Verse and Worse

Kissing a man I didn't know;
And, as that didn't suit me quite,
I blew her up with dynamite.

Most married men, so sorely tried
As this, would have been rather bored.
Not I, but chose another bride,
And married Ruth. Alas! she snored!
I served her just the same as Kate,
And so she joined the other eight.

My last was Grace; I am not clear,
I think she didn't like me much;
She used to scream when I came near,
And shuddered at my lightest touch.
She seemed to wish to keep aloof,
And so I threw her off the roof.

This is the point I wish to make; —
From all the wives for whom I grieve,
Whose lives I had perforce to take,
Not one complaint did I receive;
And no expense was spared to please
My spouses at their obsequies.

My habits, I would have you know,
Are perfect, as they've always been;
You ask if I am good, and go
To church, and keep my fingers clean?
I do, I mean to say I am,
I have the morals of a lamb.

In my domains there is no sin,
Virtue is rampant all the time,
Since I so thoughtfully brought in
A bill which legalises crime;
Committing things that are not wrong
Must pall before so very long.

And if what you imagine vice
Is not considered so at all,
Crime doesn't seem the least bit nice,
There's no temptation then to fall;
For half the charm of things we do
Is knowing that we oughtn't to.

Believe me, then, I am not bad,
Though in my youth I had to trek,
Because I happened to have had
Some difficulties with a cheque.
What forgery in some might be
Is absent-mindedness in me!

I know that I was much abused,
No doubt when I was young and rash,
But I should not have been accused
Of misappropriating cash.
I may have sneaked a silver dish; —
Well, you may search me if you wish!

So, now you see me, more or less,
As I would figure in your thoughts;
A trifle given to excess,
And prone perhaps to vice of sorts;
When tempted, rather apt to fall,
But still – a good chap after all!

'THE WOMAN WITH THE DEAD SOLES'

(After Stephen Phillips)

Attracted to the frozen river's brink,
Where on a small impromptu snow-swept rink,
The happy skaters darted left and right,
Or circled amorously out of sight,
Some self-supporting; some, like falling stars,
Spread-eagling ankle-weak parabolas;
I watched the human swarm, and I was 'ware
A woman, disarranged, knelt on a chair.
She had cold feet on which she could not run,
And piteously she thawed them in the sun.
Those feet were of a woman that alone
Was kneeling; a pink liquid by her shone,
Which raising to her luminous, lantern jaw,
She sipped; or idly stirred it with a straw.
Upon her hat she wore a kind of fowl,
An hummingbird, I ween, or else an owl.
Then turned to me. I looked the other way,
Trembling; I knew the words she wished to say.
So warm her gaze the blood rushed to my head,
Instinctively I knew her feet were dead.
Amorphous feet, like monumental moons,
Pavement-obliterating, vast, pontoons,
Superbly varnished, to the ice had come,
And now, snow-kissed, frost-fettered, dangled numb.
Gently she spoke, – the while my senses whirled,
Of 'largest circulations in the world';
Wildly she spoke, as babble men in dreams,
Of feeling life's blood 'rushing to extremes';
But I ignored her with deliberate stare,