Complete Works of James Joyce (332 page)
Read Complete Works of James Joyce Online
Authors: Unknown
And I shall have no peace there for Joyce comes more and more,
Dropping from a tramp or a taxi to where the white wine swills.
Then midnight’s all of a shimmy and Bloom a bloody bore
And morning full - of bills! bills! bills!
Who is Sylvia, what is she
That all our scribes commend her?
Yankee, young and brave is she
The west this grace did lend her,
That all books might published be.
Is she rich as she is brave
For wealth oft daring misses?
Throngs about her rant and rave
To subscribe for
Ulysses
But, having signed, they ponder grave.
Then to Sylvia let us sing
Her daring lies in selling.
She can sell each mortal thing
That’s boring, beyond telling.
To her let us buyers bring.
J-J-
after
W. S.
The press and the public misled
m
e
The press and the public misled me
So brand it as slander and lies
That I am the bloke with the watches
And that you are the chap with the ties.
Jimmy Joyce, Jimmy Joyce, where have you bee
n
Jimmy Joyce, Jimmy Joyce, where have you been
I’ve been to London to see the queen -
Jimmy Joyce, Jimmy Joyce, what saw you, tell?
I saw a brass bed in the Euston Hotel.
(air: Dougherty’s Duck)
Cantus Plenus
Now Wallace he heard that Fréderic’s was the dearest place to dine
So he took the Joyces there to have combustible duck and wine.
The toothpicks cost a pound apiece, the salt a guinea a grain:
When Wallace saw the bill he felt an epigastric pain.
Chorus Coenatorum
Frédéric, Frédéric, Frédéric, O! My word, you pile it on!
A tour of the world is cheaper than a meal in the
Tour d’Argent.
I’d rather eat hot dog in the street or dine for half a buck
Than sweat in full dress in your poultry-press and be bled like Fréderic’s duck.
I never thought a fountain p
e
n
I never thought a fountain pen
Exemption gave as well as solace.
If critics blame my style again
I’ll say ’twas given me by Wallace.
Shem the Penman
Rosy Brook he bought a book
Though he didn’t know how to spell it.
Such is the lure of literature
To the lad who can buy it and sell it.
I saw at Miss Beach’s when midday was shini
n
g
I saw at Miss Beach’s when midday was shining
A bard with fresh water drone drowsily on
I came when Miss Beach was distant and dining
The bard was asleep but the water was gone.
(with apologies to Thomas Moore)
Bran! Bran! the baker’s ban!
Gobble it quick and die if you can.
Forgive us this day our deadly bread
But give us old Kellogg’s bran poultice instead.
P. J.
T
.
There’s a funny facepainter dubbed Tuohy
Whose bleaklook is rosybud bluey
For when he feels strong
He feels
your
daub’s all wrong
But when he feels weak he feels wooey.
(Air: Molly Brannigan)
Man dear, did you never hear of buxom Molly Bloom at all,
As plump an Irish beauty, Sir, as any Levi-Blumenthal?
If she sat in the viceregal box Tim Healy’d have no room at all,
But curl up in a corner at a glance from her eye.
The tale of her ups and downs would aisy fill a handybook
That would cover the two worlds at once from Gibraltar
‘cross to Sandy Hook.
But now that tale is told, ochone, I’ve lost my daring dandy look:
Since Molly Bloom has left me here alone for to cry.
Man dear, I remember when my roving time was troubling me
We picknicked fine in storm or shine in France and Spain
and Hungary
And she said I’d be her first and last while the wine I poured
went bubbling free
Now every male you meet with has a finger in her pie.
Man dear, I remember with all the heart and brain of me
I arrayed her for the bridal but, O, she proved the bane of me.
With more puppies sniffing round her than the wooers of Penelope
She’s left me on her doorstep like a dog for to die.
My left eye is wake and his neighbour full of water, man.
I cannot see the lass I limned as Ireland’s gamest Daughter, man,
When I hear her lovers tumbling in their thousands for to
court her, man,
If I was sure I’d not be seen I’d sit down and cry.
May you live, may you love like this gaily spinning earth of ours,
And every morn a gallant sun awake you with new wealth of gold
But if I cling like a child to the clouds that are your petticoats
O Molly, handsome Molly, sure you won’t let me die!
The clinic was a patched one
Its outside old as rust
And every stick beneath that roof
Lay four foot thick in dust.
Is it dreadfully necessary
AND
(I mean that I pose etc) is it useful, I ask
this
Heat!?
We all know Mercury will
when
he Kan!
but as Dante saith:
1 Inferno is enough
Basta,
he said,
un’ inferno, perbacco!
And that bird -
Well!
He
oughter know!
(with apologies to Mr Ezra Pound)
Rouen is the rainiest place getti
n
g
Rouen is the rainiest place getting
Inside all impermeables, wetting
Damp marrow in drenched bones.
Midwinter soused us coming over Le Mans
Our inn at Niort was the Grape of Burgundy
But the winepress of the Lord thundered over that grape of
Burgundy
And we left it in a hurgundy.
(Hurry up, Joyce, it’s time!)
I heard mosquitoes swarm in old Bordeaux
So many!
I had not thought the earth contained so many
(Hurry up, Joyce, it’s time)
Mr Anthologos, the local gardener,
Greycapped, with politeness full of cunning
Has made wine these fifty years
And told me in his southern French
Le petit vin
is the surest drink to buy
For if ’tis bad
Vous ne l’avez pas payé
(Hurry up, hurry up, now, now, now!)
But we shall have great times,
When we return to Clinic, that waste land
O Esculapios!
(Shan’t we? Shan’t we? Shan’t we?)
There’s a coughmixture scopolami
n
e
There’s a coughmixture scopolamine
And its equal has never been seen
’Twould make staid Tutankamen
Laugh and leap like a salmon
And his mummy hop Skotch on the green.
E. P. is fond of an extra inch
Whenever the ‘ell it’s found.
But wasn’t J. J. the son of a binch
To send him an extra pound?
For he’s a jolly queer fellow
And I’m a jolly queer fellow
And Roth’s bad German for yellow
Which nobody can deny
Say, ain’t this succéss fool author
Jést a dandy paradox,
With that sílvier béach behind him,
Howling: Hélp! I’m on the rocks!
L. B. lugubriously still treads the press of pain
But J. J.’s joyicity is on the jig again
And he’ll highkick every abelboobied humballoon he cain
As he goes jubiling along.
Souvenir de la Chandeleur 1928
Paris
jokes
These capital letters represent the dancer
kicking the balloons of imposture into the
heaven of deception.