Newspaper Poetry

Author: desperaudio

  • Fashion’s Rule

    From the Evening Star, April 16, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    There is a reason for each thing
        That time brings to attention;
    Though sudden changes often bring
        A state of apprehension.
    Somebody wears a funny hat,
        His friends straightway go dashin’
    To get some headgear just like that
        Because it is the fashion.

    Somebody uses language queer,
        And others imitate it.
    An epigram we chance to hear
        And straightway all orate it,
    Not for the thought it may contain
        Nor poetry nor passion;
    We simply hand it out again
        Because it is the fashion.

    A stock wakes up some morning fine.
        Somebody thinks he’ll try it.
    The word is passed along the line
        And many rush to buy it.
    Few of them pause to calculate
        As ticker talk comes flashin’.
    It booms at an amazing rate
        Because it is the fashion.

  • A Gentleman’s Trade

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 15, 1915.

    When gentlemen wearied of castle and court
        In kingdoms that flourished of yore,
    They deemed it a pleasant and elegant sport
        To mix for a while in war,
    And skill with the mace and the crossbow and lance—
        Good well-seasoned killing ability—
    Enrolled a man’s name on the scroll of romance
        As a person of lofty gentility.

    When guns were invented the man who could aim
        With a steady and murderous eye
    Was the man who excelled in the gentleman’s game
        And whose rank was uncommonly high.
    Nobility rated according as men
        In murder grew cunning and keen;
    The gentle killed five and the gentler killed ten,
        While the gentlest killed twelve or fifteen.

    And now, when the howitzers mow down a crowd
        With a single discharge of a shell,
    The gentlemen soldiers should feel very proud
        For they seem to be doing quite well.
    When sometimes a couple of thousand or more
        Are slaughtered by one cannonade,
    It can’t be denied that the business of war
        Is still a real gentleman’s trade.

  • Time’s Revenge

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, April 14, 1915.

    I used to call you Carrots, dear,
        When we were girl and boy;
    I called you Ginger, too—I fear,
        With purpose to annoy.
    I held my hands above your head
        To warm my fingers cold,
    And it made you cry in the days gone by—
        But now your hair is gold!

    I used to call you Sorrel, dear,
        When you were small in frocks;
    But now you reign without a peer,
        My darling Goldilocks!
    For time’s revenge has come to you,
        And I am all forlorn
    In the silken snare of your glorious hair,
        With its aureole of morn.

    I used to call you Candy Drop
        When you were just a girl,
    And Mustard Seed and Sandy Top
        And Dandelion Curl;
    But now your head has won a light
        Like fields of summer wheat;
    I long to hold each lock of gold
        That binds me to your feet.

    I used to pull the tangled knots—
        Oh memory of shame!
    I called aloud for water pots
        To quench the ruddy flame.
    But now it is my heart that burns
        While you are cold and coy,
    And my life I’d dare for the golden hair
        That I laughed at when a boy.

  • The Road to Homeland

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, April 13, 1915. By George V. Hobart.

    There’s a big road in the city
        That they call the Great White Way,
    Where the bright lights—staring white lights—
        Turn the night time into day;
    But you’re lonely when you walk it,
        For you want once more to find
    In the shadows, in the darkness,
        That old road you left behind.

    It’s the old road back to Homeland,
        It’s the outcast’s only goal,
    Where the ever-cruel white lights
        Throw no shadows on your soul.
    It’s the old road back to childhood,
        It’s the road you want to roam,
    With the stars above to guide you—
        It’s the road to Home Sweet Home!

  • ’Spacially Jim

    From The Bridgeport Evening Farmer, April 12, 1915. By Bessie Morgan.

    I was mighty good lookin’ when I wus young,
        Peert an’ black-eyed an’ slim.
    With fellers a-courtin’ me Sunday nights
        ‘Spacially Jim.

    The likeliest one of ‘em all wus he,
        Chipper an’ han’som an’ trim,
    But I tossed up my head an’ made fun o’ the crowd,
        ‘Spacially Jim.

    I said I hadn’t no ‘pinion o’ men,
        An’ I wouldn’t take stock in him,
    But they kep on a-comin’ in spite o’ my talk,
        ‘Spacially Jim.

    I got so tired o’ havin’ ‘em round,
        ‘Spacially Jim!
    I made up my mind I’d settle down
        An’ take up with him.

    So we wus married on Sunday in church,
        ’Twus crowded full to the brim.
    ‘Twus the only way to get rid of ‘em all—
        ‘Spacially Jim.

  • The Flutes of April

    From The Sun, April 11, 1915. By Clinton Scollard.

    Don’t you hear the flutes of April calling clear and calling cool
    From the crests that front the morning, from the hidden valley pool,
    Runes of rapture half forgotten, tunes wherein old passions rule?

    Passions for the sweet earth beauty hidden long and hidden deep
    Underneath the seal of silence in the vasts of winter sleep,
    Now unleashed and now unloosened once again to pulse and leap!

    Don’t you hear the flutes of April, like the ancient pipes of Pan
    Summoning each slumbering kindred, summoning each drowsing clan,
    Sounding a far borne reveille to the laggard heart of man!

    Bidding every seed to quicken, bidding every root to climb,
    Thrilling every thew and fibre as with some ecstatic rhyme,
    Setting floods of sap to dancing upward in triumphant time!

    Don’t you hear the flutes of April blowing under sun and star
    Virginal as is the dawning, tender as dim twilights are,
    With the vital breath of being prisoned in each rhythmic bar?

    With their lyric divination, prescience of all things fair,
    With their magic transmutation, guerdon for each soul to share,
    Don’t you hear the flutes of April wafted down the April air?

  • The Glory of the Garden

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 10, 1915. By Rudyard Kipling.

    Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
    Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
    With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
    But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

    For where the old thick laurels grow along the thin red wall,
    You’ll find the tool and potting sheds which are the heart of all,
    The cold frames and the hothouses, the dung pits and the tanks,
    The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

    And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and ’prentice boys
    Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
    For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
    The glory of the garden it abideth not in words.

    And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
    And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
    But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
    For the glory of the garden occupieth all who come.

    Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
    By singing, “Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade
    While better men than we go out and start their working lives
    At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives.

    There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick,
    There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick,
    But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done,
    For the glory of the garden glorifieth every one.

    Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
    If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
    And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden
    You will find yourself a partner in the glory of the garden.

    Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
    That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
    So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
    For the glory of the garden that it may not pass away!
    And the glory of the garden it shall never pass away!

  • The Baby

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 9, 1915. By Victor Hugo.

    Like the tiny glint of light piercing through the dusty gloom
    Comes her little laughing face through the shadows of my room.

    And my pen forgets its way as it hears the patt’ring tread
    While her prattling treble tones chase the thought from out my head.

    She is queen and I her slave, one who loves her and obeys
    For she rules her world of home with imperious baby ways.

    In she dances, calls me “Dear!” turns the pages of my books
    Thrones herself upon my knee, takes my pen with laughing looks.

    Makes disorder reign supreme, turns my papers upside down,
    Draws me cabalistic signs, safe from fear of any frown.

    Crumples all my verses up, pleased to hear the crackling sound;
    Makes them into balls, and then—flings them all upon the ground.

    Suddenly she flits away, leaving me alone again
    With a warmth about my heart, and a brighter, clearer brain.

    And although the thoughts return that her coming drove away
    The remembrance of her laugh lingers with me through the day.

    And it chances, as I write, I may take a crumpled sheet
    On which, God knoweth why! read my fancies twice as sweet.

  • Company K

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, April 8, 1915. By Gilbert Fletcher.

    He sang and hummed in his workshop,
        Whittled and carved all day,
    That the children of many nations
        Could have his toys for play.

    Rank after rank of soldiers,
        Wonderfully finished and done,
    Stood on the shelves above him,
        Armed with their wooden guns.

    Company I was finished.
        He was carving at Company K,
    Dreaming of children who’d love them
        In lands that were far away.

    Dreamed of a child commander,
        Of his wooden soldiers arow,
    Facing a Teddy bear peril,
        Bent on destroying the foe.

    Laughed and sang and was happy,
        As he thought of these men at war,
    When the bear charged in among them
        And scattered them over the floor.

    Company K is unfinished,
        Unpainted and covered with dust.
    Their helmets are tarnished and dingy
        And speckled with spots of rust.

    They have waited long in this armory shop
        For the swing of the workshop door,
    Trying to fathom and figure the time
        That he will be gone to war.

    So they can’t understand why this woman
        Cried in this shop today
    As she tenderly kissed the dusty men
        Who were to be Company K.

  • A Mother’s Vision

    From the Rock Island Argus, April 7, 1915. By Gertrude Hockridge.

    Sitting alone in the firelight, with aged head bent low
    Over some little garments that were worn in the long ago,
    A woman, old and faded, was dreaming of other years
    And the faces of absent loved ones she saw through a mist of tears.

    All was silent; no echo of footfalls swift and gay;
    The dancing feet of her children had wandered far away.
    Busy and happy and thoughtless, they were scattered far and wide;
    All grown to be men and women—save the little boy who died.

    It was strange that of all the children, he should feel tonight so near.
    His little grave had been covered by the snows of many a year;
    Yet she fancied she saw him enter, that she saw him standing there,
    His blue eyes clear and smiling, the light on his curling hair.

    And a voice spoke from the silence, saying, “This for you I kept;
    But my meaning you could not fathom when for your child you wept.
    The living have left your hearthstone, but with you he shall abide
    In the beauty of deathless childhood, your little boy who died.”