The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum | Page 5

night when at the
Rainbow Social Club
She did the bunny hug with every scrub
From
Hogan's Alley to the Dutchman's Boot,
While little Willie, like a
plug-eared mute,
Papered the wall and helped absorb the grub,

Played nest-egg with the benches like a dub
When hot society was
easy fruit!
Am I a turnip? On the strict Q. T.,
When do my Trilbys get so
ossified?
Why am I minus when it's up to me
To brace my Paris
Pansy for a glide?
Once more my hoodoo's thrown the game and
scored
A flock of zeros on my tally-board.
XV
Nixie! I'm not canned chicken till I'm cooked,
And hope still rooms
in this pneumatic chest,
While something's doing underneath my vest

That makes me think I'm squiffier than I looked.
Mayhap Love
knew my class when I was booked
As one shade speedier than second

best
To knock the previous records galley west,
While short-end
suckers on my bait were hooked.
Mayhap - I give it up - but this I know:
When I saw Mamie on the
line today
She turned her happy searchlights on me so,
And grinned
so like a living picture - say,
If a real lady threw you such a chunk,

Could n't she pack her Raglan in your trunk?
XVI
Oh, for a fist to push a fancy quill!
A Lover's Handy Letter Writer,
too,
To help me polish off this billy doo
So it can jolly Mame and
make a kill,
Coax her to think that I'm no gilded pill,
But rather the
unadulterated goo.
Below I give a sample of the brew
I've
manufactured in my thinking mill:
"Gum Drop: - Your tanglefoot has got my game,
I'm stuck so tight
you cannot shake your catch;
It's cruelty to insects - honest, Mame, -

So won't you join me in a tie-up match?
If you'll talk business I'm
your lemon pie.
Please answer and relieve
An Anxious Guy."
XVII
Woman, you are indeed a false alarm;
You offer trips to heaven at
tourist's rates
And publish fairy tales about the dates
You're going
to keep (not meaning any harm),
Then get some poor old Rube fresh
from the farm,
As graceful as a kangaroo on skates,
Trying to
transfer at the Pearly Gates -
For instance, note this jolt that smashed
the charm: -
"P.S. - You are all right, but you won't do.
You may be up a hundred
in the shade,
But there are cripples livelier than you,
And my man
Murphy's strictly union-made.
You are a bargain, but it seems a

shame
That you should drink so much.
Yours truly,
Mame."
XVIII
Last night I dreamed a passing dotty dream -
I thought the cards were
coming all my way,
That I could shut and open things all day
While
Mame and I were getting thick as cream,
And starred as an
amalgamated team
In a cigar-box flat across the bay -
Just then the
alarm clock blew to pieces. Say,
Wouldn't that jam you? I should
rather scream.
Sleep, like a bunco artist, rubbed it in,
Sold me his ten-cent oil stocks,
though he knew
It was a Kosher trick to take the tin
When I was
such an easy thing to do;
For any centenarian can see
To ring a
bull's-eye when he shoots at me.
XIX
A pardon if too much I chew the rag,
But say, it's getting rubbed in
good and deep,
And I have reached the limit where I weep
As easy
as a sentimental jag.
My soul is quite a worn and frazzled rag,
My
life is damaged goods, my price is cheap,
And I am such a snap I dare
not peep
Lest some should read the price-mark on my tag.
The more my sourballed murmur, since I've seen
A Sunday picnic car
on Market Street,
Full of assorted sports, each with his queen -
And
chewing pepsin on the forninst seat
Were Mame and Murphy, diked
to suit the part,
And clinching fins in public, heart-to-heart.
XX
Forget it? Well, just watch me try to shake
The memory of that
four-bit Scheutzen Park,
Where Sunday picnics boil from dawn till
dark
And you tie down the Flossie you can take,
If you don't mind
man-handling and can make
A prize rough house to jolly up the lark,


To show the ladies you're the whole tan-bark,
And leave a blaze of
fireworks in your wake.
'Twas there before the Rainbow Club that Mame
Bawled herself out
as Murphy's finansay
And all the chronic glad hand-claspers came

To copper invites for the wedding day;
And when the jocund day
threw up the sponge
Murphy was billed to take the fatal plunge.
XXI
At noon today Murphy and Mame were tied.
A gospel huckster did
the referee,
And all the Drug Clerks Union loped to see
The queen
of Minnie Street become a bride,
And that bad actor, Murphy, by her
side,
Standing where Yours Despondent ought to be.
I went to hang
a smile in front of me,
But weeps were in my glimmers when I tried.
The pastor murmured, "Two and two make one,"
And slipped a
sixteen K on Mamie's grab;
And when the game was tied and all was
done
The guests shied footwear at the bridal cab,
And Murphy's
little gilt-roofed brother Jim
Snickered, "She's