Yep, still here
Aug 24, 1944
Hello Ma:
A friend of mine fell heir to a certain Yank magazine, and as I was not able to bribe it from him, I therefore, naturally cannot mail it to you, as I usually do. I, therefore, am borrowing it, and knowing that you like poetry occasionally, I now take the time to copy said poems. Maybe, you will like them - maybe you won't. You can, if you wish, deposit it in the nearest waste paper basket. Do with it as you desire. It matters not to me.
Well, here is the first poem: titled -
While My Swingshift Mammy Swings Her Wrench-Duplex
The hand that rocked the cradle,
That spilled the gravy ladle
And baked upside-down cake
Upside down,
Now is cradling lathes and jacks,
Spilling acid on her slacks, and
Baking Bakelite a neat nut-brown.
Mama's turning out those bullets
Driving rivets in gun turrets;
Her precision work is something
To behold.
While her skills with cams and
Gears wring cheers from engineers,
The supper on the table's getting
Cold.
Since my mama's gone mechanic, the
Homestead's in a panic
And the "blessed tie that binds" now
Hangs in shreds.
I'll be one of those delinquents,
Jolt the neighbors' moral instincts,
If someone soon don't ravel up the
Threads.
While I cook for me and Jimmie, while
My pop starves in New Guinea
And my swingshift mammy swings her
Wrench-duplex,
My smile is getting fretful and my
Mind is so forgetful
I'll be stepping out without my step-
Ins next.
Would the war was won, by thunder,
And my pop, "the Yank down under,"
Would come back unto the land where
He was born;
And my mom would cease her traffic
In tubes and coils and static
And return unto our home, sweet
Home forlorn.
Since this war, it's plain to see, how
A home should ought to be:
(If you're wise, you'll read the rest -
Then stop and think.)
Pa should earn the dough and take
It home to ma, who then should bake it.
(Then us kind could jam our jitters
FINISH
New Guinea - Sgt. F.H. Boslett
Another poem follows:
Title -
A Loneliness Comes O'er Me
There's a loneliness comes o'er me
And it makes mah body tired,
And ah'm trying hard to shun it
But it's way down deep inside.
If mah brain was like some engine,
Which ah could take apart
Ah'd try to find this trouble
That keeps lingering in mah heart.
Now, doc can always give you pills,
For most kind of ails,
But when he starts messin' with my blues,
Das where his pills done fail.
For there's only one sho' remedy
When you's all worked up and blue,
And dat's to have the one who loves you,
Sittin' very close to you.
The sensation of her nearness,
Seem to 'lectrify the brain
And then before you know it,
You are yo'self again.
FINISH
New Guinea - T-5 Christopher Bordenane, Jr.
Still another poem follows:
Title -
Please Omit the Flowers
Flowers - they look good on milady fair,
Adorning her bosom or worn in her hair;
How changed is her person, desirable and chic!
The flower's the thing that's turning the trick.
But show me no wonders that litter the green,
Throw me no flowers without the colleen,
Read me no poems of flower forlorn -
But show'r them on her and I'll listen to morn.
Flowers and maidens - as bread with the jam;
But when it's just flowers, I don't give a damn!
FINISH
And that was composed by a Pvt. Len Guardino - of New Guinea.
Well, Ma, there are a few more such poems, but they are of the remorseful type, and so I neither care to read nor copy them; and neither to I care to have you read them. Now are the days for humor - if there ever was a time. Don't you agree?
And now; so long for now -
Earl
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