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 |