Jesse Thompson - Mercury (1927)

Forgotten Poems #30

—: Mercury :—

  
gor . . . but my dogs is tired

       a messengerboy i know told me
       when we met in the street car

carfare . . . sure i get carfare
   i spend a dollar a day carfare
      but theres
         lots of places a car don't go
             and you gotta hike

             why today i been up to the printers
             seventeen times s'helpme

it is a strange thought
   but one of the many feet of big business
      is in the shoes of dogtired
                                                messenger
                                                boys
  

Jesse Thompson (p. 1927, etc.)

P: Overland Monthly & Out West (1927), etc.

“Jesse Thompson gives us something in ‘Songs of Civilisation’ and why not? Newspaper men and advertising men are supposed to know the songs of civilisation if anyone does.” (The Overland Monthly, 1927)

Make of that what you will, haha. I haven’t been able to find any more information on Thompson, but the small set of poems they left behind are so good: both critically sharp and poetically striking.

 
               For Jesse Thompson
                     by Dick Whyte

            out of work
            i pick bits
            of half-
            smoked weed
            from an old
            jar
                 of ash


                           xoxo
                             dw
 

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