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Spencer Heath's

Series

Spencer Heath Archive

Item 586

Inspired by an exchange with Leona Way Edman

No date

 

 

 

 

 

            PROTEST

 

My treasured friend, I do not mean

     To grow continually colder;

I’d honestly prefer to lean

     Upon your reassuring shoulder.

 

But I’m afraid you’ve yet to learn

     That gentleness is quite a factor

In love — that women do not yearn

     To kiss a caterpillar tractor.

                  

                    Leona Way Edman

 

 

 

 

 

EROTECHNIQUE LIMERIQUE

  (A la Mozambique)

There’s an island they call Mozambique

Where the mores are no more unique

Than the tricks that I mix

In the limp limericks

Of its erotechnique that I speak.

First my lay of a gay lady-killer

Whose fine style was a knock-out and thriller

Just the way he crawled boldly

Had his laydee stalled coldly

For this bird was the furred caterpillar.

 

Then the wight with upright elephantis

Whose lady-bug sealed up her pantis

His posturing charmed her

Until he disarmed her

This bug was the smug preying mantis.

There is the tale of the birds of a feather Inexperienced, in inclement weather

Their nethers between them

Their feather to screen them

They flocked up beneath it together.

But I grieve for the gentleman actor

Who was geared like a caterpillar tractor

For his falling and crawling

Made his kiss so appalling

The lady was crushed when he smacked her,

So I would make mention of this thing

To all who for wisdom are listening

A whole hundred horse-power

Will not open a flower

Without some celestial light glistening.

And let us not fail to remember

The rist between May and November

How his crumpled up browns

Dulled the sheen of her gowns

Reducing her love to an ember.

 

 

Then I laurel the brow of no lover

But lifts up the languishing soul of her

On wings too celestial

For anything bestial

And heavens and leavens the whole of her.

 

 

 

/The following, from a wallet containing materials from 1931 to 1936, may have prompted the “Erotechnique Limerique”/

 

THE MONSTER

 

This caterpillar is a bird

Of prey.

From all the things we’ve heard

Them say,

We cannot doubt it.

He makes devotion on his knees

And falls.

In disregard of Qs and Ps

He crawls

While he’s about it.

The reason he’s a gross and soulless actor

His model is a caterpillar tractor.

Metadata

Title Subject - 586 - Protest
Collection Name Spencer Heath Archive
Series Subject
Box number 5:467-640
Document number 586
Date / Year
Authors / Creators / Correspondents
Description Inspired by an exchange with Leona Way Edman
Keywords Poem Erotechnic