Article voiceover
My orangutan tongue like a vestige of African rain In the mouth of my mind thick with mucus and moldering rind In the middle of morning my chest with its treasure of phlegm I present my adornments poetically rancid and strained Through the Indian summer its music a murmuring mulch With the rhythms of Rilke and sickly intelligent ghosts That inhabit my eyelids like flocks of strange birds in the dawn To convey this alert to imply my intent to ascribe To the dawn disappointments unfathomed by nightmares untold. So I’m calling in sick just to tell you I’m not feeling well. At the sound of the tone in the jungle my fever has wrung These few droplets of sweat from the drooping malarial moon And my rational faculties left me a sweet goodbye note That I read in the back of the rickety hospital bus As I drifted to sleep and began to remember my life.
It is disgustingly visceral and therefore perfect!
More like Auden than Rilke though. For Rilke the anapest exemplified aspiration towards and hope for the transcendent. Not disgust at the immanent. That's Auden's peculiar sphere.