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Prologue
WOULDN’T it jar you, wouldn’t it make you sore | |
| To see the poet, when the goods play out, | |
| Crawl off of poor old Pegasus and tout | |
| His skate to two-step sonnets off galore? | |
| Then, when the plug, a dead one, can no more | 5 |
| Shake rag-time than a biscuit, right about | |
| The poem-butcher turns with gleeful shout | |
| And sends a batch of sonnets to the store. | |
| |
| The sonnet is a very easy mark, | |
| A James P. Dandy as a carry-all | 10 |
| For brain-fag wrecks who want to keep it dark | |
| Just why their crop of thinks is running small. | |
| On the low down, dear Mame, my looty loo, | |
| That ’s why I ’ve cooked this batch of rhymes for you. | |
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Epilogue
To just one girl I ’ve turned my sad bazoo, | 15 |
| Stringing my pipe-dream off as it occurred, | |
| And as I ’ve tipped the straight talk every word, | |
| If you don’t like it you know what to do. | |
| Perhaps you think I ’ve handed out to you | |
| An idle jest, a touch-me-not, absurd | 20 |
| As any sky-blue-pink canary bird, | |
| Billed for a record season at the Zoo. | |
| |
| If that ’s your guess you ’ll have to guess again, | |
| For thus I fizzled in a burst of glory, | |
| And this rhythmatic side-show doth contain | 25 |
| The sum and substance of my hard-luck story, | |
| Showing how Vanity is still on deck | |
| And Humble Virtue gets it in the neck. | |
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