From Slams of Life, with Malice for All And Charity Toward None Assembled in Rhyme by J. P. McEvoy, With black and white interruptions by Frank King, Chicago : P. F. Volland Company; 1919; pp. 26-49.
SLAMS OF LIFE
With Malice for All And Charity
Towards None
Assembled in Rhyme by
J. P. McEVOY
With black and white interruptions by
FRANK KING
[Part II.]
[26]
WELL, MEBBE SO — I DUNNO
They tell me these here Fourteen Points
Will pacify the war-like joints,
That there won’t be no war no more,
An’ no more gas an’ guns an’ gore,
An’ all the pugilistic hicks
Will put away their knives and bricks —
Well, mebbe so,
I dunno.
They tell me that this here, now, League
Will put an end to all intrigue,
That all the birds on land an’ sea
Will in their little nests agree,
An’ ’stead of treating others rough
Will bill an’ coo, an’ all that stuff,
Well, mebbe so,
I dunno.
The Bolshevik, I’m told by some,
Is not so altogether rum,
An’ others say the geek’s a curse,
While still more say he aint so worse,
An’ some say this, an’ some say that —
Do all these guys know where they’re at?
Well, mebbe so,
I dunno.
“It is the war” they told us guys
When all the prices hit the skies,
An’ now when prices still increase,
These eggs retort: “It is the peace”;
Some cry “Supply!” — some yell “Demand!”
They say we boobs can’t understand.
Well, mebbe so,
I dunno.
[27]
BAWP-BAWP-BAWP-BAWP-PA
I’ve heard the sweet song of Enrico Carus’,
And the silver chin-chinning that Bryan can loose,
And the soothing palaver that falls on the ear
When a son of old Erin is throwing the queer;
The lorelei lure of the larynx de luxe
May tweak the tympana of garrulous gooks,
But sweet as syllabical silver can be
It sounds like an oyster in pain by the sea,
For today my young Dorothy Mary McE.,
Said “Bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa”
to me.
The Greeks in their time had of talkers a score
Who slung a mean syllable over the floor,
Isaeus, Aeschines, Demosthenes, too,
Bounced words off the welkin until it was blue,
But great as Isaeus — and take it from Pliny
He had it on Sunday, Bert Williams and Tinny —
And great as Demosthenes, down by the sea,
Whose words were as verdure that leans on the lea,
They pale before Dorothy Mary McE.,
For now she says “
Bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa” to me.
I hope when I turn in at last for The Sleep,
And flit up the ladder so golden and steep,
St. Peter will give me a seat in the rear —
The gall’ry will do, where I’ll sit down and hear.
(Can angels sit down?) Well, no matter, I’ll sit
And hark while the cherubim warble a bit.
No doubt ’twill be grand — they’ve had practice, you
see,
But all them there Cherubim singing their glee
Won’t tug at my heart, nor as sweet will it be
As when she says “Bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa” to
me.
[28]
THE GIRLS OF TODAY
I wonder why the flappers wear
That tired, bored and sated air,
Why ennui sits upon their brows
And nothing can their spirits rouse;
Dispassionate and blank their gaze,
And laissez-faire their weary ways.
Chic little chits who yesterday
Were giggling in their girlish way
Are now sophisticated vamps
With sinful, soulful, sea-green lamps;
They’ve lived and suffered, Oh! so much!
And life is a dead sea fruit they touch.
So would the average man surmise
From the hollow stare of their browless eyes,
“These,” he would say, “have played and lost,
They’ve shook with fate and paid the cost;
Once by one in the awful gloom
They’ve followed their hopes to a sunless tomb,
There in the desolate dust to lay
The dear, dead dreams of their yesterday.”
These lidless, lifeless saurian stares
That meet your gaze on the thoroughfares,
That chill your soul in the milling mart,
That numb our brain and freeze your heart;
Do they bespeak the souls within —
Sodden souls of soil and sin?
Ah, no, these children look blasé
’Cause Theda Bara looks that way;
And life evokes a weary smile
Because, just now, it is the style;
They all mean well, the little dears
But some one ought to pull their ears.
[29]
SHOWING UP THE CARTOONERS
I have seen a wistful victim
Gaily belted on the attic
For a minor indiscretion
Or a sentiment erratic;
I have seen him castigated
With a dornick on the bean,
With a mission-freighted missile
Shunted swiftly o’er the scene;
I have watched the pert pulsations
Of a vibratory bludgeon
On the flat cephalic onion
Of a turbulent curmudgeon,
But he never did his exit,
Oh, he never did, I swear!
As the cute cartooners draw him: —
With his feet up in the air.
I have seen a fellow-mortal
Do a brodie in the drink,
Take a header in the dampness,
Try a Kellerman and sink,
Yes, go down as would a biscuit
Manufactured by a bride,
Coming back to see the surface
With some bubbles on the side;
I have seen a fellow-mortal
Go beneath the lapping wave
To what fancy fiction writers
Deftly call a “watery grave,”
I have seen him drown completely —
Rotten luck! —but here’s the rub:
When he struggled to the surface
He did NOT remark “Glub glub.”
[30]
THE WIFIE’S NOSE FOR NEWS
If the Joneses get a baby or the Johnsons get the pip,
Or the Smithses have another family fight;
If the girl across the alley gets a husband or the grippe,
I will have the why and what of it tonight;
For my wife knows when a tenant and the landlord
have a jam,
And why the man next door is death on booze,
She is jerry to the gossip, she is hep to all what am,
For wifie has a nimble nose for news:
So she has,
A nimble, neat and nifty nose for news!
Does Tom Jollicks come home pickled she can tell
you when and why,
And the price they soaked Miss Smithers for that lid,
Where did Sarah Whatyoucallit get that shanty on her
eye?
Did her husband give her that? You bet he did.
Where does Mrs. Beecher go (shrug! shrug!) and spend
her afternoons?
Why do Arnolds have to live on oyster stews?
Who had tea with Mrs. Fletcher and departed with
her spoons?
Ask my wife, she’s got the nimble nose for news!
Yea, bo!
A most uncanny, nifty nose for news.
O, she knows that Mrs. Julip has to rouge and wears
a wig,
And Miss Rooney’s shape was purchased in a store,
That a young and handsome doctor calls a lot on Mrs.
Figg
(And she so healthy, too) — but say no more!
And the Gores are sharps at poker, well, in fact they
play to eat,
[31]
And the clubs have sued that stuck-up Smythe for
dues,
O, the information bureau in my home is hard to beat,
And harder still my wifie’s nose for news!
Some nose!
Her nimble, neat and nifty nose for news!
So I warn you all, my neighbors, I am wise to all you
do,
I am jerry to the whyness of your which,
It is vain to flaunt pretensions, for I know your sala-
ries, too,
And I know if you are poor or if you’re rich;
I know all your secret sorrow, all your loves and all
your hates,
All your problems, your successes, and your blues;
What your wife has told my wife to me nightly she
relates,
And she’s got a keen, uncanny nose for news;
So she has!
A nimble, neat and nifty nose for news!
[32]
BITTER LINES TO A NON-SKID
AUTO SALESMAN
You hound of hell, you’re on my trail
You hunt me night and day,
You dog my weary footsteps
In a pestilential way,
You haunt my busy office,*
You hang around my home,
I cannot shake you off my track,
No matter where I roam.
I met you at the auto show
And foolishly I cried,
“Your car looks pretty good to me,”
And then I crawled inside.
A wolfish gleam lit up your eyes,
Your fangs were crool and white,
How happy I’d be now if I
Had wrung your neck that night.
For day and night from that day on
You call me on the phone,
Sometimes you hunt with other ghouls
But mostly hunt alone.
You send me letters, postal cards,
And cables and dispatches,
In avalanches, groups and scads,
In bunches, bales and batches.
You non-skid auto salesman, you,
You grim rapacious spectre,
Oh, take your beak from out my heart,
Your form from out my sector.
Disperse, begone and leave me be,
My life no longer mar;
I do not want your gol darn bus,
I do not want your car.
* Adv.
[33]
REMARKS ON BABY SHOES
Every morning — or at least ’most every morning —
As I beat it to the cold and clanging mart
To annex the beer and skittles that comprise my daily
vittles
Comes a warning from the wifie of my heart;
comes a warning and a tocsin and a message
With a frequency that nullifies the news;
“There was something for today — Let me see — Oh,
by the way,
The baby needs another pair of shoes.”
“Shoes?” says I.
“Shoes?” says she,
“The baby needs another pair of shoes.”
Now, the petals of the poppy bloom are fleeting
And the beaded bubbles vanish on the brim,
And my weekly compensation knows a rapid dessication
Quite inimical to vigor, verve, and vim;
There’s a transitory value to the plaudit,
And ephemeral the honor that ensues,
But the absolute quintessence of the perfect evanescence
Are those frail and fragile things called baby shoes.
Ain’t it the truth?
Those pale and puerile, weak, ethereal shoes.
Oh, the shoes I blindly buy for sturdy leather
They are fashioned from the wings of butterflies,
And are merely held together by some forecasts on the
weather
And some female no’s and other kinds of lies;
And they vanish like the eggs of Easter Sunday,
And they disappear in bevies, squads, and slews,
Yes sir, tempus sure can fugit I will grant you,
But it hasn’t got a thing on baby shoes.
Alas, no,
It hasn’t got a thing on baby shoes.
[34]
A MODERN ROMANCE
(I’ll say it is)
The sun was setting in the West,
A quaint old custom it has got,
Belasco batting at his best
Could not have picked a better spot.
He drew her close and closer yet,
And closer still he drew and drew,
“I love you Aniline,” he cried,
“Do you love me?” and she replied
“I’ll say I do!”
And hours passed and in the sky
The argent moon on pallid feet
Stole softly through the clouds on high
(I think those first three lines are neat),
And then he said, “I love you, dear,
“My heart is beating fit to kill,
Oh, tell me that you’ll marry me,”
And soft and low she said to he,
“I’ll say I will.”
And so to church! Oh, bellsome morn,
And Oh, the lovely glad array,
The victim pale and slightly worn,
The bride, of course, and why not? — gay.
The preacher pried his book apart
And read a fatal line or two.
“Do you,” says he, “take this here guy?”
And sweet and clear was her reply:
“I’ll say I do!”
P. S. I’ll say she did!
[36]
WHAT THE AVERAGE MAN THINKS
There are topics more impressive I will grant you,
There are subjects more instructive, too, I know;
Hypothetical abstractions which appeal to sundry fac-
tions
On the wherewith and the why-such and the so;
Subject-matter categoric, pedagogic and historic,
Oh they clutter up the tomes upon the shelf;
All this wondrous information
I should use in conversation,
But —
I much prefer to talk about myself.
It is true that they are fighting in the trenches,
And a spot has been discovered on the sun,
That the trains are running largo since the recent
freight embargo
And the ban is on the bottle and the bun;
And I guess I should discuss them on the corners,
And gibber on the Ghibelline and Guelph,
I should give them cogitation
When I sling the conversation,
But, I much prefer to talk about myself.
I could take of Homer, Euclid, Taine and Plato,
Aristotle, Sophocles and Eddie Poe,
I could make some fancy passes on osmosis of the
gasses
And a lot of other trinkets that I know;
I could talk of old Directum and the well-known Solar
Spectrum
And Hypotenuses, Chlorophyl and Pelf,
But there’s nothing in creation
That so fills me with elation
As to sit around and talk about myself,
Just me!
For I dearly love to talk about myself.
[37]
A PLEA FOR CHICAGO HUSBANDS
A husband of the local sort
Is not a handsome guy.
He is an injury and a tort
To almost any eye;
But though the poor benighted pup
Has neither charm nor vim,
He begs you not to shoot him up
For life is sweet to him.
The members of the husband clan,
If taken by and large,
(And they are “taken” to the man)
Are graceful like a barge,
And haven’t half the mental weight
That any wife has got,
But still they firmly deprecate
This thing of being shot.
This casual, offhand sorter way
Chicago wives have found
Of winding up a perfect day
By chasing hubby ’round
With forty-fours that tear a hole
At least two feet across,
And leave a husband, rest his soul!
A sad and total loss.
An open season once a year
When husbands could be shot,
As in the case of game and deer
Would be a happier lot,
But wives, we beg you hesitate,
Your daily shooting cease,
For we would like to molt and mate
And raise our young in peace.
[38]
GETTING EVEN
The Russians sent a caviar, the Germans sent a carp
And Italians the sinuous spaghet’,
The English sent a sparrow
So our feelings he could harrow
And the Spaniards shipped a Spanish om-e-let;
And from France they eased a dressing
That’s no apostolic blessing,
And the Greeks a Grecian bend that made us sick,
And from Scotland came the thistle, and a lotion for
our whistle,
So America retorted with the pic, moving pic,
And with Chaplin and his custard and his brick.
From the Mexican con carne with the accent on the con;
From the Cossack, curse his heart! we got the boot,
And the blouses from the Bulgar,
Chromotogenous and vulgar,
And the Hielands gave us golluf and the hoot;
From New-found-land came the codfish,
An extremely oily odd fish,
And Vienna furnished waltzes sad and sweet,
So for all this provocation, we, in grim retaliation,
Gave them Theda Bara’s vamp and Charley’s feet,
Rather neat!
Charley’s custard pie, his padded brick and feet.
The Japanese assaulted us with Fujuyama prints,
And the Chinaman with suey a la chop,
And with holeses full of wheezes,
Came the little Swisses Cheeses,
While the Hessians furnished flies for every crop;
Hung’ry gave us of her goulash
Which is nourishing but foulash,
While old Ireland gave the shamrock and the stick!
So in sweet reciprocatoin, we arose, a mighty nation,
And repaid the bunch with Chaplin’s padded brick,
Padded brick,
Yes, with Charley’s custard pie and padded brick.
[39]
THE HIGH COST OF LICKER
It used to be that one could get a mellow point of view
From beaker, cask, or bottle for a dollar, say, or two;
That one could purchase comfort and nepenthe by the
quart,
And the bill would not resemble a statistical report;
One didn’t have to float a loan or sacrifice the crop
To get that swell reaction where you want to kiss a cop;
The weekly snub would buy enough to clutter up the
house,
But now it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse.
The bibber of the bottle and the chauffer of the can
Was once a lowly member of a poor benighted clan,
And the clergy climbed his lattice with avidity and vim,
And they brayed him in the mortar of the potent
paradigm;
But the beacon on the beezer and the inspissated
speech,
Once the signs of destitution, now a different moral
teach —
Now to see a lushy geezer makes my jealous pangs
arouse,
For today it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse.
So, reader, should you notice as you walk along the
street
A man who seems to suffer with impediment of feet,
A man who stops before you with a light and airy
mien
And presents you to a tiger with a polka-dotted bean,
Do not eye him cold and distant, do not bash him on
the hat,
For today the malted mammal is the true aristocrat;
He may be squiffy scion of an old and honored
house —
Today it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse.
[40]
THE SONG OF THE MOVIE VAMP
I am the Moving Picture Vamp, insidious and tropical,
The Lorelei of celluloid, the lure kaleidoscopical,
Calorific and sinuous, voluptuous and canicular,
And when it comes to picking pals, I ain’t a bit
particular.
At times I loll in languid ease, at others I am squirm-
ical,
My art is anatomical and also epidermical.
I vamp the silly single cuss, I also vamp the married
man,
The placid, the tempestuous, the satisfied and harried
man.
My eyes are long delirious eyes, liquescent eyes and
luminous,
And when you look in them you feel just like you’re in
a stewminous.
I send a ripple down your keel, I agitate your livah,
sir —
For I am most equivocal — with the accent on the
quivah, sir —
In short, I am the movie vamp, the sheezabeara
tropical,
The Scylla of the celluloid, the lorelei vox popical,
In turns I am demoniac, appealing, sly and clerical,
Ambiguous, sophisticated, wistful and hysterical
But mostly you will find that I’m extremely tom-and-
jerrycal.
[41]
LINES TO SUMMER FURS
Absquatulating all night and day
Along the, well, as you might say, way
Around their cervical vertebrae
I see the ladies
Wear furs, that look, I rise to say
Like Hades.
Why the gazelles should sport the coy
And epidermical pride and joy
Of our zoological hoi polloi
In such a silly
Inconsequential, insipid toy
Is one on Willie.
The fair, in a manner of speaking, sex
Would bounce on the unregenerate necks
Of the soulless, heartless masculine wrecks
Who said that furses
Impugn the existence of intellects
In she’s and herses.
But the echinated, hispidulous stole
Of cuticle swiped from squirrel and mole,
Siberian hound and tabby (pole)
Is a good credential
And proof sufficient that fashion’s goal
Is non-essential.
[42]
LINES OF ENTREATY TO FRIEND WIFE
Miss Venus (I have it direct from the bard)
Was booko bambina, considerable pard,
A luscious collection, a larrupin’ lass,
A lallapaloosa, an armful of class,
And crammed and suffused with perfections, I hear —
A 36-28-42 dear.
But think you Miss Venus would shine in the mob
If poets had seen her eat corn on the cob?
Young Dido, I’m told, was a coruscant coot,
A cunning chiquita, a darb, and a beaut,
The poets were loud in their praises of she,
Especially Virgil, Oh, rabid was he,
But granting her speed and no cylinders missin’,
And grant her deserving a stop, look and listen,
Still Dido, the pippin, would look like a slob
If she were observed eating corn on the cob.
And Helen of Troy had speed, curves, and control,
Full many a geezer she knocked for a goal,
But she wasn’t hep to the succulent maize,
Which fact, I contend, vastly bettered her ways;
For who could attribute charm, beauty, or grace
To a girl one has seen eating corn with her face?
So wife of my buzzum, pay heed to this blob
And don’t, I implore you, eat corn on the cob.
[43]
A SLAM ON SLAMS
When weaving ruminative rimes
To soothe the drowsy Sunday ear,
’Tis quite convenient at times
To have a tangible idear —
To hold a figment, say of thought,
A sop of sense, a feeble fact
On which a stanza may be wrought
And rows of running words be racked.
As I remarked, exuding verse
Of scintillating smack and snap
In fabrication ain’t so worse
When there’s a core of sense to wrap,
Or flock of rare afflatus swish
From out the azure, so to speak,
And lure poetical ambish
To zam the zither on the beak.
As hinted in the lines above,
The larrup of the lyric lay
Is consomme for any cove
With something on his mind to say;
but when his gears are full of grime,
And when he feels his engine miss,
He merely grabs some words that rime
And rattles off a verse like this.
[44]
NEVER ARGUE WITH A WOMAN
I remember when my father spoke these wondrous
words to me:
“Never argue with a woman; it will be the death of
thee;
They are full of conversation, they are cluttered up
with speech,
And their talk is as the beating of the breakers on
the beach.
Socrates, the wisest human, though he tried it all
his life,
Never won a single verdict when he argued with his
wife.”
But I answered: “Dad, you’re flooey, you are vacant
in the pan.
Woman cannot reason clearly — so they can’t out-
argue man.”
O, I really thought they couldn’t,
I was pretty sure they couldn’t,
In fact, I knew they couldn’t —
But they can!
Yes, the female of the species is more deadly with
the chin,
And the way they sling the chatter is a grievous,
mortal sin.
They will talk on any subject on the slightest prov-
ocation
And when differed with attack you with extravagant
elation;
If you’re wrong they’ll quickly right you, if you’re
right you must be wrong,
Therefore, don’t be slow to say so, say it quick and
make it strong,
For they’ll argue, yawp, and chatter, ’till you’re
dizzy, dazed and ill,
[45]
And you’d barter your salvation for a cure to keep
’em still.
O, I used to think they wouldn’t,
I was pretty sure they wouldn’t,
In fact, I knew they wouldn’t —
But they will!
“Never argue with a woman,” I recall those words so
well.
They will talk you to a frazzle, they will talk you to
a jell.
Though their logic may be looney and their syllo-
gisms punk,
And their premises be rotten, their conclusions full
of bunk,
And your dope authoritative and of stuff they never
heard,
They will quickly prove you’re crazy and your line
of talk absurd;
And they’ll dearly love to do it, love to talk you up
a flue,
Talk and talk and talk and chatter ’till your mind
is full of goo.
O, I used to think they didn’t,
I was pretty sure they didn’t,
In fact, I knew they didn’t —
But they do!
[46]
THE CRIME WAVE
I know we have policemen here,
In this, our lovely town,
Because I see them frequently
Meandering aroun’,
And now and then, when I have time
To read the thrilling news,
I see where they have just unearthed
A brand new batch if clues.
A bank was robbed the other day,
I mean another one,
And all the bandits got away,
With all the checks and mon.
But our police were on the job,
(They nevver nap nor snooze)
And in a week or two they had
A lot of lovely clues.
Most every night a citizen,
Returning from his job,
Is overtaken by a crook
And hammered on the nob.
But who could seriously regret
The valuables they lose,
When well they know that in return
They’ll get a lot of clues!
Some people sneeringly deride
The system here in play
Of letting all the thieving thugs
Go thugging on their way.
They say that our policemen shirk,
But those are not my views,
I know the cops are on the job —
Just look at all the clues.
[48]
MY WIFE’S BROTHER RAYMOND
Perhaps you imagined Napoleon was class,
And Alex the Great might get in on a pass,
And Little George Wash’ was a lala, and so
Were Caesar and Lincoln and Newton and Poe,
If you did, just forget it — they’re all on the shelf;
They don’t class with Raymond
My wife’s brother Raymond.
He’s got them all faded — she says so herself.
I harbored delusions that Shakespeare could write,
That Euclid could figure and Hector could fight,
That Bach could compose and that Chopin could play,
And Angelo sculpture and paint any day;
But I was mistaken, I freely confess:
They don’t class with Raymond,
My wife’s brother Raymond,
He does all of those things — only better, my yes!
One day I took wifie to hear Elman play,
“Reminds me of Raymond,” she said right away,
And when Paderewski had finished a valse,
She said “Just like Raymond, but HE don’t play false.”
I asked “Don’t you thing John McCormack can sing?”
She chortled “Like Raymond?
Oh, no, not like Raymond,
He’ll do, but my brother’s the regular thing.”
Attila, Ossian, Elijah and Saul,
Copernicus, Newton and Peter and Paul,
Elias, Vespasian, Brian Boru,
And Lydia Pinkham and Henry Ford, too,
You all did your best, but the best that you did
Would never feaze Raymond,
My wife’s brother Raymond,
He’d do it while resting, the marvelous kid.
[49]
My wants they are few and they’re small in the pod,
I long not for acres, not even a clod,
I yearn not for riches, nor hanker for fame,
A pot now and then is enough in the game,
I’ve just one ambition: some day may my wife
Compare me with Raymond,
Say “You’re just like Raymond!”
Then I’ll die content — I’ll have made good in life.
