Concert.

 These antique prostitutions –

I deplore my own vague cynicism,

Undressing with indifferent eyes each girl,

Seeing them naked on that paltry stage

Stared at by half a thousand lustful eyes.

 

These antique prostitutions –

Am I dead? Withered? Grown old?

That not the least flush of desire

Tinges my unmoved flesh,

And that instead of women’s living bodies

I see dead men – you understand? – dead men

With sullen, dark red gashes

Luminous in a foul trench?

 

These antique prostitutions.

 

(Images of War, 1919)