Friday, January 01, 2010

Scrutable Poetry Corner: "Spring Song" by Richard Peckham

Oh jeez, I can't wait.
The oily air is warm and sunny
And I am feeling fine but funny.
Break out the sulphur and molasses;
The boys and girls are making passes
On buses and beneath Childs' tables.
The pigeons on their copper gables
Bellow like amorous vacuum cleaners.
Our winter fare of rolls and weiners
No longer suits. Let's have some rhubarb.
The air today has got a new barb--
Not frost but blue and growling fire.
The veins that were as stiff as wire
Are gone as slow and soft as soup.
Leave off the coat and give a whoop.
A bowl of well-steeped calamus
Would make a dandy lunch for us.
Let's not go back to work today.
This weather takes the will away.
This is the time when girls begin
To fill their clothes as plums their skin.
O for a yard of grassy hummock
On which to lay the languid stomach.
O for a month to be just lazy,
Sung at by birds a trifle crazy.
(From the March 15, 1930 issue of The New Yorker. Richard Peckham was the pseudonym of Raymond Pekham Holden, who wrote a lot of poetry for the magazine during the '30s. I can't find a single biography online).

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