Brave Voyage

Come, my Sweet Let us walk in the sleet (If you can keep your feet!)

Creep like a couple of snails Clinging to rails When all else fails.

Poets have sung of walking in rain, Or even snow . . .

Fain would I go in the sleet . . .

(If you can keep your feet!)

Ultimatum

Another blizzard and Well . . . I Warn Yuh I'm off like a streak To California!

Black Coffee

Smiling sweetly, respected trulls Drinking coffee from polished skulls.

A touch of a.r.s.enic, "One lump, or two?"

And the cups go round with their deadly brew.

The Atomic Bomb is an awesome thing But so is woman . . .

Gossipping!

Sufficient Reason

I prost.i.tute my Art Because it's tactical; For starving in a garret Isn't practical!

His Mistress is Heard Singing

"I long to turn to you and say: Hullo my Darling. . .

How was your day"

What did you do And who did you meet And what was the 'to-do'

Down the street?"

These are the little The darling things That go together With wedding rings!

Wide World

O when you lock your doors each night You either shut the world outside Or else your own four walls enfold A planet twice as far and wide!

Tsk! Tsk! Mister Santa!

If Santa Claus comes down my chimney This year And puts sooty big foot marks All over my white hearth rug I'm going to give him What for!

Last year He not only knocked half the ornaments off the tree, And generally bunged things up, But he insisted on putting beer bottle tops In the twins' stockings Instead of the annual quarter.

If Santa Claus comes down my chimney This year And doesn't mind his "p's" and "q's" . . .

I'll send him off to bed And finish the job myself!

Sorcery

What is this shock of sweet delight That puts all sober thoughts to flight On hearing someone speak your name This little candle in my heart That glows and burns and warms each part Of day and night. This friendly thing That stirs in me till I must sing.

Your look and voice, the enchanting way You pin a flower on my day!

Everywoman Song

O some men are married to gorgons Who swallow them at one swallow, And some are married to frigidaires And dwell in an icy hollow.

And some there arc, that are bound in chains As golden as they can be But you're the luckiest one of all For Darling . . . you've just got me!

Sung in High Dudgeon!

I'd like to be the deadly type Who plunge the knife . . . before they wipe The previous victim's flowing gore From off the blade. Sad to relate I seem to be The victim! ... A chicken-hearted sort of thing I've no desire for "skewering"

My fellow man.

But by observing I may learn To give that rapier lightning turn!

Wise Child