Classic Poem

In nineteen hundred they preferred
Parchesi, lottoes and charades.
The ladies two-stepped, barely stirred.
The men sneaked down to Bowery shades
And filled their stove-pipe hats with beer,
Drank them in one gulp, won the bets
And in the ragtime, frowsy cheer,
Berated corsets and lorgnettes.
The ladies with a smattering
Of French, discussed — in murmured quips —
The Marquis who was scattering
Moustache-imprints on many lips.
On Saturdays the family rode
In liveried broughams, satirized
The World's Fair aftermath, the mode
Ta-ra-ra-boom-deeayed, vulgarized.
Art served them as an interlude,
Grand Opera in florid tones,
Or paintings where a seated nude
Aroused frustrated, hidden groans.
The men were brokers, juggled stocks,
Played a hard game in market-hives.
With hearts as merciless as clocks
They timed the death of distant lives.
One lady in her youth found sex
In ways devious and plentiful.
Then she concealed the blackmail cheques
Through married days respected, dull.
This family honored its own kind.
Here favors could not be refused.
Others were treated like the blind —
Inferior souls born to be used.
But now the sons and daughters tryst
With horror, maddening coup d'etat.
A son became a Communist —
They buried him with sweet eclat.
He could not bear the family's veiled
Assumption of nobility,
While men with conscience were assailed
As bores above servility.
They buried him, but still his full
Street-pacing ghost pollutes the air,
And in nightmares they see him pull
A rickshaw at the next World Fair.