The Desire and Pursuit

THE DESIRE AND PURSUIT OF THE HOLE: A ROMANCE OF MODERN VENICE 

“Truth is tarter than taradiddles;

and nothing is tarter, terser, than 

truth on the track of tired trash 

in a trance.”—Frederick Rolfe, 

Baron Corvo, The Desire and 

Pursuit of the Whole: A Romance 

of Modern Venice 

I brushed aside the accumulation of—

Cigarette-ash from my smoking jacket

Picking up a copy of the NYTimes—

Reading once again the news from Rome

The NYTimes is a kind of subterfuge for—

Readers excluded from a view of the facts

It said much but signified nothing—

Hoodwinking, indulging in imagination

Reading between the lines one can sense—

A tale of unparalleled ghastliness opening

“How exquisitely horrible it is,” I said—

Something mysterious was happening

The Creepazoids were taking over—

Cretinism and idiocy on the upswing

Mobs of lower class child idiots were—

Swamping and infesting the schools

People were manifesting defective things—

Like some abortion of the mind, lower IQ’s

These lower classes of idiots were like—

Altogether beneath the animal world

They possessed not taste, smell, hearing—

Sight or touch, they were human imbeciles

Their degenerated brains couldn’t fathom—

The simplest syntax or pleasing dictions

Simple words like “cagotism,” “latebrose”—

“dedecorous,” “physidoyls,” “vexilla,” “amoenely” 

“Succursale” and the verb “ostends”—

Were simply beyond their feeble child idiocy 

Actually though some of my best friends—

Are child idiot gondoliers down here in Venice

I prefer them that way, my dear, for obvious—

And tell-tale reasons I shan’t get into now

Other than to say that my favorite gondolier—

Drinks only wine and plies a mean oar

Not that I’m a whore about rough trade—

But it’s such a refreshing change when

Compared with my miserable egotistical—

Tres gay muse consumed with ambition

Hadrian-esque pubic curls so entrancing—

His back, loins and shoulders so strong…