I WAS sick, but more than that, I was mad At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life. So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria: "I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River, Gradually wasting away. But come and take me, I killed the son Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou's, And the papers that said he killed himself In his home while cleaning a hunting gun -- Lied like the devil to hush up scandal, For the bribe of advertising. In my room I shot him, at Madam Lou's, Because he knocked me down when I said That, in spite of all the money he had, I'd see my lover that night." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SONNET, TO THE NOBLE LADY, THE LADY MARY WROTH by BEN JONSON FORMERLY A SLAVE' (AN IDEALIZED PORTRAIT, BY E. VEDDER) by HERMAN MELVILLE CROSSING THE PLAINS by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1) by RICHARD HENRY STODDARD AGAINST QUARRELLING AND FIGHTING by ISAAC WATTS THE DALLIANCE OF THE EAGLES by WALT WHITMAN |