Simon Pettet
TWO POEMS
With his sweetheart Lizzie Olive
He helped run the Bull House tobacconist
All the confectionary there was in jars
Licorice sticks, “gob-stoppers,” lemon twists.
Old, ivy-festooned weathered-but-sturdy Bull House
Or, as it was more familiarly known
“the house with the monkey on it”
(on account, see, of one of the gargoyles)
All along the brass railings
were the requisite ash-trays
a basket of pipe-cleaners, spittoons
a quid of the finest shag
It was his home, mi casa, he used to say,
away from the claws of the law,
private.
~~~~~~~~
The mysterious Robert Feke
In the drawing rooms and parlors
of Manhattan,
ubiquitous,
In the 1740’s,
“A painter,” said Doc Hamilton
(well, that he was),
“the most extraordinary genius
that I ever knew”.
Feke came down from lush upstate
with his easel and big box of oils,
(but he didn’t stay)
too much the itch and the smell of the brine
oh to sail away!
on a great big ship
(that was what you do)
He’d been a mariner
He “tarried a while”
He missed being one.