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Edgar Lee Masters
The sudden death of Eugene Carman
Put me in line to be promoted to fifty dollars a month,
And I told my wife and children that night.
But it didn’t come, and so I thought
Old Rhodes suspected me of stealing
The blankets I took and sold on the side
For money to pay a doctor’s bill for my little girl.
Then like a bolt old Rhodes accused me,
And promised me mercy for my family’s sake
If I confessed, and so I confessed,
And begged him to keep it out of the papers,
And I asked the editors, too.
That night at home the constable took me
And every paper, except the Clarion,
Wrote me up as a thief
Because old Rhodes was an advertiser
under the barber’s hands
I would go to confession
under those dancing combs
I set down my day
Can I tell you something weird?
I don't think you're cute.
I don't think you're ugly!
But I do think you're pretty.
You're really nice to look at,
That's what I meant to say.
I'm not very good at phrasing stuff,
So please just bear with me.
How long until I let you read this?
I know someday you will.
Maybe I'll ask you out.
(I'm kinda scared to fail.)
You make me feel like a kid again for a couple of reasons,
First, you're 5 and a half inches taller, and two, that's when everyone still listened.
Hey Parker, I really like you,
Please be nice to me.
If
If I
If I told
If I told you
If I told you how
If I told you how I
If I told you how I really
If I told you how I really felt
If I told you how I really felt
If I told you how I really
If I told you how I how
If I told you how i
If I told you how
If I told you
If I told
If I
Silence is my confession.
I was sick, but more than that, I was mad
At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life.
So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria:
“I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River,
Gradually wasting away.
But come and take me, I killed the son
Of the merchant prince, in Madam Lou’s
And the papers that said he killed himself
In his home while cleaning a hunting gun—
Lied like the devil to hush up scandal
For the bribe of advertising.
In my room I shot him, at Madam Lou’s,
Because he knocked me down when I said
That, in spite of all the money he had,
I’d see my lover that night.”