Art poems
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Another Awkward Stage Of Convalescence
© Bob Hicok
Drunk, I kissed the moon
where it stretched on the floor.
I'd removed happiness from a green bottle,
both sipped and gulped
just as a river changes its mind,
mostly there was a flood in my mouth
Aisling
© Paul Muldoon
I was making my way home late one night
this summer, when I staggered
into a snow drift.
Cocotte
© Robert William Service
When a girl's sixteen, and as poor as she's pretty,
And she hasn't a friend and she hasn't a home,
Heigh-ho! She's as safe in Paris city
As a lamb night-strayed where the wild wolves roam;
Erico
© Robert William Service
Oh darling Eric, why did you
For my fond affection sue,
And then with surgeons artful aid
Transform yourself into a maid?
So now in petticoats you go
And people call you Erico.
My Chapel
© Robert William Service
In idle dream with pipe in hand
I looked across the Square,
And saw the little chapel stand
In eloquent despair.
Picture Dealer
© Robert William Service
There were twin artists A. and B.
Who painted pictures two,
And hung them in my galley
For everyone to view;
Julot The Apache
© Robert William Service
You've heard of Julot the apache, and Gigolette, his mome. . . .
Montmartre was their hunting-ground, but Belville was their home.
A little chap just like a boy, with smudgy black mustache, --
Yet there was nothing juvenile in Julot the apache.
While The Bannock Bakes
© Robert William Service
Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;
I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!
You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three,
Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor
© Robert William Service
Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
"We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.
Yon squakin' saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes.
I'm sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes."
The Ballad Of Hank The Finn
© Robert William Service
Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow;
"Let's leave," says he, "the lousy sea, and give the land a show.
I'm fed up to the molar mark with wallopin' the brine;
I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin' on me spine.
Let's hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are paved with gold."
"You count me in," says Hank the Finn. "Ay do as Ay ban told."
Artist
© Robert William Service
He gave a picture exhibition,
Hiring a little empty shop.
Above its window: FREE ADMISSION
Cajoled the passers-by to stop;
The Artist
© Robert William Service
All day with brow of anxious thought
The dictionary through,
Amid a million words he sought
The sole one that would do.
The Wee Shop
© Robert William Service
She risked her all, they told me, bravely sinking
The pinched economies of thirty years;
And there the little shop was, meek and shrinking,
The sum of all her dreams and hopes and fears.
The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail
© Robert William Service
And ere next night his story was the talk of Dawson Town,
But gone and reft of glory was the wrathful Major Brown;
For that ice-worm (so they told him) of such formidable size
Was - a stick of stained spaghetti with two red ink spots for eyes.
Poor Peter
© Robert William Service
Blind Peter Piper used to play
All up and down the city;
I'd often meet him on my way,
And throw a coin for pity.
Spanish Men
© Robert William Service
The Men of Seville are, they say,
The laziest of Spain.
Consummate artists in delay,
Allergical to strain;
My Library
© Robert William Service
Like prim Professor of a College
I primed my shelves with books of knowledge;
And now I stand before them dumb,
Just like a child that sucks its thumb,
And stares forlorn and turns away,
With dolls or painted bricks to play.
My Neighbors
© Robert William Service
To rest my fagged brain now and then,
When wearied of my proper labors,
I lay aside my lagging pen
And get to thinking on my neighbors;
My Masters
© Robert William Service
Of Poetry I've been accused,
But much more often I have not;
Oh, I have been so much amused
By those who've put me on the spot,
And measured me by rules above
Those I observe with equal love.
Success
© Robert William Service
You ask me what I call Success -
It is, I wonder, Happiness?It is not wealth, it is not fame,
Nor rank, nor power nor honoured name.
It is not triumph in the Arts -
