When I was a young man
I couldn’t help noticing
that when young dogs
wanted to mate
they spent little if any
time on small talk
and conserved their energy
by getting down to business
as directly
and economically
as possible.

My contemporaries
on the other hand
approached those activities
which, we were taught
in our biology lessons,
were necessary for the prolongation
of the species, obliquely;
with preliminary conversation,
which, if not checked,
tended to become
not only the preliminary
but the main course as well.

When one opened one’s mouth,
one discovered that girls tended to think
that one was trying to be clever
and to be avoided,
or worse that one actually was clever
and to be avoided,
or one was really not clever,
which was better
since, properly handled,
one might be usefully employed
in carrying things
that needed carrying,
or opening doors
that needed opening,
or closing doors
which were already open
and needed closing,
or paying for things
that were needed
and needed paying for.

The playing fields in which all this prolixity
took place were called dance halls
where one went to .. er
to practise the preliminaries
of the prolongation of the species,
that is to say,
learn how to dance.

If, grasping the nettle
like young dogs
(so to speak),
we spent little if any
time on small talk
and conserved our energy
by getting down to business
as directly
and economically
as possible,
we were,
as economically as possible,

thrown out.

(Poem from GNOMONIC VERSES)

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