Comparisons With Auden Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I read a hundred pages of Auden for a lark.
I really want to like him, but what a jerk,
Addressing Lord Byron as if he were the Queen
Of New Denmark:
Keeping to his clever ways of rhyming, eyes
Closed in the dark- I think he should live forever,
Like a unicorn, or some other phallic faerie
His humor as quietly insincere as canine flatulence,
Tipping his glass and toasting to his own upper middle-class,
A real fine Mary; young Rimbaud, I’m fearing,
Is gravely more sincere, even one legged than that
Pickled herring. Even though some critics are fond
Of comparing those two alike, in such sentiment
I shouldn’t be sharing- It would be like coupling gold with
Bronze, is such a paring; or,
If we were to take a fieldtrip down the avenues of
Later day debutants, juxtaposing Charles Bukowski with
Silvia Plathe in a damp cellar is less crass:
One checks the oven, the other his liquor glass,
And it is up for the reader to decide what’s more worth sharing:
The celebrated letter-poor or the subject of this evening’s English
Class.