Pulp Poem of the Week

He got hold of a gun.
His first killing followed
automatically.

          James Hadley Chase
          No Orchids for Miss Blandish
          1962

Pulp Poem of the Week

I’ll remember
what you said
when I’m half
way to heaven
on a roller coaster.

          Don Tracy
          Last Year’s Snow
          1937

Pulp Poem of the Week

Marvelous.
I’ve just committed
my first venal sin
and it feels
marvelous.

          P. J. Wolfson
          Is My Flesh of Brass?
          1934

Pulp Poem of the Week

A man named Barney Manton.
A man who believed in hitting and
hitting hard,
because if you hit hard enough,
you always got something,
if only a corpse.

          Harry Whittington
          Call Me Killer
          1951

Pulp Poem of the Week

no man
has ever been trapped
except through
his emotions

          Donald E. Westlake
          The Mercenaries
          1960

Pulp Poem of the Week

Who wants to go to heaven
in the rain
on an empty stomach,
soaking newspapers thrown over you
without a dime in your pocket?

          Cornell Woolrich
          Hotel Room
          1958

Pulp Poem of the Week

The past
was filling the room
like a tide
of whispers.

          Ross Macdonald
          The Instant Enemy
          1968

Pulp Poem of the Week

A favor’s no good
unless
you pay for it.

          Lawrence Block
          A Stab in the Dark
          1981

Pulp Poem of the Week

for too many years
the only exercise
I had got was
bending my elbow

          Lawrence Block
          Time to Murder and Create
          1976

Pulp Poem of the Week

There was nothing
of the cheap moll
in this set-up.
She was not
just paint and powder.
You could scratch this dame
and still find her
good underneath.

          James Hadley Chase
          No Orchids for Miss Blandish
          1939

Pulp Poem of the Week

You have
a couple
of hours
of fun.
And then
you have
a lot
of hell.

          Don Tracy
          Last Year’s Snow
          1937

Pulp Poem of the Week

spread-eagled
on the bed
like a steamrollered
Arthur Dimmesdale

          Donald E. Westlake
          What’s So Funny?
          2007

Pulp Poem of the Week

Don’t ever get a girl
that’s gotta get in
by ten o’clock.
Eleven, yes,
but not ten.

          P. J. Wolfson
          Is My Flesh of Brass?
          1934

Pulp Poem of the Week

You take a guy who writes a book.
Can you say why he can write a book
while you can’t?
Or another Joe can paint your picture
so it looks just like you,
while if you did it,
it would look like a dog maybe,
or a camel maybe.
Some guys can do one thing—
well, this job is the only one I can do.
But I can do it, baby.
And I’ll be right—
no matter how many people
try to lie me out of it,
you included,
I’ll get the truth.
Because I won’t stop until I do.
And don’t you forget it.

          Harry Whittington
          Call Me Killer
          1951

Pulp Poem of the Week

she thinks you’re a grown man;
either go down and do it,
or go up and tell her that she’s wrong

          Charles Williams
          Aground
          1960

Pulp Poem of the Week

An ounce of caution
is worth
a pound of plasma.

          Donald E. Westlake
          The Mercenaries
          1960

Pulp Poem of the Week

That was the moment
his mouth opened,
his throat closed,
his eyes bulged,
his heart contracted,
and his hands began to shake
like fringe on a cowgirl.

          Donald E. Westlake
          The Road to Ruin
          2004

Pulp Poem of the Week

Out of food,
out of liquor,
even out of coffee.

          Lionel White
          The Snatchers
          1953

Pulp Poem of the Week

“In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michael Angelo.”
Does that suggest anything to you, sir?

Yeah—it suggests to me that
the guy didn’t know very much about women.

          Raymond Chandler
          The Long Goodbye
          1953 

Pulp Poem of the Week

He coiled a forearm
far back of his own shoulder,
swung rabidly with it,
caught the bodyguard flat-handed
on the side of the face
with a sound like wet linen
being pounded on a clothesline.

          Cornell Woolrich
          Hotel Room
          1958

Pulp Poem of the Week

It is is not
necessary to know
what a person is a afraid of.
It is
enough to know
the person is afraid.

          Lawrence Block
          The Sins of the Fathers
          1976