Question by : Can anyone provide me with a poetry analysis of X.J. Kennedy’s “In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day.”?
I am doing an individual presentation for a Literature class and need some more opinions and analysis.

Here is the Poem:

Prominent Bar in Secaucus

In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day
Rose a lady in skunk with a top-heavy sway
Raised a knobby red finger – all turned from their beer -
While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear

Now who of you’d think from an eyeload of me
That I once was a lady as proud as can be?
Oh I’d never sit down by a tumble-down drunk
If it wasn’t, my dears, for the high cost of junk.

All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf
Beat the down of a swan by a length and a half
In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose
Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.

I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold
My Virginia cheroot with a leaf it was rolled
And I’d light it each time with a thousand in cash
Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash

Once the toast of the Biltmore, the belle of the Taft
I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft
And dine at the Astor on Salisbury Steak
With a clean table cloth for each bite I would take

In a car like the roxy, I’d roll to the track
A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back
And the wheels made no noise, they turned ever so fast
Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past

When the horses bowed down to me that I might choose
I bet on them all for I hated to lose
Now I’m saddle each night for my butter and eggs
And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs

Let you hold in mind girls that your beauty must pass
Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass
Keep your bottoms off bar stools and marry your young
Or be left – an old barrel with many a bung

For when time takes you out for a spin in his car
You’ll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far
And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds
Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds

All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar
Made a phone call and up pulled a red patrol car
And she blew us a kiss as the copped her away
From that prominent bar in Secaucus NJ

–X.J. Kennedy

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Answer by sumit_ece87
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