Stop—Look—Listen
“I do not fear a siren
With a mass of midnight hair;
With wicked, drooping eyelids,
And a blase, worldly air;
But, oh, I cross my fingers,
And I breathe a little prayer,
When I meet a blond-haired cutie,
With a blue-eyed baby stare!”
Smokehouse Poetry
Another red-blooded verse, dedicated to the great American rambler, will appear in the Whiz Bang for June—“The Gila Monster Route,” being the tale of a hobo on the Southern Pacific “Sunset” route. Excerpts from the poem give the swing:
“A poor, old, seedy, half-starved bo,
On a hostile pike without a show;
’Neath a cactus tree, with sand piled deep,
On the Gila route came his last long sleep.”
Recently the Whiz Bang received a letter from the cellhouse of Alcatraz federal penitentiary, located on an island overlooking San Francisco—the dread of the army—and in this letter was a pathetic poem from a prisoner, who begs that we publish it for the benefit of the humans on the “great outside.”
“To be beaten and thrown in a dungeon,
Where the eyes of mankind are blind,
To be left for dead in this hell-hole of dread,
Eternally losing your mind.”
This appeal also will appear in the June Whiz Bang.
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So many calls have been received at the Whiz Bang Farm for back copies containing certain Smokehouse Poems that we’ve decided to put out a book containing many of the gems of past issues, as well as new red-blooded poems, to be ready for our readers early this fall. The book of Smokehouse Poetry will be in addition to our new Winter Annual—Follies of 1921-22, which will be ready for you in October with ALL NEW STUFF—jokes, jingles, stories, prose, poetry, pot pourri, advice to love-lorn and love-shorn, and, oh, we just hate to tell you of the many bright surprises.
We’ve also had many calls for the works of Robert W. Service, which we must refer to the publishers, Barse & Hopkins, 21 Division Street, Newark, N. J.
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