Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RED MEAT, by BERTON BRALEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RED MEAT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: These tales full of rancorous cankering
Last Line: Tale.
Subject(s): Beef; Food & Eating


These tales full of rancorous cankering
Of peevishness, jaundice, and bile,
They give me a pain. I am hankering
For stuff of more glamorous style.
Od's bodkins; S'Death! I'm fed up upon
This food, realistic and stale,
I want some raw beefsteak to sup upon
I want a fine swashbuckling tale,
An "Up-clubs-and-bat-'em-all,
Out-swords-and-at-'em-all"
Tale.

Hi! buckoes, tremendous and swaggering
With lace at your necks and your wrists,
Get busy with fencing and daggering;
Come bravoes, reënter the lists.
Out, rapiers flashing and shimmering
To fight for some popular frail
Whose eyes with enchantment are glimmering.
Oh, give me a swashbuckling tale;
A "Thrust-and-that's-done-for-you,
Lady-I've-won-for-you"
Tale.

Come, pirates of bloodiest memory,
With all of your murderous pack
Whose hearts were much harder than emery,
Whose oaths were much blacker than black.
Come on, do your stuff, be unbearable,
"Git hung" at the end without fail,
I want to be thrilled something terrible;
I long for a swashbuckling tale;
An "Oh-boy, the-throes-of-it,"
Clinch-at-the-close-of-it
Tale.





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