Send him out on a shutter—then listen to the boos again,
The kind fans howling that the battle was too tame.
Visions
Table of Contents
I cannot believe in a paradise
Glorious, undefiled,
For gates all scrolled and streets of gold
Are tales for a dreaming child.
I am too lost for shame
That it moves me unto mirth,
But I can vision a Hell of flame
For I have lived on earth.
The Voices Waken Memory
Table of Contents
The blind black shadows reach inhuman arms
To draw me into darkness once again;
The brooding night wind hints of nameless harms,
And down the shadowed hill a vague refrain
Bears half-remembered ghosts to haunt my soul,
Like far-off neighing of the nightmare's foal.
But let me fix my phantom-shadowed eyes
Hard on the stars — pale points of silver light—
Here is the borderlad — here reason lies—
There, vision, gryphons, Nothing, and the Night.
Down, down, red spectres, down, and rack me not!
Out, wolves of Hell! Oh God, my pulses thrum;
The night grows fierce and blind and red and hot,
And nearer still a frim insistent drum.
I will not look into the shadows — No!
The star shall grip and hold my frantic gaze—
But even in the stars black visions grow,
And dragons writhe with iron eyes ablaze.
Oh Gods that raised my blindness with your curse,
And let me see the horrid shapes behind
All outward veils that cloak the universe,
The loathsome demon-spells that bind and blind,
Since even the stars are noisome, foul and fell,
Let me glut deep with memory dreams of hell.
The Weakling
Table of Contents
I died in sin and forthwith went to Hell;
I made myself at home upon the coals
Where seas of flame break on the cinder shoals.
Till Satan came and said with angry yell,
"You there—divulge what route by which you fell."
"I spent my youth among the flowing bowls,
"Wasted my life with women of dark souls,
"Died brothel-fighting—drunk on muscatel."
Said he, "My friend, you’ve been directed wrong:
"You’ve naught to recommend you for our feasts—
"Like factory owners, brokers, elders, priests;
"The air for you! This place is for the strong!"
Then as I pondered, minded to rebel,
He laughed and forthwith kicked me out of Hell.
Yodels of Good Sneer to the Pipple, Damn Them
Table of Contents
We are the buttock shakers
And we are the slayers of dreams,
Dredging our lone sea breakers,
Damming up beautiful streams.
Bad losers and friend forsakers
In whom the jackal screams,
But we are the grabbers and takers
Of the world forever it seems
With rotten, bastardly ditties We tore up the world’s great cities. And over the ashes of glory Erected a tenement whorey.
One man with a godamned hammer
Can batter a statue down
And four with an apeish clamor
Can tear off a virgin’s gown.
We, with our sneers and lying,
Since the day when the dawns were young,
Built Gomorrah with our spying
And Sodom we reared and sung.
And we curse all the birds for flying,
And the sod whence the flowers sprung,
As we go selling and buying,
Building a world of dung.
Essays and Articles
Table of Contents
Dula Due To Be Champion
The Beast from the Abyss
The Hyborian Age
Midnight
With a Set of Rattlesnake Rattles
The Ghost of Camp Colorado
Dula Due To Be Champion
Table of Contents
Arthur "Kid" Dula is due to be the middleweight champion of the world, in the opinion of Robert E. Howard of Cross Plains, who witnessed the Dula-Tramel battle in Fort Worth last week.
Howard is a close student of the boxing game, and is thoroughly posted on current boxing as well as on the history of the fight game. Writing to The Bulletin today from his home is Cross Plains, Howard says:
"Last Friday night a boy went through his baptism of blood and fire and emerged victorious. The decision went against him but the moral victory was his.
"Arthur Dula of Brownwood, in his slashing desperate battle against Duke Tramel proved that he was of the stuff of which champions are built. I have seen challengers, champions and near champions perform but that moment in the fourth round, when Dula, his back against the ropes, pinned there by Tramel’s murderous attack, and dazed from a terrific right to the temple—made a desperate rally and outslugged the most dangerous slugger the South has ever produced. Outslugged, outfought and bettered him back across the ring.
"Again in the eighth, when dizzy and bloody the Kid reeled about the ring, out on his feet but with superhuman courage refusing to go down—again in the last desperate round when the Kid, weakened by cruel punishment and low blows charged recklessly across the ring, met Tramel in his own corner. And fighting like an uncaged tiger, smashed the weakening slugger from one side of the ring to the other.
Next Champion
"All this leads to the main point; that which came into my mind as I watched that bloody eighth round. Kid Dula is the next Middleweight Champion of the World.