jew ear that far! soap ewer! loutgout of sabaous! juice like a boyd!) 

for fully five minutes 

infinitely better than Baraton Mc Gluckin 

with a scrumptious cocked hat 

and three green, cheese and tangerine trinity plumes 

on the right handle side of his amarellous head, 

a coat macfarlane (the kerssest cut, you understand?) 

a sponiard’s digger at his ribs, 

(Alfaiate punxit) 

an azulblu blowsheet for his blouse-bosom blossom 

and a dean’s crozier that he won 

from Cardinal Lindundarri and Cardinal Carchingarri 

and Cardinal Loriotuli and Cardinal Occidentaccia 

(ah ho!) in the dearby darby doubled 

for falling first over the hurdles, madam, 

in the odder hand, a.a.t.s.o.t., 

but what with the murky light, 

the botchy print, 

the tattered cover, 

the jig-jagged page, 

the fumbling fingers, 

the fox-trotting fleas, 

the lie-abed lice, 

the scum on his tongue, 

the drop in his eye, 

the lump in his throat, 

the drink in his pottle, 

the itch in his palm, 

the wail of his wind, 

the grief from his breath, 

the fog of his mindfag, 

the buzz in his braintree, 

the tic of his conscience, 

the height up his rage, 

the gush down his fundament, 

the fire in his gorge, 

the tickle of his tail, 

the bane in his bullugs, 

the squince in his suil, 

the rot in his eater, 

the ycho in his earer, 

the totters of his toes, 

the tetters on his tumty-tum, 

the rats in his garret, 

the bats in his belfry, 

the budgerigars and bum-bosolom beau-birds, 

the hullabaloo and the dust in his ears 

since it took him a month to steal a march 

he was hardset to mumorise more than a word a week. 

Hake’s haulin! 

Hook’s fisk! 

Can you beat it? 

Whawe! I say, can you bait it? 

Was there ever heard of such lowdown blackguardism? 

Positively it woolies one to think over it.

—————————————————————-

Yet the bumper-sprinkler used to boast aloud alone to himself 

with a haccent on it when Mynfadher was a boer constructor 

and Hoy was a lexical student, 

parole, and corrected with the blackboard (p181)

(trying to copy the stage Englesemen 

he broughts their house down on, 

shouting: Bravure, surr Chorles! 

Letter purfect! 

Culossal, Loose Wallor! 

Spache!) 

how he had been toed out of all the schicker families of the klondykers 

from Piou-piou-reich, Swabs-pays, the land of Nod, 

Shruggers’ Country, Pension Danubier-home and Barbaropolis, 

who had settled and stratified in the capital city 

after its hebdomodary metro-poli-archial-isation 

as sun-blistered, moon-plastered, 

gory, wheedling, joviale, 

litcherous and full, 

ordered off the gorgeous premises 

in most cases 

on account of his smell 

which all cook-maids eminently objected to 

as ressembling the bombi-nubble puzzo that welled out of the pozzo. 

Instead of chuthoring those model households plain wholesome pothooks 

(a thing he never possessed of his Nigerian own) 

what do you think Vulgariano did 

but study with stolen fruit 

how cutely to copy all their various styles of signature 

so as one day to utter an epical forged cheque 

on the public for his own private profit 

until, as just related, 

the Dustbin’s United Scullery-maid’s and Househelp’s Sorority, 

better known as Sluttery’s Mowlted Futt, 

turned him down and assisted nature 

by unitedly shoeing the source of annoyance out of the place altogether 

and taytotally on the heat of the moment, 

holding one another’s gonk 

(for no-one, hound or scrub-lady, 

not even the Turk, 

ungreekable in purscent of the armenable, 

dared whiff the polecat at close range) 

and making some pointo-pointing remarks 

as they done so at the perfects of the Sniffey, 

your honour, 

aboon the lyow why a stunk, 

mister.

————————————————————————

[Jymes wishes to hear from wearers of abandoned female costumes, 

gratefully received, wadmel jumper, 

rather full pair of culottes and onther-garmenteries, 

to start city life together. 

His jymes is out of job, would sit and write. 

He has lately commited one of the then commandments 

but she will now assist. 

Superior built, domestic, regular layer. 

Also got the boot. 

He appreciates it. 

Copies. 

ABORTISEMENT.]

—————————————————————

One cannot even begin to post figure out a statuesquo ante 

as to how slow in reality the excommunicated Drumcondriac, 

nate Hamis, really was. 

Who can say how many pseudo-stylic (p182) shamiana, 

how few or how many of the most venerated public impostures, 

how very many piously forged palimpsests 

slipped in the first place 

by this morbid process 

from his pelagiarist pen?

————————————————-

Be that as it may, 

but for that light phantastic of his gnose’s glow 

as it slid lucifericiously 

within an inch of its page 

(he would touch at its from time to other, 

the red eye of his fear in saddishness, 

to ensign the colours by the beerlitz 

in his mathness and his educandees 

to out-hue to themselves 

in the cries of girl-glee: 

gember! inkware! chon-chambre! cinsero! zinnzabar! tincture and gin!) 

Nibs never would have quilled a seriph to sheep-skin. 

By that rosy lampoon’s effluvious burning 

and with help of the simul-chronic flush in his pann 

(a ghinee a ghirk he ghets there!) 

he scrabbled and scratched and scriobbled 

and skrevened nameless shamelessness 

about everybody ever he met, 

even sharing a precipitation 

under the idlish tarriers’ umbrella of a shower-proof wall, 

while all over up and down the four margins of this rancid Shem stuff 

the evil-smeller (who was devoted to Uld-fadar Sardanapalus) 

used to stipple endlessly inartistic portraits of himself 

in the act of reciting old Nichiabelli’s mono-look inter-ye-rear 

Hanno, o Nonanno, 

acce’l brubblemm’as, ser Autore, q.e.d., 

a heart-breakingly handsome young paolo 

with love lyrics for the goyls in his eyols, 

a plaintiff’s tanner vuice, 

a jucal inkome of one hundred and thirty-two dranchmas per yard 

from Broken Hill stranded estate, 

Came-breech mannings, 

cutting a great dash 

in a brandnew two guinea dress suit 

and a burled hogsford hired for a Fursday evenin merry pawty, 

anna loavely long pair of inky Italian moostarshes 

glistering with boric vaseline and frangipani. 

Puh! How unwhisperably so!

——————————————————————-

The house O’Shea or O’Shame, 

Quivapieno, 

known as the Haunted Inkbottle, 

no number Brimstone Walk, 

Asia in Ireland, 

as it was infested with the raps, 

with his penname SHUT sepia-scraped on the door-plate 

and a blind of black sail-cloth over its wan phwinshogue, 

in which the soul-contracted son of the secret cell groped through life 

at the expense of the taxpayers, 

dejected into day and night 

with jesuit bark and bitter bite, 

calico-hydrants (p183) of zolfor and scoppia-lamina 

by full and forty Queasi-sanos, 

every day in everyone’s way 

more exceeding in violent abuse of self and others, 

was the worst, it is hoped, 

even in our western playboyish world for pure mouse-farm filth. 

You brag of your brass castle or your tyled house in bally-fermont? 

Niggs, niggs and niggs again. 

For this was a stinksome inken-stink, 

quite puzzonal to the wrottel. 

Smatter-a-fact, Angles aft-anon browsing there 

thought not Edam reeked more rare. 

My wud! 

The warped flooring of the lair and sound-conducting walls thereof, 

to say nothing of the uprights and imposts, 

were persianly literatured with burst love-letters, 

telltale stories, sticky-back snaps, doubtful eggshells, 

bouchers, flints, borers, puffers, amygdaloid almonds, 

rindless raisins, alphy-betty-formed verbage, 

vivlical viasses, ompiter dictas, visus umbique, 

ahems and ahahs, imeffible tries at speech unasyllabled, 

you owe mes, eyold-hyms, flue-foul smut, fallen lucifers, 

vestas which had served, showered ornaments, 

borrowed brogues, reversibles jackets, blackeye lenses, 

family jars, falsehair shirts, Godforsaken scapulars, 

never-worn breeches, cutthroat ties, counterfeit franks, 

best intentions, curried notes, upset latten tintacks, 

unused mill and stumpling stones, twisted quills, painful digests, 

magnifying wine-glasses, solid objects cast at goblins, 

once current puns, quashed quotatoes, 

messes of mottage, unquestionable issue papers, 

seedy ejaculations, limerick damns, crocodile tears, 

spilt ink, blasphematory spits, stale shestnuts, 

schoolgirl’s, young ladies, milkmaids’, washerwomen’s, 

shopkeepers’ wives, merry widows’, ex nuns’, 

vice abbess’s, pro virgins’, super whores’, silent sisters’, 

Charleys’ aunts’, grandmothers’, mothers’-in-laws, 

fostermothers’, godmothers’ garters, 

tress clippings from right, lift and cintrum, 

worms of snot, toothsome pickings, 

cans of Swiss condensed bilk, 

highbrow lotions, kisses from the antipodes, 

presents from pickpockets, borrowed plumes, 

relaxable hand-grips, princess promises, lees of whine, 

deoxodised carbons, convertible collars, diviliouker doffers, 

broken wafers, unloosed shoe latchets, crooked strait waistcoats, 

fresh horrors from Hades, globules of mercury, undeleted glete, 

glass eyes for an eye, gloss teeth for a tooth, (p184)

war moans, special sighs, long-sufferings of long-standing, 

ahs ohs ouis sis jas jos gias neys thaws sos, 

yeses and yeses and yeses, 

to which, 

if one has the stomach to add the breakages, upheavals distortions, 

inversions of all this chamber-made music one stands, 

given a grain of goodwill, 

a fair chance of actually seeing the whirling dervish, 

Tumult, son of Thunder, self exiled in upon his ego, 

a night-long a shaking betwixtween white or reddr hawrors, 

noon-day-terrorised to skin and bone 

by an ineluctable phantom 

(may the Shaper have mercery on him!) 

writing the mystery of himsel in furniture.

—————————————————————-

Of course our low hero was a self valeter by choice of need 

so up he got up whatever is meant by a stour-bridge clay kitchenette 

and lithar-go-galenu fowl-house for the sake of akes 

(the umpple does not fall very far from the dumpertree) 

which the moro-melodious jigsmith, 

in defiance of the Uncontrollable Birth Preservativation (Game and Poultry) Act, 

playing lallary-rook cookery-nook, 

by the dodginess of his lentern, 

brooled and cocked and potched in an athanor, 

whites and yolks and yilks and whotes 

to the frulling fredonnance of 

Mas blanca que la blanca hermana and Amarilla, 

muy bien, with cinnamon and locusts 

and wild beeswax 

and liquorice 

and Carrageen moss 

and blaster of Barry’s 

and Asther’s mess 

and Huster’s micture 

and Yellownan’s embrocation 

and Pinkingtone’s patty 

and stardust and sinner’s tears, 

acuredent to Sharadan’s Art of Panning, 

chanting, for all regale to the like of the legs he left behind 

with Litty fun Letty fan Leven, 

his cantraps of fermented words, 

abracadabra calubra culorum, 

(his oewfs à la Madame Gabrielle de l’Eglise, 

his avgs à la Mistress B. de B. Meinfelde, 

his eiers Usquad-mala à la pomme de ciel, 

his uoves, oves and uves à la Sulphate de Soude, 

his ochiuri sowtay sowmmonay a la Monseigneur, 

his soufflosion of oogs with somekat on toyast à la Mère Puard, 

his Poggadovies alla Fenella, his Frideggs à la Tricarême) 

in what was meant for a closet 

(Ah ho! 

If only he had listened better to the four masters that infanted him 

Father Mathew and Le Père Noble and Pastor Lucas and Padre Aguilar

—not forgetting Lay-teacher Baudwin! 

Ah ho!) 

His costive Satan’s antimonian manganese limo-litmious (p185) nature 

never needed such an alcove 

so, when Robber and Mumsell, the pulpic dictators, 

on the nudgment of their legal advisers, 

Messrs Codex and Podex, 

and under his own benefiction of their pastor Father Flammeus Falconer, 

boycotted him of all mutton-suet candles 

and rome-ruled stationery for any purpose, 

he winged away on a wildgoup’s chase across the kathartic ocean 

and made synthetic ink and sensitive paper 

for his own end 

out of his wit’s waste. 

You ask, in Sam Hill, how? 

Let manner and matter of this for these our sporting times 

be cloaked up in the language of blush-fed porporates 

that an Anglican ordinal, 

not reading his own rude dunsky tunga, 

may ever behold the brand of scarlet 

on the brow of her of Babylon 

and feel not the pink one in his own damned cheek.

————————————————————————

Primum opifex, altus prosator, 

ad terram viviparam et cuncti-potentem sine ullo pudore nec venia, 

suscepto pluviali atque discinctis perizomatis, 

natibus nudis uti nati fuissent, 

sese adpropinquans, 

flens et gemens, 

in manum suam evacuavit 

(highly prosy, crap in his hand, sorry!), 

postea, animale nigro exoneratus, classicum pulsans, 

stercus proprium, quod appellavit deiectiones suas, 

in vas olim honorabile tristitiae posuit, 

eodem sub invocatione fratrorum geminorum 

Medardi et Godardi laete ac melliflue minxit, 

psalmum qui incipit: 

Lingua mea calamus scribae velociter scribentis: 

magna voce cantitans 

(did a piss, says he was dejected, asks to be exonerated), 

demum ex stercore turpi cum divi Orionis iucunditate 

mixto, cocto, frigorique exposito, 

encaustum sibi fecit indelibile 

(faked O’Ryan’s, the indelible ink).

————————————————————-

Then, pious Eneas, 

conformant to thc fulminant firman 

which enjoins on the tremylose terrian 

that, when the call comes, 

he shall produce nich-them-erically 

from his unheavenly body 

a no uncertain quantity of obscene matter 

not protected by copriright in the United Stars of Ourania 

or bedeed and bedood and bedang and bedung to him, 

with this double dye, brought to blood heat, 

gallic acid on iron ore, 

through the bowels of his misery, 

flashly, faithly, nastily, appropriately, 

this Esuan Menschavik and the first till last alshemist 

wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap available, 

his own body, 

till by its corrosive sublimation 

one (p186) continuous present tense integument slowly unfolded 

all marryvoising mood-moulded cycle-wheeling history 

(thereby, he said, 

reflecting from his own individual person life unlivable, 

trans-accidentated through the slow fires of consciousness 

into a dividual chaos, 

perilous, potent, common to all-flesh, 

human only, mortal) 

but with each word that would not pass away 

the squid-self which he had squirt-screened from the crystalline world 

waned chagreen-old and dorian-grayer in its dudhud. 

This exists that isits after having been said we know. 

And dabal take dabnal! 

And the dal dabal dab alda-nabal! 

So perhaps, agg-lagg-agglom-eratively as-aspen-king, 

after all and arklast fore arklyst on his last public misappearance, 

circling the square, 

for the death-fête of Saint Ignaceous Poisonivy, 

of the Fickle Crowd 

(hopon the sexth day of Hogsober, killim our king, layum low!) 

and brandishing his bell-bearing stylo, 

the shining keyman of the wilds of change, 

if what is sauce for the zassy is souse for the zazimas, 

the blond cop who thought it was ink 

was out of his depth but bright in the main.

—————————————————————

Petty constable Sistersen of the Kruis-Kroon-Kraal it was, 

the parochial watch, 

big the dog 

the dig the bog 

the bagger the dugger 

the begadag degabug, 

who had been detailed from pollute stoties to save him, 

this the quem-quem, 

that the quum, 

from the ligature-liablous effects of foul clay 

in little clots and mob-mauling on looks, 

that wrong-countered the tenderfoot an eveling 

near the livings-mean-suni-umgetherum, 

Knockmaree, Comty Mea, 

reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left, 

on his way from a proto-prostitute 

(he would always have a (stp!) little pigeoness somewhure 

with his arch girl, Arcoiris, smock-name of Mergyt) 

just as he was butting in rand the coyner of bad times 

under a hideful 

between the rival doors of warm bethels of worship 

through his boardel-house fongster, 

greeting for grazious oras as usual: 

Where ladies have they that a dog meansort herring? 

Sergo, search me, 

the incapable reparteed with a self-evitant subtlety 

so obviously spurious 

and, raising his hair, 

after the grace, 

with the christmas under his clutcharm, 

for Portsy-masser and Purtsy-messus and Pertsy-miss and Partsy-masters, 

like a prance (p187) of findingos, 

with a shillto shallto slipny stripny, 

in he skittled. 

Swikey! The allwhite poors guardiant, 

pulpably of ball-tossic stummung, 

was literally astundished over the painful sake, 

how he burstteself, 

which he was gone to, 

where he intent to did he, 

whether you think will, 

wherend the whole current of the afternoon 

whats the souch of a surch hads of hits of hims, 

urged and staggered thereto in his country-ports 

at the caledosian capacity for Lieutuvisky 

of the caftan’s wine-skin 

and even more so, 

during, looking his bigmost astonishments, 

it was said him, aschu, 

fun the concerned outgift of the dead med dirt, 

how that, arrah-be-jibbers, 

conspuent to the dominical order 

and exking noblish permish, 

he was namely coon at bringer at home two gallonts, 

as per royal, 

full poultry till his murder. 

Nip up and nab it!

——————————————

Polther-geist-kotz-dondher-hop-loits! 

Kick? 

What mother? 

Whose porter? 

Which pair? 

Why namely coon? 

But our undilligence has been pluthero-tested 

so enough of such porter-black lowneess, 

too base for print-ink! 

Perpending that Putterick O’Purcell 

pulls the coald stoane out of Winter-water’s 

and Silder Seas sing for Harreng our Keng, 

sept okt nov dez John Phibbs march! 

We cannot, 

in mercy or justice nor on the lovom for labaryntos, 

stay here for the residence of our existings, 

discussing Tamstar Ham of Tenman’s thirst.

————————————————————-

JUSTIUS (to himother): 

Brawn is my name and broad is my nature 

and I’ve breit on my brow and all’s right with every feature 

and I’ll brune this bird or Brown Bess’s bung’s gone bandy. 

I’m the boy to bruise and braise. 

Baus!

——————————————————

Stand forth, Nayman of Noland 

(for no longer will I follow you oblique-like 

through the inspired form of the third person singular 

and the moods and hesitensies of the deponent 

but address myself to you, 

with the empirative of my vendettative, provocative and out direct), 

stand forth, come boldly, 

jolly me, move me, 

zwilling though I am, 

to laughter in your true colours 

ere you be back for ever 

till I give you your talkingto! 

Shem Macadamson, you know me 

and I know you and all your shemeries. 

Where have you been in the uterim, 

enjoying yourself (p188) all the morning 

since your last wetbed confession? 

I advise you to conceal yourself, 

my little friend, 

as I have said a moment ago 

and put your hands in my hands 

and have a nights-long homely little confiteor about things. 

Let me see. 

It is looking pretty black against you, we suggest, Sheem avick. 

You will need all the elements in the river 

to clean you over it all 

and a fortifine popes-priest-power bull of attender to booth.

———————————————————————-

Let us pry. 

We thought, would and did. 

Cur, quicquid, ubi, quando, quomodo, quoties, quibus auxiliis? 

You were bred, fed, fostered and fattened 

from holy childhood up 

in this two easter island 

on the piejaw of hilarious heaven 

and roaring the other place 

(plunders to night of you, blunders what’s left of you, flash as flash can!) 

and now, forsooth, 

a nogger among the blankards of this dastard century, 

you have become of two-some twi-minds forenenst gods, 

hidden and discovered, 

nay, condemned fool, anarch, egoarch, hiresiarch, 

you have reared your disunited kingdom 

on the vacuum of your own most intensely doubtful soul. 

Do you hold yourself then for some god in the manger, 

She-ho-hem, 

that you will neither serve not let serve, 

pray nor let pray? 

And here, pay the piety, 

must I too nerve myself to pray for the loss of self-respect 

to equip me for the horrible necessity of scandalisang 

(my dear sisters, are you ready?) 

by sloughing off my hope and tremors 

while we all swin together in the pool of Sodom? 

I shall shiver for my purity while they will weep-big for your sins. 

Away with covered words, new Solemonities for old Bad-sheet-baths! 

That inharmonious detail, did you name it? 

Cold caldor! Gee! Victory! 

Now, opprobro of under-slung pipes, 

john-jacobs, while yet an adolescent (what do I say?), 

while still puerile in your tubsuit with button-legs, 

you got a handsome present 

of a self-raising syringe and twin feeders 

(you know, Monsieur Abgott, in your art of arts, 

to your cost as well as I do 

(and don’t try to hide it) 

the penals lots I am now poking at) 

and the wheeze sort of was you should 

(if you were as bould a stroke now as the curate that christened you, 

sonny douth-the-candle!) 

repopulate the land of your birth 

and count up your progeny by the hungered head 

and the angered thousand 

but you thwarted the (p189) wious pish of your co-godparents, 

soph, among countless occasions of failing 

(for, said you, I will elenchate), 

adding to the malice of your transgression, 

yes, and changing its nature, 

(you see I have read your theology for you) 

alternating the morosity of my delectations

—a philtred love, trysting by tantrums, small peace in p-penmark

—with sensibility, sponsibility, passibility and prostability, 

your lubbock’s other fear pleasures of a butler’s life, 

even extruding your strabismal apologia, 

when legibly depressed, 

upon defenceless paper 

and thereby adding to the already unhappiness of this our popeyed world, 

scribblative!

—all that too with cantreds of countless catchaleens, 

the mannish as many as the minneful, 

congested around and about you for acres and roods and poles or perches, 

thick as the fluctuant sands of Chalwador, 

accomplished women, 

indeed fully educanded, 

far from being old and rich behind their dream of arrivisme, 

if they have only their honour left, 

and not deterred by bad weather 

when consumed by amorous passion, 

struggling to possess themselves of your boosh, 

one son of Sorge for all daughters of Anguish, 

solus cum sola sive cuncties cum omnibobs 

(I’d have been the best man for you, myself), 

mutely aying for hat natural knot, 

debituary vases or vessels preposterous, 

for what would not have cost you ten bolivars of collar-work 

or the price of one ping pang, 

just a lilt, let us trillt, 

of the oldest song in the wooed wood-world, 

(two-we! to-one!), accompanied by a plain gold band! 

Hail! Hail! 

High-bosom-heaving Miss-misstress Morna 

of the all-sweet-heartening bride-mure-demeanour! 

Her eye’s so gladsome we’ll all take shares in the 

——groom!

——————————————————-

Sniffer of carrion, 

premature gravedigger, 

seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word, 

you, who sleep at our vigil and fast for our feast, 

you with your dislocated reason, 

have cutely foretold, 

a jophet in your own absence, 

by blind poring upon your many scalds and burns and blisters, 

impetiginous sore and pustules, 

by the auspices of that raven cloud, 

your shade, 

and by the auguries of rooks in parlament, 

death with every disaster, 

the dynamitisation of colleagues, 

the reducing of records to ashes, 

the levelling of all customs by blazes, 

the return of a lot (p190) of sweetempered gun-powdered 

didst unto dudst 

but it never stphruck your mud-head’s obtundity 

(O hell, here comes our funeral! 

O pest, I’ll miss the post!) 

that the more carrots you chop, 

the more turnips you slit, 

the more murphies you peel, 

the more onions you cry over, 

the more bullbeef you butch, 

the more mutton you cracker-hack, 

the more potherbs you pound, 

the fiercer the fire 

and the longer your spoon 

and the harder you gruel 

with more grease to your elbow 

the merrier fumes your new Irish stew.

————————————————————————

O, by the way, yes, 

another thing occurs to me. 

You let me tell you, 

with the utmost politeness, 

were very ordinarily designed, 

your birthwrong was, 

to fall in with Plan, 

as our nationals should, 

as all nationists must, 

and do a certain office 

(what, I will not tell you) 

in a certain holy office 

(nor will I say where) 

during certain agonising office hours 

(a clerical party all to yourself) 

from such a year to such an hour 

on such and such a date at so and so much a week pro anno 

(Guinness’s, may I remind, 

were just agulp for you, 

failing in which 

you might have taken the scales off boilers 

like any boskop of Yorek) 

and do your little thruppenny bit 

and thus earn from the nation true thanks, 

right here in our place of burden, 

your bourne of travail and ville of tares, 

where after a divine’s prodigence 

you drew the first water-gasp in your life, 

from the crib where you once was bit 

to the crypt you’ll be twice as shy of, 

same as we, long of us, 

alone with the colt in the curner, 

where you were as popular as an armenial with the faithful, 

and you set fire to my tailcoat 

when I hold the paraffin smoker under yours 

(I hope that chimney’s clear) 

but, slackly shirking both your bullet and your billet, 

you beat it backwards like Boulanger from Galway 

(but he combed the grass against his stride) 

to sing us a song of alibi, 

(the cuthone call over 

the grey-bounding slow-rolling amply-heaving meta-morphoseous 

that oozy rocks para-pangle their preposters with) 

nomad, mooner by lamplight, antinos, 

shemming amid everyone’s repressed laughter to conceal your scatchophily 

by mating, like a thorough-paste prosodite, 

masculine mono-syllables of the same numerical mus, 

an Irish emigrant the wrong way out, 

sitting on your crooked (p191) sixpenny stile, 

an unfrill-frocked quack-friar, 

you (will you for the laugh of Scheekspair just help mine with the epithet?) 

semi-semitic seren-dip-it-ist, 

you (thanks, I think that describes you) 

Europ-asian-ised Affer-yank!

———————————————————-

Shall we follow each others a step-longer, 

drowner of daggers, 

whiles our liege, 

tilyet a stranger in the front-yard of his happiness, 

is taking, 

(heal helper! one gob, one gap, one gulp and gorger of all!) 

his refreshment?

————————————————————

There grew up beside you, 

amid our orisons of the speediest. 

in Novena Lodge, Novara Avenue, 

in Patri-podium-am-Bummel, 

oaf, out-of-work, 

one remove from an unwashed savage, 

on his keeping and in yours, 

(I pose you know why possum hides 

is cause he haint the no-gum-tree-umption) 

that other, Immaculatus, 

from head to foot, sir, 

that pure one, 

Altrues of other times, 

he who was well known to celestine circles 

before he sped aloft, 

our handsome young spiritual physician that was to be, 

seducing every sense to selfwilling celebesty, 

the most winning counter-feuille on our income-share lote-tree, 

a chum of the angelets, 

a youth those reporters so pettitily wanted as game-fellow 

that they asked his mother for ittle earps brupper 

to let him tome to Tindertarten? pease, 

and bing his scooter ’long 

and ’tend they were all real brothers 

in the big justright home where Dodd lives, 

just to teddyfy the life out of him 

and pat and pass him one with other 

like musk from hand to hand, 

that mother-smothered model, 

that good-looker with not a flaw 

whose spiritual toilettes were the talk of half the town, 

for sunset wear 

and night-fallen use 

and day-broken donning 

and nooncheon showing 

and the very thing for tease-time, 

but him you laid low with one hand 

one fine May morning in the Meddle of your Might, 

your bosom foe, 

because he mussed your speller on you 

or because he cut a pretty figure in the focus of your frontispecs 

(not one did you slay, no, but a continent!) 

to find out how his innards worked!

———————————————————————

Ever read of that great-grand land-father of our vision-builders, 

Baaboo, the bourgeois-meister, 

who thought to touch both himmels at the punt of his risen stiff-staff 

and how wishy-washy (p192) sank the waters of his thought? 

Ever thought of that hereticalist Marcon 

and the two scissy-maidies 

and how bulkily he shat the Ructions gunorrhal? 

Ever hear of that foxy, 

that lupo and that monkax 

and the virgin heir of the Morrisons, 

eh, blethering ape?

—————————————————————————

Malingerer in luxury, 

collector general, 

what has Your Lowness done in the mealtime 

with all the hamilkcars of cooked vegetables, 

the hatfuls of stewed fruit, 

the suitcases of coddled ales, 

the Parish funds, 

me schamer, man, 

that you kitty-coaxed so flexibly 

out of charitable butteries 

by yowling heavy 

with a hollow voice drop 

of your horrible awful poverty of mind 

so as you couldn’t even pledge a crown of Thorne’s 

to pawn a coat off Trevi’s 

and as how you was bad no end, 

so you was, 

so whelp you Sinner Pitre and Sinner Poule, 

with the chicken’s gape 

and pas mal de siècle, 

which, by the by, Reynaldo, 

is the ordinary emetic French for grenadier’s drip. 

To let you have your plank and your bone-wash 

(O the has-troubles you lost!), 

to give you your pound of platinum 

and a thousand thongs a year 

(O, you were excruciated, 

in honour bound to the cross of your own cruelfiction!) 

to let you have your Sarday spree and holi-night sleep 

(fame would come to you twixt a sleep and a wake) 

and leave to lie till Para-skivee 

and the cock-cock crows for Danmark. 

(O Jonathan, your estomach!) 

The simian has no sentiment secretions 

but weep cataracts for all me, 

Pain the Shamman! 

Oft in the smelly night 

will they wallow for a clutch of the famished hand, 

I say, them bearded jezabelles you hired to rob you, 

while on your sodden straw impolitely you encored 

(Airish and naw-boggaleesh!) 

those hornmade ivory dreams 

you reved of the Ruth you called your companionate, 

a beauty from the bible, 

of the flushpots of Euston and the hanging garments of Marylebone. 

But the dormer moonshee smiled selene 

and the light-throwers knickered: 

who’s whinging we? 

Comport yourself, you inconsistency! 

Where is that little alimony nestegg against our predictable rainy day? 

Is it not the fact (gainsay me, cake-eater!) that, 

while whistle-whirling your crazy elegies around Temple-tomb-mount joyntstone, 

(let him pass, please-good-jesusalem, 

in a bundle of straw, 

he was balbettised after haymaking) (p193)

you squandered among underlings 

the overload of your extravagance 

and made a hottentot of dulpeners crawsick with your crumbs? 

Am I not right? 

Yes? Yes? Yes? 

Holy wax and holifer! 

Don’t tell me, Leon of the fold, that you are not a loanshark! 

Look up, old sooty, be advised by mux and take your medicine. 

The Good Doctor mulled it. 

Mix it twice before repastures and powder three times a day. 

It does marvels for your gripins and it’s fine for the solitary worm.

————————————————————————-

Let me finish! 

Just a little judas tonic, 

my ghem of all jokes, 

to make you go green in the gazer. 

Do you hear what I’m seeing, hammet? 

And remember that golden silence gives consent, Mr Ankle-gazer! 

Cease to be civil, learn to say nay! 

Whisht! 

Come here, Herr Studiosus, 

till I tell you a wig in your ear. 

We’ll do a whisper drive, 

for if the barishnyas got a twitter of it 

they’d tell the housetops 

and then all Cadbury would go crackers. 

Look! 

Do you see your dial in the rocking-glass? 

Look well! 

Bend down a stigmy till I! 

It’s secret! 

Iggri, I say, the booseleers! 

I had it from Lamp-post Shawe. 

And he had it from the Mullah. 

And Mull took it from a Bluecoat schooler. 

And Gay Socks jot it from Potapheu’s wife. 

And Rantipoll tipped the wink from old Mrs Tinbullet. 

And as for she was confussed by pro-Brother Thacolicus. 

And the good brother feels he would need to defecate you. 

And the Flimsy Follettes are simply beside each other. 

And Kelly, Kenny and Keogh are up up and in arms. 

That a cross may crush me if I refuse to believe in it. 

That I may rock anchor through the ages if I hope it’s not true. 

That the host may choke me if I beneighbour you without my charity! 

Sh! Shem, you are. 

Sh! You are mad!

————————————————————————

He points the deathbone and the quick are still. 

Insomnia, somnia somniorum. Awmawm.

————————————————————-

MERCIUS (of hisself): Domine vopiscus! 

My fault, his fault, a kingship through a fault! 

Pariah, cannibal Cain, 

I who oathily forswore the womb that bore you 

and the paps I sometimes sucked, 

you who ever since have been one black mass of jigs and jim-jams, 

haunted by a convulsionary sense 

of not having been 

or being all that I might have been 

or you meant to becoming, (p194)

bewailing like a man that innocence 

which I could not defend like a woman, 

lo, you there, Cathmon-Carbery, 

and thank Movies from the innermost depths of my still attrite heart, 

Wherein the days of you-youth are ever-mixed mi-mine, 

now ere the compline hour of being alone athands itself 

and a puff or so before we yield our spiritus to the wind, 

for (though that royal one has not yet drunk a gouttelette 

from his consummation 

and the flowerpot on the pole, 

the spaniel pack and their quarry, 

retainers and the public house proprietor 

have not budged a millimetre 

and all that has been done has yet to be done and done again, 

when’s day’s woe, 

and lo, you’re doomed, 

joyday dawns and, 

la, you dominate) 

it is to you, firstborn and first-fruit of woe, 

to me, branded sheep, 

pick of the waster-paper-baskel, 

by the tremours of Thundery and Ulerin’s dogstar, 

you alone, 

wind-blasted tree of the knowledge of beautiful andevil, 

ay, clothed upon with the metuor and shimmering like the horescens, 

astro-glody-namon-o-logos, 

the child of Nilfit’s father, blzb, 

to me unseen blusher in an obscene coalhole, 

the cubilibum of your secret sigh, 

dweller in the down-and-outermost 

where voice only of the dead may come, 

because ye left from me, 

because ye laughed on me, 

because, O me lonly son, 

ye are forgetting me!, 

that our turf-brown mummy is acoming, 

alpilla, beltilla, ciltilla, deltilla, 

running with her tidings, 

old the news of the great big world, 

sonnies had a scrap, woe-woe-woe! 

bab’s baby walks at seven months, way-way-way! 

bride leaves her raid at Punches-time, 

stud stoned before a race-courseful, 

two belles that make the one appeal, 

dry yanks will visit old sod, 

and fourtiered skirts are up, mesdames, 

while Parimiknie wears popular short legs, 

and twelve hows to mix a tipsy wake, 

did ye hear, colt Cooney? 

did ye ever, filly Fortescue? 

with a beck, with a spring, 

all her rill-ringlets shaking, 

rocks drops in her tachie, 

tramtokens in her hair, 

all waived to a point and then all inuendation, 

little old-fashioned mummy, 

little wonderful mummy, 

ducking under bridges, 

bellhopping the weirs, 

dodging by a bit of bog, 

rapid-shooting round the bends, 

by Tallaght’s green hills 

and the pools of the phooka 

and a place they call it Blessington 

and (p195) slipping sly by Sally-noggin, 

as happy as the day is wet, 

babbling, bubbling, chattering to herself, 

deloothering the fields on their elbows 

leaning with the sloothering slide of her, 

giddygaddy, grannyma, gossipaceous Anna Livia.

He lifts the lifewand and the dumb speak.

————————————————-

—Quoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiq!