Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SERIAL, by OLIVER BROOK HERFORD


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SERIAL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I burst upon the reader's eye
Last Line: But this goes on forever.
Subject(s): Books; Writing & Writers; Reading


I burst upon the reader's eye
With verbal trumpet blaring,
Proclaiming me the latest cry
In fictionary daring --

Vital, compelling, hectic, rare,
Heart-gripping, epoch-making!
A woman's naked soul laid bare,
A climax record-breaking!

A quivering, pulsating plot,
The mystery of a red room,
A story to be read red hot
In boudoir, bath or bedroom.

An Eve, repentant, up to date,
Confesses what her fall meant;
You simply won't know how to wait
Until the next installment.

I come from heaven knows where -- or when.
My pedigree is shady.
My father was a Fountain Pen;
My mother, a Typelady,

Who smote the keys from morn till night
With fingers swift and taper,
Till I appeared, all clean and bright,
On reams of foolscap paper.

And now in Serial form I flow,
And flout at style and diction,
As like a babbling brook I go
To join the Sea of Fiction.

Some streams, I know, more deeply flow,
And some for speed endeavor.
Short stories come, short stories go,
But I'll go on forever.

I glitter like a penny string
Of pearls, with polish painful,
With epigrams of doubtful ring
And platitudes Hallcaineful.

And many a mood and tense amiss,
And metaphor amuddle,
And here and there a clinging kiss,
And here and there a cuddle --

And here and there a phrase in French,
To give a touch linguisty;
And here and there a Fisher wench,
And here and there a Christy.

By shady Underwoods I glide,
And vacant Hutts aplenty,
With blooming Flaggs on every side --

Continued on page twenty.

And here a temperamental scene,
Fervid, intense, Byronic --
Tosses tempestuous between
Ayre's Soap and Tinkham's Tonic.

A sprightly conversation's flow
Is checked by Soak and Stingham's
Pink Pills, to reappear below
An ad for ladies' thingums.

Now here and there and everywhere,
My thin stream slowly trickles
'Twixt Bunk's Elixir for the Hair
And Black and Crosswell's Pickles.

The well-known "Slip 'twixt cup and lip"
Here, too, finds confirmation --
"He raised his glass" -- Try Antigrip!
Beware of Imitation!

-- "Up to his lips, when on his wrist
He felt a grip, steel-sinewed;
The glass fell, and a hoarse voice hissed
The words --" TO BE CONTINUED.

Editorial Note

Some streams, we know, more deeply flow,
And some for speed endeavor.
Short stories come, short stories go,
But this goes on forever.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net