The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum | Page 4

ring's a cut-glass snide,
His overcoat is rented by the day,

But still no kick is coming yet from Mae
When Murphy cuts the cake
so very wide.
Rubber, thou scab! Don't throw on so much spaniel!
Say, are there
any more at home like you?
You're not the only lion after Daniel,

You're not the only oyster in the stew.
Get next, you pawn-shop sport!
Come oft the fence
Before I make you look like thirty cents!
VII
Mayhap you think I cinched my little job
When I made meat of
Mamie's dress-suit belle.
If that's your hunch you don't know how the
swell
Can put it on the plain, unfinished slob
Who lacks the kiss-me
war paint of the snob
And can't make good inside a giddy shell;

Wherefore the reason I am fain to tell
The slump that caused me this
melodious sob.
For when I pushed Brick Murphy to the rope
Mame manned the

ambulance and dragged him in,
Massaged his lamps with fragrant
drug store dope
And coughed up loops of kindergarten chin;
She
sprang a come back, piped for the patrol,
Then threw a glance that
tommyhawked my soul.
VIII
I sometimes think that I am not so good,
That there are foxier,
warmer babes than I,
That Fate has given me the calm go-by
And
my long suit is sawing mother's wood.
Then would I duck from under
if I could,
Catch the hog special on the jump, and fly
To some Goat
Island planned by destiny
For dubs and has-beens and that solemn
brood.
But spite of bug-wheels in my cocoa tree,
The trade in lager beer is
still a-humming,
A schooner can be purchased for a V
Or even
grafted if you're fierce at bumming.
My finish then less clearly do I
see,
For lo! I have another think a-coming.
IX
Last night I tumbled off the water cart -
It was a peacherino of a
drunk;
I put the cocktail market on the punk
And tore up all the
sidewalks from the start.
The package that I carried was a tart
That
beat Vesuvius out for sizz and spunk,
And when they put me in my
little bunk
You couldn't tell my jag and me apart.
Oh! would I were the ice man for a space,
Then might I cool this
red-hot cocoanut,
Corral the jim-jam bugs that madly race
Around
the eaves that from my forehead jut -
Or will a carpenter please come
instead
And build a picket fence around my head?
X
As one who with his landlord stands deuce high
And blocks his board

bill off with I O U's,
Touching the barkeep lightly for his booze,

Sidestepping when a creditor goes by,
Soaking his mother's
watch-chain on the sly,
Haply his ticker, too, haply his shoes,
Till
Mr. Johnson comes to turn him loose
And lift the mortgage from that
poor cheap guy;
So am I now small change in Mamie's scorn,
A microbe's egg, or
two-bits in a fog,
A first cornet that cannot toot a horn,
A
Waterbury watch that's slipped a cog;
For when her make-up's
twisted to a frown,
What can I but go 'way back and sit down?
XI
O scaly Mame to give me such a deal,
To hand me such a bunch
when I was true!
You played me double and you knew it, too,
Nor
cared a wad of gum how I would feel.
Can you not see that Murphy's
handy spiel
Is cheap balloon juice of a Blarney brew,
A phonograph
where all he has to do
Is give the crank a twist and let 'er reel?
Nay, love has put your optics on the bum,
To you are Murphy's gold
bricks all O. K.;
His talks go down however rank they come,
For he
has got you going, fairy fay.
Ah, well! In that I'm in the box with you,

For love has got poor Willie groggy, too.
XII
Life is a combination hard to buck,
A proposition difficult to beat,

E'en though you get there Zaza with both feet,
In forty flickers, it's
the same hard luck,
And you are up against it nip and tuck,

Shanghaied without a steady place to eat,
Guyed by the very copper
on your beat
Who lays to jug you when you run amuck.
O Life! you give Yours Truly quite a pain.
On the T square I do not
like your style;
For you are playing favorites again
And you have
got me handicapped a mile.
Avaunt, false Life, with all your pride

and pelf:
Go take a running jump and chase yourself!
XIII
If I were smooth as eels and slick as soap,
A baked-wind expert, jolly
with my clack,
Gally enough to ask my money back
Before the
steerer feeds me knock-out dope,
Still might I throw a duck-fit in my
hope
That I possessed a headpiece like a tack
To get my Mamie in
my private sack
Ere she could flag some Handsome Hank and slope.
What ho! she bumps! My wish avails me not,
My work is coarse and
Mame is onto me;
So am I never Johnny-on-the-spot
When any
wooden Siwash ought to be.
Thus I get busy working up a grouch

Whenever heartless Mame harpoons me - ouch!
XIV
O mommer! wasn't Mame a looty toot
Last