Suttee Poem by Tony Jennett

Die woman! Please! Just give up and die.
Your tangled life-line warps my strangled dissembling smile.
Juggernaut logic tears my tortured bowel:
Says you must go. And this I must hide away?
And watch your trembling lips renew your firm avowal
To stay?

Sink woman! Just pull the plug and sink!
So tired a hull should duck its nose and slither under
Under such gross and growing cancerous cargo
But groaning strength in frame and strake remain
Untutored in the way to burst asunder
My keening heart adds but a largo
To your pain

Peace woman! Christ's nails! Give me peace
Now your bewildered intermittent mind no longer rails-
Accepts its last, healing opiate suture
Now that your splendid eyes have lost their fire
You cannot see my smoking entrails
Writhing on your future
Funeral pyre.