Chapter I: Front Matter

INTRODUCING
IRONY

INTRODUCING
IRONY

A BOOK OF POETIC SHORT
STORIES AND POEMS

BY

MAXWELL BODENHEIM

NEW YORK

BONI AND LIVERIGHT

1922

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.

_Printed in the United States of America_

_To_

FEDYA RAMSAY

WHOSE HAND NEVER LEAVES MY SHOULDER

Some of the poems and stories in this book have appeared in _The Dial_, _Harper’s Bazaar_, _The Little Review_, _The Nation_, _Cartoons Magazine_, _Poetry_, _A Magazine of Verse_, _The New York Globe_, _The Bookman_, _Vanity Fair_, _The Measure_ and _The Double Dealer_

CONTENTS

PAGE

JACK ROSE 11

SEAWEED FROM MARS 13

TURMOIL IN A MORGUE 18

CONDENSED NOVEL 21

MANNERS 23

AN ACROBAT, A VIOLINIST, AND A CHAMBERMAID CELEBRATE 25

NOVEL CONVERSATION 28

THE SCRUB-WOMAN 30

MEDITATIONS IN A CEMETERY 32

SIMPLE ACCOUNT OF A POET’S LIFE 34

CANDID NARRATIVE 37

UNLITERARY AND SHAMELESS 39

TWO SONNETS TO MY WIFE 40

FINALITIES, I-VIII 41

IMAGINARY PEOPLE, I-IV 47

UNEASY REFLECTIONS 50

SUMMER EVENING: NEW YORK SUBWAY STATION 50

GARBAGE HEAP 52

IMPULSIVE DIALOGUE 53

EMOTIONAL MONOLOGUE 56

PRONOUNCED FANTASY 59

WHEN SPIRITS SPEAK OF LIFE 61

INSANITY 64

POETRY 68

RELIGION 72

SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY 75

ART 78

MUSIC 82

ETHICS 86

HISTORY 90

PSYCHIC PHENOMENA 94

LOVE 98

INTRODUCING IRONY

JACK ROSE

With crafty brooding life turned to Jack Rose
And made him heroin-peddler, and his pose
Was sullenly reflective since he feared
That life, regarding him, had merely jeered.
His vanity was small and could not call
His egoism to the dubious hall
Of fame, where average artists spend their hour.
Doubting his powers he was forced to cower
Within the shrill, damp alleys of his time,
Immersed in that brisk midnight known as crime.
He shunned the fiercely shrewd stuff that he sold
To other people, and derived a cold
Enjoyment from the writhing of their hearts.
A speechless artist, he admired the arts
Of blundering destruction, like a monk
Viewing a play that made him mildly drunk.
And so malicious and ascetic Jack
Bent to his trade with a relentless back
Until he tapped an unexpected smile--
A woman’s smile as smooth and hard as tile.
May Bulger pawned her flesh to him and gave
His heroin to her brother, with a grave
Reluctance fumbling at her painted lips.
Though angry at herself, she took the whips
Of undesired love, to quiet a boy
Who wept inanely for his favorite toy.
She hated Jack because he failed to gloss
And soften the rough surface of her loss,
His matter-of-fact frown biting at her heart.
He hated her because her smiling guess
Had robbed him of ascetic loneliness,
And when her brother died, Jack sat beside
Her grief and played a mouth-harp while she cried.
But when she raised her head and smiled at him--
A smile intensely stripped and subtly grim--
His hate felt overawed and in a trap,
And suddenly his head fell to her lap.
For some time she sat stiffly in the chair,
Then slowly raised her hand and stroked his hair.

SEAWEED FROM MARS

I

“Have you ever played on a violin
Larger than ten thousand stars
And warmer than what you call sin?”
Torban, a young man from Mars,
Gave me the stretch of his voice,
And my “no” fell down like a pin
On the echoed din of his words.
He said: “Then I have no choice.
I must use the barrenly involved
Words with which you have not solved
The wistful riddles of your days.
Leave the pale and ruddy herds
Of men, with their surrendering ways,
And come with me to Mars.”