Waste Paper: A Poem of Profound Insignificance

Written 1922

     Out of the reaches of illimitable night

     The blazing planet grew, and forc'd to life

     Unending cycles of progressive strife

     And strange mutations of undying light

     And boresome books, than hell's own self more trite

     And thoughts repeated and become a blight,

     And cheap rum-hounds with moonshine hootch made tight,

     And quite contrite to see the flight of fright so bright

     I used to ride my bicycle in the night

     With a dandy acetylene lantern that cost $3.00

     In the evening, by the moonlight, you can hear those darkies singing

     Meet me tonight - in dreamland... BAH!

     I used to sit on the stairs of the house where I was born

     After we left it but before it was sold

     And play on a zobo with two other boys.

     We called ourselves the Blackstone Military Band

     Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, won't you come home?

     In the spring of the year, in the silver rain

     When petal by petal the blossoms fall

     And the mocking birds call

     And the whippoorwill sings, Marguerite.

     The first cinema show in our town opened in 1906

     At the old Olympic, which was then call'd Park,

     And moving beams shot weirdly thro' the dark

     And spit tobacco seldom hit the mark.

     Have you read Dickens' American Notes?

     My great-great-grandfather was born in a white house

     Under green trees in the country

     And he used to believe in religion and the weather.

II

     "Shantih, shantih, shantih"..."Shanty House"

     Was the name of a novel by I forget whom

     Published serially in the "All-Story Weekly"

     Before it was a weekly. Advt.

     Disillusion is wonderful, I've been told,

     And I take quinine to stop a cold

     But it makes my ears... always...

     Always ringing in my ears...

     It is the ghost of the Jew I murdered that Christmas day

     Because he played "Three O'Clock in the Morning" in the flat above me...

     Three O'Clock in the morning, I've danc'd the whole night through

     Dancing on the graves in the graveyard

     Where life is buried; life and beauty

     Life and art and love and duty

     Ah, there, sweet cutie.

     Stung!

     Out of the night that covers me

     Black as the pit from pole to pole

     I never quote things straight except by accident.

     Sophistication! Sophistication!

     You are the idol of our nation

     Each fellow has

     Fallen for jazz

     And we'll give the past a merry razz

     Thro' the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber

     And fellow-guestship with the glutless worm.

     Next stop is 57th St. - 57th St. the next stop.

     Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring,

     And the governor-general of Canada is Lord Byng

     Whose ancestor was shot or hung,

     I forget which, the good die young.

     Here's to your ripe old age,

     Copyright, 1847, by Joseph Miner,

     Entered according to act of Congress.

III

     In the office of the librarian of Congress

     America was discovered in 1492

     This way out.

     No, lady, you gotta change at Washington St. to the Everett train.

     Out in the rain on the elevated

     Crated, sated, all mismated.

     Twelve seats on this bench,

     How quaint.

     In a shady nook, beside a brook, two lovers stroll along.

     Express to Park Ave., Car Following.

     No, we had it cleaned with the sand blast.

     I know it ought to be torn down.

     Before the bar of a saloon there stood a reckless crew,

     When one said to another, "Jack, this message came for you."

     "It may be from a sweetheart, boys," said someone in the crowd,

     And here the words are missing... but Jack cried out aloud:

     "It's only a message from home, sweet home,

     From loved ones down on the farm

     Fond wife and mother, sister and brother..."

     Bootleggers all and you're another

     In the shade of the old apple tree

     'Neath the old cherry tree sweet Marie

     The Conchologist's First Book

     By Edgar Allan Poe

     Stubbed his toe

     On a broken brick that didn't show

     Or a banana peel

     In the fifth reel

     By George Creel

     It is to laugh

     And quaff

     It makes you stout and hale

     And all my days I'll sing the praise

     Of Ivory Soap

     Have you a little T. S. Eliot in your house?

IV

     The stag at eve had drunk his fill

     The thirsty hart look'd up the hill

     And craned his neck just as a feeler

     To advertise the Double-Dealer.

     William Congreve was a gentleman

     O art what sins are committed in thy name

     For tawdry fame and fleeting flame

     And everything, ain't dat a shame?

     Mah Creole Belle, ah lubs yo' well;

     Aroun' mah heart you hab cast a spell

     But I can't learn to spell pseudocracy

     Because there ain't no such word.

     And I says to Lizzie, if Joe was my feller

     I'd teach him to go to dances with that

     Rat, bat, cat, hat, flat, plat, fat

     Fry the fat, fat the fry

     You'll be a drug-store by and by.

     Get the hook!

     Above the lines of brooding hills

     Rose spires that reeked of nameless ills,

     And ghastly shone upon the sight

     In ev'ry flash of lurid light

     To be continued.

     No smoking.

     Smoking on four rear seats.

     Fare win return to 5 cents after August 1st

     Except outside the Cleveland city limits.

     In the ghoul-haunted Woodland of Weir

     Strangers pause to shed a tear;

     Henry Fielding wrote "Tom Jones"

     And cursed be he that moves my bones.

     I saw the Leonard-Tendler fight

     Farewell, farewell, O go to hell.

     Nobody home

     In the shantih.

Explanatory Notes:

This poem is a parody of T. S. Elliot's The Waste Land, and mondernist poetry in general, which Lovecraft referred to as a "practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general."