A New Joke

I’m going to write a joke in verse

      Upon a subject new;

To even hint at old-time gags

      Would simply never do.

The dusty tramp shall not appear,

      Nor actors homeward bound;

No ma’s – in – law, e’en good or bad,

      Shall in this joke be found.

No long-haired poet dashing off

      A rhyme can enter here;

No Reuben with a wisp of hay,

      Or corn upon the ear

Will this new venture tolerate,

      And jags home late at night,

And ballet girls, who do a turn,

      Will be kept out of sight.

The plumber and the milliner,

      Whose bills are long, they say,

Won’t be allowed to dip their beaks

      Into this little lay.

The watermelon and the coon,

      The burglar ‘neath the bed,

The young wife’s cooking, and the jokes

      On ‘Ikey” all are dead.

The freaks within the museums

      Shall not converse through me;

From stovetop, prune and baby jokes

      This effort shall be free.

Not one old-timer shall be dragged

      From out its moldy skin;

What is the joke? Well, I don’t know,

      Here’s where the joke comes in.

I shall not even hint of them –

     There’s where the joke comes in.

Feb. 27 or 28, ’09?

NOTE – I’ve left what are often inappropriate or even racial terms and or descriptions as written. They are rare, and probably weren’t seen as objectionable within even New England society at the time. More importantly, they exist, and editing them out would be dishonest. Things were what they were. Still, including them, as I have done, remains awkward for obvious reasons, including personal taste and the harmfulness of their use. Hopefully, doing so will at least present an accurate picture of how ingrained some prejudices, or at least callousness to them, still were at the time, even among some of the more progressive people of the era.

‘jags’ – as ‘jag’ is a noun meaning a bout of drinking, this presumably refers to people involved in the same.

‘Ikey’ – Slang – (noun) A Jew. A derogatory term dating from the 19th century. Ikey is a diminutive form of Isaac and Mo (Moses). Ikey Mo was a character in the Ally Slopercartoons at the turn of the 20th century.      http://www.dictionarycentral.com/definition/ikey-mo.html