Living

An Impromptu on Roller Skates

by James Whitcomb Riley 1849–1916

From The Old Soldier's Story (1915)

Living

Rumble, tumble, growl, and grate!
Skip, and trip, and gravitate!
Lunge, and plunge, and thrash the planks
With your blameless, shameless shanks:
In excruciating pain,
Stand upon your head again,
And, uncoiling kink by kink,
Kick the roof out of the rink!

In derisive bursts of mirth,
Drop ka-whop and jar the earth!
Jolt your lungs down in your socks,
Oh! tempestuous equinox
Of dismembered legs and arms!
Strew your ways with wild alarms;
Fameward skoot and ricochet
On your glittering vertebrae!

MLA

Riley, James Whitcomb. “An Impromptu on Roller Skates.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/riley/471/.

Chicago

Riley, James Whitcomb. “An Impromptu on Roller Skates.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/riley/471/.

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