Byron in Reply to his Biographer
(Benita Eisler)

The woman seems to think that I'm indecent
who has rummaged through my private affairs
and aired my dirty laundry, old and recent,
while examining the pubic hairs
of Lady Caroline in my apartment
and reported - hiding behind the chairs -
on what was said. The things I would have said
to her would be severely edited.

How could anybody have presumed
to know what I said to x in 1810,
my life a who's who of the love consumed,
the likes of which we'll never see again.
Seeing her, my lens would not have zoomed.
I wouldn't think she's known a lot of men,
though her intellect is like a gunnery
range. I'd put her in a nunnery.

I have Fielding on one side of me
and Goya on the other, caught between
the bawdy - women love inspite of me -
and a body count. Is that obscene,
while in knowing what's inside of me
she isn't certain what it all might mean.
Here's a thought for adding to my thought-crimes:
what if I'm a product of my times.

While the women were consensual
and I only use what I was born with
(though it's larger now) and an essential
part. The sinless person is a myth.
I sleep around, I guess I'm residential
with a restless mind, a monolithic
ego. She has cast a lot of stones,
the act of someone spending time alone.

Have you heard: variety is the spice
of life. The variation in a wife
is hard to find. I never said I'm nice.
The boredom thick, I cut it with a knife,
a lay-about, I need to be enticed
into existence, where I think what if
I sleep with her and her, it may be careless.
I got like this expanding my awareness

to include the most peripheral
of women, and I try to be inclusive.
Qualifying for a Raphael
is not the only test. It is elusive,
my morality and their ephemeral
beauty, which I only ask the use of
for an evening. I'm a son of a gun,
my affairs around a thousand and one.

Annabella, there's a kiss and tell.
I married her and managed to regret it,
her morality a living hell
for an aesthetic man. They just don't get it,
the reformers who are so compelled
to cramp my style, I never will forget it.
What else do I have to make my name:
a broken-down estate, a lack of shame,

a libido bigger than a house.
I admit it functions as a home-wrecker
now and then, and it would kill a horse.
I see a woman and I want to connect her
to the others. Some of them are whores,
while Benita is a rubber-necker
with a voyeurism of the historic.
If my girlfriends knew they'd be hysteric

and they'd hit her. I don't need a psycho-
logical account of my behavior,
counting all the ways that I'm a sicko
and a bad dad and I'm not a savior.
I just wish I had a motorcycle,
dropping off the dated, you can have her.
While the 1800's can be hard,
in the book I'm feathered, then I'm tarred.

We had pains and few amenities,
we had no over-the-counter mood enhancers
and no movies. So the nullities
of life required such a counter-balance
of the sensual, communities
of psychodrama, any naked dancer
you could lay your hands on. I'm unkind,
the women though weren't deaf and dumb and blind.

And consider this in my defense
(having been undressed I will address
the Parliament, the place is kind of tense.
It needs a change of pace: the men in dresses,
me half-naked, the women making comments,
and a politician soon confesses.
I digress, I'm just that kind of guy,
and I will do it 'til the day I die):

I was treated like a stereotype,
a modern idol and you lose respect
for those who do it, who are young and ripe
and I'm idealized in their selective
worldview, seeing a product of the hype
and going for it. I'm on disconnect
and sitting down, the women want to know
the cardboard figure standing by the window.

Even worse, they're looking for a role,
a part, and going for my private parts
like they're a prop and women have more soul
than any man. It makes the manual arts
attractive, the emotions take their toll,
my concentration tends to fall apart.
They want a poet, bringing him inside,
where he gets a dose of spermicide.

He is whipped, the woman is Correct
and suffocating, some are so prosaic
it's a wonder I can stay erect,
and so demanding I pretend I'm sick.
I'm sorry if I'm sounding so direct,
the women jump out of a bio-cake
and make a mess. It was a big mistake,
I should have stuck with homos on the make

and off the wall and often on the floor,
I would have had to hide it and I did.
It makes you wonder though what love is for
if you're not free to choose. A hominid,
a man, it doesn't matter, give me more
because my options have been limited.
The poems end and so does how I feel,
it's low-tide on a shore of the ideal.

I never saw the poet as a eunuch
of the perfect. The poetic heights
are in my head, I'm sticking out my neck
and acting noble. When it's Saturday night
I go the other way, I'm not unique,
I lower myself, I have to blur my sight.
I couldn't live as if I'm in a poem,
my feet don't rhyme. I tell you, "When in Rome…"