Ira Maine, our Poetry Editor has exacting standards. Here is yet another example of his.
Below, a soupcon of sophisticated love poetry from the 20th century. Despite my best investigative efforts, no author can be found for this profoundly disturbing lament. It deserves an author and I shall pursue this quest, this need to be aware of the poem’s creator, with the utmost vigour, nay, relentlessly, at whatever cost to my already fragile health. When this mission is fulfilled, when the songbirds once more throng the earth with song, look for me slumped over the baccarat tables at Monte Carlo, consumed with utter joy, and plunking (a coarse honky-tonk tune negligently) on my banjo.
Susanna.
Susanna was a lady with plenty of class
Who knocked ‘em all dead when she wiggled her
Eyes at the fellows as girls sometimes do
To make it all plain that she’s aching to
Take in a movie, or go for a sail
And then hurry home for a nice piece of
Chocolate cake and a slice of roast duck
For after a meal she was ready to
Go for a ride or a stroll on the dock
With any young man with a sizeable
Roll of big bills and a pretty good front
And if he talked fast she would show him her
Little pet dog which was subject to fits
And maybe she’d let him take hold of her
Lily white hands with a movement so quick
And then she’d reach over and tickle his
Chin while she showed him a trick learned in France
And ask the poor fellow to take off his
Coat while she sang of the Indian shore
For whatever she was Susanna was no bore.