Advice: A Book of Poems

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE MOUNTEBANK CRITICIZES</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">I lose all sense of profiles,</div> <div class="verse">Strolling through your greys and blacks and browns!</div> <div class="verse">No man bestows his orange robe</div> <div class="verse">Soberly upon your uncoloured pavements,</div> <div class="verse">Rebuking life for being death.</div> <div class="verse">No woman taunts her sorrows</div> <div class="verse">With a coloured haughtiness.</div> <div class="verse">When you take to colours, you are ashamed,</div> <div class="verse">Like pages nibbling at a pilfered tart.</div> <div class="verse">You go back quickly to your coldness.</div> <div class="verse">And since you have no colours on your clothes,</div> <div class="verse">You walk in straight and measured lilts</div> <div class="verse">As befits the seriously blind.</div> <div class="verse">Your women do not stroll as though</div> <div class="verse">Each step were a timid intrigue</div> <div class="verse">Woven into the climax to which they fare.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Pistols, rhapsodies and heavy odours</div> <div class="verse">Drugged the lustre of my time.</div> <div class="verse">Yet, we had a virtue.</div> <div class="verse">We lavished colours on our backs</div> <div class="verse">And ravished our sorrow with brightness</div> <div class="verse">That often gave a lightness to our feet!</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />