from Odes: 13. Fearful Symmetry by Basil Bunting

from Odes: 13. Fearful Symmetry

Muzzle and jowl and beastly brow,

bilious glaring eyes, tufted ears,

recidivous criminality in the slouch,

—This is not the latest absconding bankrupt

but a ‘beautiful’ tiger imported at great expense from

Kuala Lumpur.

7 photographers, 4 black-and-white artists and an R.A.

are taking his profitable likeness;

28 reporters and an essayist

are writing him up.

Sundry ladies think he is a darling

especially at mealtimes, observing

that a firm near the docks advertises replicas

fullgrown on approval for easy cash payments.

♂Felis Tigris (Straits Settlements)(Bobo) takes exercise

up and down his cage before feeding

in a stench of excrements of great cats

indifferent to beauty or brutality.

He is said to have eaten several persons

but of course you can never be quite sure of these things.