Mrs. Campbell to George Bernard Shaw:
“Sir, if you should ever eat a porkchop,
from that day on, God protect all women!”
There he sits in the restaurant,
The porkchop on his plate.
We wait to see if he will cut the beast…
Shaw thrusts his beard southwest, nor-east;
The fates of half a billion women wait on this.
Will G.B. hover, savor, kiss
The darling flesh,
And, kissing, stop, deplore,
Leap up, and want no more?
Or try again and find that pork embellishes
And perks one’s curiosity and need for relishes
Put up in ladies shapes and girlish bloomers?
The rumors
Have it Shaw may well this night
Fall to and bite and chew, then brood
On how his vegetarian-prone life has fixed his mood.
The loin of pork, undressed, no sauce, a simple food,
With neither eye of salmon, mouth of cod,
Or breathless gill,
Thrills to know Shaw the God
Stares down at it, his tongue and tone like knives.
The wives and daughters of the world suspend
Their chat, they live in little breaths,
Is this the end?
A thousand deaths occur while watching G.B. hover,
Will now the atheist of meat turn carnal lover?
The wine lies waiting, too.
But, no popping the cork!
His mind is all pork!
His fiery beard-tines quiver,
A thousand women’s sweetmeats shiver, stop, wait.
Shaw trembles his fork,
The pork shudders on plate.
Shaw slams his eyes shut, his summation complete,
Leaping up, G.B. cries,
“You may kill, I’ll not eat!”
He stands, waiting proudly,
Applause rushing loudly roves wild fields of hands,
Hurling table aside,
G.B. Shaw/Dr. Jekyll leaves loinpork ghost Hyde,
He strides out the door.
Applause dies on the shore.
The good wine still lies there, untouched, uncorked,
The women unwomened and the pork unporked.
Ten million moms tonight write poems,
Shaw’s fled back to rice and beets,
Safe our daughters, safe our streets;
God rest our happy homes!