# The Ballad of Monk Kickawhore

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. November 1928
The Ballad of Monk Kickawhore
My brother, he was a keg of beer,
And he spoke with a rotten grammar,
He was quick with his rump as a pitching steer
When he got some girl to ram her.
My sister she would never behave,
Went with the friend of a neighbor,
And he was a pimp and a lowlife knave—
And so she came to her labor.
Some are cradled in silks anon,
And petted and fed on candy,
But I was laid on a demijohn
And all that I drank was brandy.
Some are crummy from dusk till morn,
But none was ever so crummy,
For bastards along my trail were born
Till the Devil himself got chummy.
And I remember a household tough,
And a brother prone to trifle—
But he married a girl who lived on snuff
When her uncle came with a rifle.
And I remember the kitchen wench
Who was Swedish and short and stocky,
And the parties we had on the kitchen bench
Ere I heard of the gonococci.
And how we wriggled and writhed and twitched
Till the kitchen started reeling,
And how she giggled and bucked and pitched
Till my rump went up to the ceiling.
When I grew tall as an army mule
My brother had little to show me,
For I was an expert with my tool
With the proper wench below me.
I travelled far and I took each chance—
Slept with the English wenches,
And jazzed in public all over France
Under the bar-room benches.
Till I lost my virtue and found my mate
A girl with a lisp and a stammer,
And she was built to accommodate
A man with a ten foot rammer.
We slept off our drunks in stables of France,
Fought with the hogs and ganders,
And she left the seat of her under-pants
On the end of a bar in Flanders.
She was so hot that she’d make you melt
Some times on the nose I’d bust her,
And I made her wear a chastity belt
For I knew that I could not trust her.
My tool was sore and it made me frown,
For I knew I shouldn’t abuse it,
But I could not stop when her drawers were down,
Though it hurt like Hell to use it.
Till I took me a new girl out one night,
And we got heated and gay there,
But my wife came down with a swinging right
And knocked me flat as I lay there.
Her high heels beat out a wild tattoo
As she danced upon my belly,
She kicked my rear both black and blue
And beat me into a jelly.
And your girl’s easy where mine was rough,
My brother so slick and sappy,
But mine has a form and yours dips snuff,
And I’ll bet, begob, she’s clappy.
The Custom House on the French Frontier
I passed with my drunken soul-mate,
And they took her drawers for a souvenir
And hung them over the toll-gate.
The Belgian women raised a row
When she kicked them on their bustles,
And she tried to ride a milking cow
In a tavern-yard in Brussels.
The Coblenz wenches raised merry Hell
When she said they all were strumpets—
And how you departed I may not tell,
But we left town with trumpets.
I lay on a couch with a ticklish whore,
For her price I did not haggle
She took all I had and wanted more,
But I was limp as a raggle.
Go jazz your wenches and go to Hell,
I want no whores around me,
For I hid in the room of a high hotel
But my goddam wife has found me.
This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died 88 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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