The poet drinks, he stinks, he pees in sinks.
The audience, superior as shrinks,
Appraise a life amusingly in tatters.
How they appreciate a play that flatters
Their minds with chat about artistic matters!
And how much more they savour nods and winks
And saucy homosexual high-jinks!
They go home thinking:
‘Poets? Mad as hatters!
They drink, you know! They stink! They pee in sinks!’
*****
George Simmers writes: “Alan Bennett’s 2009 play The Habit of Art deals with the later life of W.H. Auden, and deals frankly with Auden’s sexual and hygenic peculiarities, as well as giving a sense of the poet’s talent. Looking back on his poem, written soon after seeing a performance at the National Theatre, I was more annoyed by the sniggering audience of London sophisticates than by Bennett’s play, which has interesting things to say about the relationship between poetry and the fallible humans who create it.”
George Simmers used to be a teacher; now he spends much of his time researching literature written during and after the First World War. He has edited Snakeskin since 1995. It is probably the oldest-established poetry zine on the Internet. His work appears in several Potcake Chapbooks. ‘Trigger Warning’ is from his ‘Old and Bookish‘ collection of poems.
https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/
http://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/
“The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett, National Theatre, London” by chrisjohnbeckett is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Form in Formless Times 
I just read a long biography of Auden which was quite frank about his love life, but failed to mention peeing in sinks.
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Maybe the biographer didn’t have access to that information! (Or maybe Bennett just made it up?)
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Excellent. I like George Simmers’ work and have a copy of Old and Bookish on my shelf. I recommend it to all, whether you’re old, bookish or otherwise.
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Both his poetry and his work as editor of Snakeskin are excellent. He must have been a wonderful schoolteacher.
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To continue to steer the good ship Snakeskin through the treacherous waters of today (with countless webzines floundering all around it) is nothing short of a triumph. As for his days as a teacher: he must have been as charismatic as one of my favourites poets, also a teacher, Charles Causley.
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