My brother he was a auctioneer

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My brother he was a auctioneer
by Robert Ervin Howard

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First published in The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, vol. 1 (2009), where it appears in a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, c. 1928

1894125My brother he was a auctioneerRobert Ervin Howard

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My brother he was an auctioneerWith a skull like a kotted hammer,He was quick as a cat when he went for beer,But his wife was a showgirl, damn her.

Some are crooked from dusk to dawn,But none was ever so crooked,For I first shot craps on the ghetto lawnWhere the immigrant kids are rook’ed.

Some are kept at home of nights,Like something screwed in a socket,But my uncle took me to see the fightsAnd I picked his goddam pocket.

When I grew and guzzled my brother’s corn,He would not bide so near me,So he kicked me out one lovely morn,With a boot in the pants to cheer me.

So I went my way and I sought for gawksWith skulls like solid palmettos,And I shot my craps on the crowded walksIn the shade of the East Side ghettoes.

Till I lost my money and found my girl,One of the Harlem wenches,With a pair of buttocks that she could twirlTill they passed out under the benches.

She danced in a flock of cabarets,Was never a girl could beat her,But some low bastard got a raiseAnd came one night to meet her.

But I laid for him upon that night,As he leaped across the hedgel,And I timed his chin with a roundhouse rightAnd knocked him cold as a wedgel.

The punch that finished him broke my hand,Mere words can not convey it,To mend it cost me to beat the bandAnd it broke my heart to pay it.

I took me a black, unbroken wenchAnd led her into the park there,But she knocked me out with a monkey wrenchAnd left me naked and stark there.

I lay in the lush of the ticklish grass,It’s a wonder I did not freezel,Till I woke and found what had come to passAnd my curses froze the treesel.

So I sat me down beneath a treeAnd gathered all my craftel,And the thought of college came to meAnd that is a goodly graftel.

I wear a green, he-mannish capAnd a pair of sails for breeches,And I yodel and sing and act the sapWith a hundred sons of bitches.

Go lay your hands in a harlot’s lapAnd seek for the stuff she peddles,You will jazz her and get the clap,But I will jazz co-eddles.

This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died more than 70 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.

This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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