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SAMUEL BECKETT to poetry by dead poets index

Ooftish

offer it up plank it down
Golgotha was only the potegg
cancer angina it is all one to us
cough up your T.B. don't be stingy
no trifle is too trifling not even a thrombus
anything venereal is especially welcome
that old toga in the mothballs
don't be sentimental you won't be wanting it again
send it along we'll put it in the pot with the rest
with your love requited and unrequited
the things taken too late the things taken too soon
the spirit aching bullock's scrotum
you won't cure it you won't endure it
it is you it equals you any fool has to pity you
so parcel up the whole issue and send it along
the whole misery diagnosed undiagnosed misdiagnosed
get your friends to do the same we'll make use of it
we'll make sense of it we'll put it in the pot with the rest
it all boils down to blood of lamb


1938


Note:
First published in Transition: Tenth Anniversary (April-May 1938). The title is a yiddish expression meaning "put your money down on the table."

Source of text and note:
Beckett, Samuel: Collected Poems in English and French: Grove Press (paperback), New York, 1977. page 31




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