Paparazzi

Blood-leaches, swollen grossly fat
On vital fluids not their own;
The carrion-crow, who strips the bone
Of rotten flesh; the sewer rat

Who ekes existence from decay;
Pale maggot-worms, whose foul breath
Is putrid with the smell of death;
Dung beetles gorged on sewage; – they

Are nearest kin to these who cry
And clamor for a moral lapse,
And peck and scratch for gossip-scraps
From all who hold the public eye:

“Here’s this one, married yet again,
And he was with a common whore,
And this one, whom you all adore, –
See every private flaw and stain!”

And to the press. Their columns reek
Of moral filth and gruesome sin,
And they grow fat, and wallow in
The things which it is shame to speak.

– “But we print nothing that’s not so,
And they who acted are to blame,”
They spew, and clamor in their shame,
“The public has the right to know!”

Yes, woe to deeds reproachable,
And woe to him who reads and clucks –
But trebly woe to him who sucks
Subsistence from a human soul.

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