Kenneth Fearing

$ A D L Q

$2.50

But that dashing, dauntless, delphic, diehard, diabolic cracker likes his fiction turned with a certain elegance and wit; and that anti-anti-anti-slum-congestion clublady prefers romance;
Search through the mothballs, comb the lavender and lace;
Were her desires and struggles futile or did an innate fineness bring him at last to a prouder, richer peace in a world gone somehow mad?

Aphrodite Metropolis (1)

"Myrtle loves Harry" — It is sometimes hard to remember a thing like that,
Hard to think about it, and no one knows what to do with it when he has it,
So write it out on a billboard that stands under the yellow light of an "L" platform among popcorn wrappers and crushed cigars,
A poster that says "Mama I Love Crispy Wafers So."
Leave it on a placard where somebody else gave the blonde lady a pencil moustache, and another perplexed citizen deposited:
"Jesus Saves. Jesus Saves."
One can lay this bundle down there with the others,

Dirge

1-2-3 was the number he played but today the number came 3-2-1;
bought his Carbide at 30 and it went to 29; had the favorite at Bowie but the track was slow —

O, executive type, would you like to drive a floating power, knee-action, silk-upholstered six? Wed a Hollywood star? Shoot the course in 58? Draw to the ace, king, jack?
O, fellow with a will who won't take no, watch out for three cigarettes on the same, single match; O democratic voter born in August under Mars, beware of liquidated rails —

Literary

I sing of simple people and the hardier virtues, by Associated Stuffed Shirts & Company, Incorporated, 358 West 42d Street, New York, brochure enclosed
of Christ on the Cross, by a visitor to Calvary, first class
art deals with eternal, not current verities, revised from last week's Sunday supplement
guess what we mean, in The Literary System, and a thousand noble answers to a thousand empty questions, by a patriot who needs the dough.

Q & A

Where analgesia may be found to ease the infinite, minute scars of the day;
What final interlude will result, picked bit by bit from the morning's hurry, the lunch-hour boredom, the fevers of the night;
Why this one is cherished by the gods, and that one not;
How to win, and win again, and again, staking wit alone against a sea of time;
Which man to trust and, once found, how far —