Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SALESMEN, by WALT MASON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SALESMEN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Throughout the town my wares I holler
Last Line: There's something lacking in his make-up, he cannot make a sale.
Subject(s): Business; Markets; Merchants; Salespersons; Businessmen; Businesswomen; Supermarkets; Selling


THROUGHOUT the town my wares I holler, and try to sell a new gold dollar for
sixty-seven cents; in vain, alas, are all my yellings; in vain I haunt your
shops and dwellings, your woodsheds and your tents. No man will buy my handsome

money; men seem to think it must be phony, because I'd sell it cheap; so all day

long I seek a market, display my coin and boost and bark it, and then break down

and weep. But now comes Nestor Newton Neuter, who deals in dollars made of
pewter, alloyed with lead and tin; he seems to loaf while I am sweating, and yet

men's bundles he is getting, he rakes the greenbacks in. One man has got the
trick of selling; he needs to do no frantic yelling to gather in the plunk; he
just leans back, his system sunning, and all the people come a-running, to buy
his blooming junk. The other fellow strives and labors to sell good plunder to
his neighbors, and never gets the kale; no scraps of business can he rake up;
there's something lacking in his make-up, he cannot make a sale.





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