Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SERIAL by OLIVER BROOK HERFORD

First Line: I BURST UPON THE READER'S EYE
Last Line: BUT THIS GOES ON FOREVER.
Subject(s): BOOKS; WRITING & WRITERS; READING;
I burst upon the reader's eye
With verbal trumpet blaring,
Proclaiming me the latest cry
In fictionary daring --

Vital, compelling, hectic, rare,
Heart-gripping, epoch-making!
A woman's naked soul laid bare,
A climax record-breaking!

A quivering, pulsating plot,
The mystery of a red room,
A story to be read red hot
In boudoir, bath or bedroom.

An Eve, repentant, up to date,
Confesses what her fall meant;
You simply won't know how to wait
Until the next installment.

I come from heaven knows where -- or when.
My pedigree is shady.
My father was a Fountain Pen;
My mother, a Typelady,

Who smote the keys from morn till night
With fingers swift and taper,
Till I appeared, all clean and bright,
On reams of foolscap paper.

And now in Serial form I flow,
And flout at style and diction,
As like a babbling brook I go
To join the Sea of Fiction.

Some streams, I know, more deeply flow,
And some for speed endeavor.
Short stories come, short stories go,
But I'll go on forever.

I glitter like a penny string
Of pearls, with polish painful,
With epigrams of doubtful ring
And platitudes Hallcaineful.

And many a mood and tense amiss,
And metaphor amuddle,
And here and there a clinging kiss,
And here and there a cuddle --

And here and there a phrase in French,
To give a touch linguisty;
And here and there a Fisher wench,
And here and there a Christy.

By shady Underwoods I glide,
And vacant Hutts aplenty,
With blooming Flaggs on every side --

@3Continued on page twenty.@1

And here a temperamental scene,
Fervid, intense, Byronic --
Tosses tempestuous between
@3Ayre's Soap and Tinkham's Tonic.@1

A sprightly conversation's flow
Is checked by @3Soak and Stingham's
Pink Pills@1, to reappear below
An ad for ladies' thingums.

Now here and there and everywhere,
My thin stream slowly trickles
'Twixt @3Bunk's Elixir for the Hair@1
And @3Black and Crosswell's Pickles@1.

The well-known "Slip 'twixt cup and lip"
Here, too, finds confirmation --
"He raised his glass" -- @3Try Antigrip!
Beware of Imitation!@1

-- "Up to his lips, when on his wrist
He felt a grip, steel-sinewed;
The glass fell, and a hoarse voice hissed
The words --" TO BE CONTINUED.

@3Editorial Note@1

@3Some streams, we know, more deeply flow,
And some for speed endeavor.
Short stories come, short stories go,
But this goes on forever.@1



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