SALUTATION THE THIRD. By Ezra Pound
by @radicalsingularity
Let us deride the smugness of “The Times”:
GUFFAW !
So much the gagged reviewers,
It will pay them when the worms are wriggling in their vitals ;
These were they who objected to newness,
HERE are their TOMB STONES.
They supported the gag and the ring :
A little black BOX contains them.
SO shall you be also,
You slut-bellied obstructionist,
You sworn foe to free speech and good letters,
You fungus, you continuous gangrene.
Come, let us on with the new deal,
Let us be done with Jews and Jobbery,
Let us SPIT upon those who fawn on the JEWS for their money,
Let us out to the pastures.
PERHAPS I will die at thirty,
Perhaps you will have the pleasure of defiling my pauper’s grave,
I wish you JOY, I proffer you ALL my assistance.
It has been your HABIT for long to do away with true poets,
You either drive them mad, or else you blink at their suicides,
Or else you condone their drugs, and talk of insanity and genius,
BUT I will not go mad to please you.
I will not FLATTER you with an early death.
OH, NO ! I will stick it out,
I will feel your hates wriggling about my feet,
And I will laugh at you and mock you,
And I will offer you consolations in irony,
O fools, detesters of Beauty.
I have seen many who go about with supplications,
Afraid to say how they hate you.
HERE is the taste of my BOOT,
CARESS it, lick off the BLACKING.