Joe Dolce: Four Poems

Kilroy

was here.

The world’s most well-known

graffito. Bald-headed geezer

with banana-nose peeping over walls,

fingers clutching sides to steady a pea-eyed gaze.

 

In WWII, the average Joe’s

default method of planting the flag,

on every available wall, barn, railway carriage.

Discovered on so much captured US weaponry,

Hitler thought it a code name.

Even Stalin found Kilroy

perving in his bathroom.

 

Known as Mr Chad in the UK,

Private Snoops, The Goon and Watcher.

A variety of accompanying slogans included:

Wot, no sugar? 

Wot, no Fuehrer?

In WWI Australia, Foo Was Here.

In Africa, Smoe & Clem.

In Russia, Vasya.

Other nicknames: Flywheel, The Jeep,

Luke the Spook and Stinkie.

 

Contests held to discover origins—

How Kilroy Got There—

to no avail.

One theory suggested a derivation

of Greek Omega     Ω

the symbol for electrical Resistance.

 

In 1997, the little witness was

last officially spotted

peeking over the edge

of New Zealand stamp #1422.

 

The earliest documented version, 1937,

chalk-scratched inside

Fort Knox.

Joe Dolce

 

 

Agony Aunts

A custom begun as eighteenth century

question-answer column for men,

until a gentle-woman, asking if ladies

could also submit inquiries, was assured

her questions would be taken seriously.

 

UKs best known, Dear Marge, 

was Rebecca Marjorie Proops, OBE.

Almost as popular, mid-wife Claire Rayner,

referred to as: the opposite of a shrinking violet—

a swollen rhododendron,

even described herself as a stubborn old bag,

offering her signature empathy:

done it myself, lovey.

 

For anonymity, readers often

adjective-signed letters—

Sincerely, Confused.

 

Fictional Mrs Mills, of the Sunday Times,

gave humorous bad advice: get a new best friend—

she is obviously sleeping with your husband.

 

In the US, Ask Ann Landers (aka Ruth Crowley),

lived on, after her death, in

Esther “Eppie” Pauline Friedman Lederer,

who won the column, in a contest.

 

Eppie’s twin sister, Pauline Esther “Popo” Phillips,

(who said: marriage must be permanent,

even when disturbed by masculine lunacy),

started Dear Abby, 

permanently estranging the twins.

 

Obviously, they never wrote each other for advice.

Joe Dolce

 

breakaleg

The New Statesman, in 1921, declared theatre

the second most superstitious institution,

in England, after horse racing.

To wish luck, was unlucky.

Theories of origin abound.

Old slang for a bow, or curtsy, at curtain call.

Elizabethan audiences banged chairs

for approval, often until a leg broke.

Ancient Greeks didn’t applaud, they stomped,

and if one stomped hard enough …

German WWI pilots wished each other

hals und beinbruch—neck and leg fractures.

Lincoln Theory holds assassin

John Wilkes Booth broke his

leaping from the balcony.

French acteurs declare Merde! 

“The Divine Sarah” Bernhardt only had one leg,

so good luck, to be like her.

The Italian attore encourages

in bocca a lupo—

into the mouth of the wolf—

with a reply essential,

before placing a foot on the stage,

crepi il lupo—

may the wolf die.

Joe Dolce

 

I Set a Mousetrap Late Last Night

I set a mousetrap late last night

with a cube of wholemeal bread

by morning light I soon discovered

I’d caught a broom instead

 

my wife must have leaned it there

in that corner unaware

yet and still the bread was gone

I had no notion where

Joe Dolce