I

I praise the commode!
which gargles turds in its throat
and swallows them out of sight:
I praise the commode,
whose commodious offices let
the crapper forget
how relentlessly he transforms
oranges, beef, and corn.
I praise the commode!
Down whose porcelain gullet
vanish the mortal remains,
leaving no stain,
of capon, pork, and pullet:
At the risk of impolity,
I steadfastly decree
praise to the commode!

II

Lhude sing commode!
For who has strength to brood
on entropy, decay,
and all the crap we leave behind?
All hail the commode!
Which flushes out of mind
the rejected clay:
The hatchet murderer consigns
to that immaculate bowl
his wife’s fleshly coil,
and many a head has saved
his neck, who laved
his joints just in time
far from the law’s purlieu:
I sing the commode,
which washes away my crime,
and makes me new.

III

An ode on the commode!
Where, when I was young,
I jacked off (staying so long
my mother called,
afraid that I was sick),
and where I burned the dirty pic-
tures I had scrawled.

IV

I celebrate commodes!
The mysterious tank in back
that frightened me as a child,
and still seems some wild
abandoned well—mossy, black
and snapping-turtle-filled:
I celebrate the cool
halo circling my butt
in summer, the times I forgot
to pull it down
and nearly fell in:
I celebrate the float!

V

Sing ho for the commode!
The john, the can, the stool!
Although in ponds and pools,
in oceans, lakes, and fjords,
rubbers and tampons and turds
float slowly down,
and tapeworms crown
the waving anemonae.
Sing hi
for the commode!
Though far from human eyes
puke and blood
and urine and phlegm diffuse
throughout the seas.

VI

Lift up your tops, O ye commodes!
Where delicate girls like birds
let plop
their delicate turds,
return to us purged and sweet
on delicate feet.
Sing praise to commodes,
the thrones to Sunday morn,
where all men read the papers,
and where are sometimes born
in poet and physicist
the germs of their greatest labors.
Make haste, make haste
to laud commodes:
their handles, floats, and chains,
their tanks, bowls, and drains;
let not a soul refrain
from praising commodes!