Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PIPE DREAMS: 5, by WILLIAM A. PHELON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PIPE DREAMS: 5, by                    
First Line: Now doc, come off! You with the bucksaw. What
Last Line: Except a smoke to loosen up my jaws!
Subject(s): Physicians; Doctors


NOW doc, come off! You with the bucksaw. What
Designs have you upon me? As to you,
You with the cleaver and the derrick—hike!
Out on your way—I'll whale you black and blue!
And you, you also, with the Spanish look,
And the new ice-pick in your cruel grip—
I do not need your services—skidoo—
Go doctor some ham actor with the pip.
You say you'll cure my habit—that you can
Make excavations in my works, and thus
Bring back my health and kill my yen yen? Why
Must such a process cause so large a fuss?
You'll put excelsior in my dome because
I'd have no hop-thoughts then, and only think
Of eating apple pies made out of ice,
And purple biscuits, lined with hand-carved zinc?
Now, you three doctors, in my golden youth,
When I was sailing through the China Seas,
I learned that alligators cannot waltz
Unless you bribe them with Camembert cheese.
If you have cheese to shed, pray shed it now,
For on the lounge a baby crocodile
Looks at you so appealingly and barks.
"Give me a mule's egg—I am wild to smile!"
Tend to that baby crocodile and let
Me rest in peace—remove your picks and saws—
For I don't need a single, lonesome thing,
Except a smoke to loosen up my jaws!





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