Taboo Against The Word Beauty, Postmodern Postmortem Poem by Allen Braden

Unless beauty's a nest of mice staking claim
to upholstery abandoned, the anonymous
tuft snagged on barbed wire or a tom named
Hope whose sixth toes keep him atop the ice

and snow (worst blizzard any soul can recall) :
unless a honeyed carcass jizzes up some parable
of value or draft horses ditch the gristmill
for the range, this numbskull poet feels terrible

(useless unless heartbroke) . His brain posted
against trespassers and poachers. Tell you what,
his number's up at last. Organs honeycombed

from elegies unforgiven. Heart like a stove-
up sump pump. Critics say he gave his left nut
for beauty, for one more dark loving poem.