Spoon River Anthology Part 11

Carl Hamblin

THE press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, And I was tarred and feathered, For publis.h.i.+ng this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago: "l saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes Standing on the steps of a marble temple.

Great mult.i.tudes pa.s.sed in front of her, Lifting their faces to her imploringly.

In her left hand she held a sword.

She was brandis.h.i.+ng the sword, Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer, Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.

In her right hand she held a scale; Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.

A man in a black gown read from a ma.n.u.script: "She is no respecter of persons."

Then a youth wearing a red cap Leaped to her side and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the bandage.

And lo, the lashes had been eaten away From the oozy eye-lids; The eye-b.a.l.l.s were seared with a milky mucus; The madness of a dying soul Was written on her face-- But the mult.i.tude saw why she wore the bandage."

Editor Whedon

To be able to see every side of every question; To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long; To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose, To use great feelings and pa.s.sions of the human family For base designs, for cunning ends, To wear a mask like the Greek actors-- Your eight-page paper--behind which you huddle, Bawling through the megaphone of big type: "This is I, the giant."

Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief, Poisoned with the anonymous words Of your clandestine soul.

To scratch dirt over scandal for money, And exhume it to the winds for revenge, Or to sell papers, Crus.h.i.+ng reputations, or bodies, if need be, To win at any cost, save your own life.

To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization, As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track And derails the express train.

To be an editor, as I was.

Then to lie here close by the river over the place Where the sewage flows from the village, And the empty cans and garbage are dumped, And abortions are hidden.

Eugene Carman

RHODES, slave! Selling shoes and gingham, Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day long For fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen days For more than twenty years.

Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you"

A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.

Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial."

And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year For more than an hour at a time, Because Thomas Rhodes ran the church As well as the store and the bank.

So while I was tying my neck-tie that morning I suddenly saw myself in the gla.s.s: My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie.

So I cursed and cursed: You d.a.m.ned old thing You cowardly dog! You rotten pauper!

You Rhodes' slave! Till Roger Baughman Thought I was having a fight with some one, And looked through the transom just in time To see me fall on the floor in a heap From a broken vein in my head.

Clarence Fawcett

THE sudden death of Eugene Carman Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month, And I told my wife and children that night.

But it didn't come, and so I thought Old Rhodes suspected me of stealing The blankets I took and sold on the side For money to pay a doctor's bill for my little girl.

Then like a bolt old Rhodes accused me, And promised me mercy for my family's sake If I confessed, and so I confessed, And begged him to keep it out of the papers, And I asked the editors, too.

That night at home the constable took me And every paper, except the Clarion, Wrote me up as a thief Because old Rhodes was an advertiser And wanted to make an example of me.

Oh! well, you know how the children cried, And how my wife pitied and hated me, And how I came to lie here.

W. Lloyd Garrison Standard

VEGETARIAN, non--resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian; Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.

Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.

Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain, Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter; With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair.

Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat; I, child of the abolitionist idealism-- A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half.

What other thing could happen when I defended The patriot scamps who burned the court house That Spoon River might have a new one Than plead them guilty?

When Kinsey Keene drove through The card--board mask of my life with a spear of light, What could I do but slink away, like the beast of myself Which I raised from a whelp, to a corner and growl?

The pyramid of my life was nought but a dune, Barren and formless, spoiled at last by the storm.

Professor Newcomer

EVERYONE laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder He ran it with.

But here is a joke of cosmic size: The urge of nature that made a man Evolve from his brain a spiritual life-- Oh miracle of the world!-- The very same brain with which the ape and wolf Get food and shelter and procreate themselves.

Nature has made man do this, In a world where she gives him nothing to do After all--(though the strength of his soul goes round In a futile waste of power.

To gear itself to the mills of the G.o.ds)-- But get food and shelter and procreate himself!

Ralph Rhodes

ALL they said was true: I wrecked my father's bank with my loans To dabble in wheat; but this was true-- I was buying wheat for him as well, Who couldn't margin the deal in his name Because of his church relations.h.i.+p.

And while George Reece was serving his term I chased the will-o-the-wisp of women And the mockery of wine in New York.

It's deathly to sicken of wine and women When nothing else is left in life.

But suppose your head is gray, and bowed On a table covered with acrid stubs Of cigarettes and empty gla.s.ses, And a knock is heard, and you know it's the knock So long drowned out by popping corks And the pea-c.o.c.k screams of demireps-- And you look up, and there's your Theft, Who waited until your head was gray, And your heart skipped beats to say to you: The game is ended. I've called for you, Go out on Broadway and be run over, They'll s.h.i.+p you back to Spoon River.

Mickey M'Grew

IT was just like everything else in life: Something outside myself drew me down, My own strength never failed me.

Why, there was the time I earned the money With which to go away to school, And my father suddenly needed help And I had to give him all of it.

Just so it went till I ended up A man-of--all-work in Spoon River.

Thus when I got the water-tower cleaned, And they hauled me up the seventy feet, I unhooked the rope from my waist, And laughingly flung my giant arms Over the smooth steel lips of the top of the tower-- But they slipped from the treacherous slime, And down, down, down, I plunged Through bellowing darkness!

Rosie Roberts

I WAS sick, but more than that, I was mad At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.

So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria: "l am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River, Gradually wasting away.

But come and take me, I killed the son Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou's And the papers that said he killed himself In his home while cleaning a hunting gun-- Lied like the devil to hush up scandal For the bribe of advertising.

In my room I shot him, at Madam Lou's, Because he knocked me down when I said That, in spite of all the money he had, I'd see my lover that night."

Oscar Hummel

I STAGGERED on through darkness, There was a hazy sky, a few stars Which I followed as best I could.

It was nine o'clock, I was trying to get home.