vladimir nabokov

[The Sloth]

does anyone read him?

taken from "pale fire" --


Since my biographer may be too staid
Or know too little to affirm that Shade
Shaved in his bath, here goes: “He’d fixed a sort
Of hinge-and-screw affair, a steel support
Running across the tub to hold in place
The shaving mirror right before his face
And with his toe renewing tap-warmth, he’d
Sit like a king there, and like Marat bleed.”

…

My Adam’s apple is a prickly pear:
Now I speak of evil and despair
As none has spoken. Five, six, seven, eight,
Nine strokes are not enough. Ten. I palpate
Through strawberry-and-cream the gory mess
And find unchanged that patch of prickliness.

I have my doubts about the one-armed bloke
Who in commercials with one gliding stroke
Clears a smooth path of flesh from ear to chin,
Then wipes his face and fondly tries his skin.

…

Now I shall speak…better than any soap
Is the sensation for which poets hope
When inspiration and its icy blaze,
The sudden image, the immediate phrase
Over the skin a tripe ripple send
Making all the little hairs stand on end
As in the enlarged animated scheme
Of whiskers mowed when held up by Our Cream.

…

And while the safety blade with scrape and screak
Travels across the country of my cheek,
Cars on the highway pass, and up the steep
Incline big trucks around my jawbone creep,
And now a silent liner docks, and now
Sunglassers tour Beirut, and now I plough
Old Zembla’s fields where my gray stubble grows,
And slaves make hay between my mouth and nose.