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Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 6  Winter 1920-1921  Page: 29
 
 [Poem] Cowboy Bacchanale
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Thus all is done, but to remember.
Poor bantling of unhappy birth,
So soon in spring to meet December,
Lust unto dust, and mirth to earth!

 

Did you expect? The child was pampered,
Too burningly the roses glowed.
Did you expect? When nothing hampered,
The full clepsydra overflowed.

 

Our passion jerked in syncopation
The heart’s indifferent gramaphone.
We had the sea, the sky’s carnation,
And distant sirens making moan.

 

But now the doctor ends autopsy,
And tired, too tired to smile or sigh,
Thinks me a bully, you a mopsy,

 

Good-bye at last! At last, good-bye!


COWBOY BACCHANALE

To Lily Uckermann

NOW at last the dogies sleep,
And the cowboys’ day is done,
O’er the plain the coyotes creep
And the eagle climbs the sun.

 

Now the quirts to lilies change,
Bronchos now to dolphins turn,
Cowboys on the ocean range,
While the constellations burn.
Coterie  Volume 1   Issue: 6  Winter 1920-1921  Page: 30
 
 [Poem] Cowboy Bacchanale
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Java with its perfumes calls,
Cathay lures them with its peace,
Bombay with black marble halls;
But the cowboys call for Greece.

 

Still the dolphins bear them on,
Past the land of hieroglyphs,
Past the stones of Babylon,
Past the Cretans in their skiffs.

 

Now to Greece at last they come,
Land and join the waiting dance,
Bacchus beats upon his drum,
Dryads stab them with their glance.

 

And the cowboys whirl in joy,
Good-bye dogies! Good-bye to il!
White-breast girl to red-shirt boy
Stamping on Hellenic soil.

 

Wine and laughter till the dawn,
Cocktails from Olympic bars:
But the veil of day is drawn,
Cowboys vanish with the stars.

 

Back they go to Idaho,
For the dawn calls up their force,
Dances are but winds that blow;
Now each cowboy mounts his horse,

 

And the day begins again,
Coyotes to their homes take flight,
And the sun above the plain
Shrieks its blasphemies to night.