﻿AN ELEGY TO A HAMBURGER STEAK WRITTEN IN A FOOD FACTORY 
 
The curfew warns the future little slave, 
The husbandman cranks up the family clock. 
The roundhouseman beats his way along the pave 
And leaves the world for me, to stand and mock. 
 
Now shines the phoney landscape to the eyes, 
And all the air is filled with joyous sport 
Save where the dehorn in his stupor lies, 
And frowsy flappers plead before the court. 
 
Save that from yonder rosehued brussel’d stairs, 
The painted jezebelle bewails her fate 
To such as, pawing o’er her bonded wares, 
Refuse to ante up the promised rate. 
 
Beneath those rugged bricks, the city’s pave, 
Where heaves the dirt in many a shouldering heap, 
Each in his narrow cell, (a warrior brave) , 
The crude forefathers of Hamburger sleep. 
 
The rumbling call of street cars over-head, 
The footings of salvation’s cornet band, 
The whispered libels better left unsaid, 
No more can rouse them from their bed of sand. 
 
For them no more the speeding waiters wheel, 
Or busy porters mop between their legs; 
No children rush to spoil grandaddy’s meal, 
Or spill their soup upon his ham and eggs. 
 
Oft did the buffalo to their arrows yield, 
Their clothes before some stubborn grizzly wore; 
How jocund did they drive their squaws afield ! 
How rung the woods when they began to snore! 
 
(Let no “Ambition” mock these stately “Tuts,” 
Their homely jags, and destiny obscure ; 
Nor “grandeur” wear, with half-ambitious guts, 
The short and simple flannels of the poor.) 
 
The toast of swieback, potatoes sour, 
And all that gravy, all that natives curse 
Await alike the inevitable hour: 
Hamburger— ah me, it couldn’t be worse! 
 
Nor you, T-bone, commute to these the blame 
If chicory on their beaks no pimples raise, 
Where in the one armed dump (it is a shame) 
The creamed fruit salad drives us all to craze. 
 
Can sweet beaf steak or animated jaw 
Back to its bellows call the vagrant breath ? 
His Honor, can he provoke tim dormant law, 
Injunction it to function still in Death? 
 
Perhaps in this selected grub is laid 
Some mind once pregnant with genteel satire; 
Hands that the Reds of empires might have swayed 
Or waked to ecstacy the fastest liar. 
 
But Knowledge to their eyes her lovely form, 
Rich with the scents of time, did ne’er disclose; 
Chill Penury repressed their passion warm, 
And froze their genial current of their nose. 
 
Full many a sham of poorest grade serene 
The pale unfathomed Hamburg may reVEAL; 
Full many a flower is cut to deck the scene 
But adds its fuel to ruin a ruined meal. 
 
Some village cut-up, that with neat dispatch 
The little tyrant on his head he stood ; 
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may hatch, 
Some Cromwell guiltless of All-Ireland’s good. 
 
The respect of evil senates to evade, 
The threats of wealth and power to despise, 
To gather poverty of every shade, 
And read their answer in the nation’s pies. 
 
Their lot forbade: Nor sterilized alone 
Their growing virtues, but their crimes corralled ; 
Forbade to wade through labor to a throne, 
And shut the gates of reason to the shelled. 
 
The twinkling ray of Truth to ridicule, 
To hide the blushes ill-covered shame, 
Or—to inoculate some uncut scowlng jewel— 
With ethics of their fast gyrating game. 
 
“The howling mob may how to empty Glow, 
Exalt the Knave and canonize the Press; 
But more to militants their safety owe 
Than Corporations care to e’en confess. 
 
“Hark, how the tumbling storm that whistles by 
Bids every sleeping, dying, snowflake rise; 
How nature’s forces whispering shrill on high 
Proclaims the Right of All — to Organize !” 
 
Far from the madhouse of incessant war, 
Those restless martyrs never cared to stray; 
Upon that cool sequestered other shore 
They hold their set, uncompromising sway. 
 
In some fond ear a murmuring soul replies, 
To some dull brain a token it may give; 
E’en from the tomb the voice of nature cries: 
That in our grub their sacred ashes live. 
 
Perhaps in this poor steak of odds and ends, 
Incapable of proof that it is dead, 
Sone mas Gray may live to make amends, 
For words that he, nor I, nor we have said. 
 
Perhaps some grazing cow no facts ignored, 
Condemned no thought, with prideful scathing breath; 
But gathered up each blade of knowledge stored. 
And passed them on to victory in Death. 
 
EPITAPH 
Here rests “Old Brindle” on a polished plate, 
A walf quite unacquainted with despair— 
A brilliant thought finds here a sighing mate 
Where everything is old — and nothing rare. 
 
Its humble parts in harmony re-hooked, 
The odds and ends of surging thought to dole; 
As many times re-used as it is cooked, 
To recompense the native in his soul. 
 
No further reek its merits to implore. 
Or drag the ghastly linens out to wash — 
There they, with dishrags, gainfully explore 
The bosom of Hamburger— Oh my Gosh — 
 
Mayhap some Rose of Roseland, Illinois, 
Will deign to not retard our Silent Wish, 
Nor dedicate the substance of our joy— 
Nor jar the soulful contract of our Dish. 
 
T-Bone Slim.