Michelangelo sometimes neither undressed nor even took of his boots to sleep so caught up was he in his work. Auden famously disconcerted his college's senior common room by proclaiming his use of the humble sink. Many penitents recorded that the saintly Seraphim's face would glow like the sun.
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Boots and paint-dabbed smocking
Lay himself to slumber,
Nightwear all forsworn;
Neither soap nor toothscrub
Struck him as important
When creation’s moment
Seized him like the dawn.
Cleanliness, the preachers
Chant, is kissing-close to
Godliness; hence, maiden
Aunts in underwear
Fresh each day, make volta
Knowing that if car-struck
Death will find their undies
Pure as mountain air.
Medieval kings were
Sewn into their garments,
Winter’s frozen months to
Bear in smelly gloom;
Ladies likewise: he who
Held the patent reaped as
Kings gave audience and
Nosegays packed the room.
Still, though, baths and showers
Freak both lord and tenant,
Water quite upsets our
Dirt-grained status quo;
Gels and steam and soap suds,
Body scrubs and pumice,
Froth and fluffy towels,
Dry the skin out so!
Writers in especial,
Drunk, suspicious, debt-struck,
Grubby linen whiffing,
Know that pen and ink
Pardon many foibles:
Auden made a poet’s
Polis from mere words though
Pissing in the sink.
Desert fathers also
Scorned all cleansing potions,
Fed on cabbage water,
Fasting unto grace;
Seraphim of Sarov’s
Flea-infested blanket
Made a royal threshold
For his God-glow face.
Strangely, man – God’s image –
Sweaty, mouthy, fat-hung,
Fizzing brain half-sunk in
Exculpating sin,
Vision of the One is
Vouchsafed gratis though he’s
Crowned by hair bedraggled,
Stained by ringwormed skin.
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© May 2017
