The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum | Page 5

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 left her happy home for him."
XXII
Still joy is rubbernecking on the street,?Still hikes the Mags' parade at five o'clock,?Still does the masher march around the block?Pining in vain some hothouse plant to meet;?Still does the rounder pull your leg to treat,?Where flows the whisky sour or russet bock,?And the store clothing dummies in a flock?Keep good and busy following their feet.
Rats! cut this out; for I'm a last year's champ;?Into the old bone orchard am I blowing,?So with the late lamented let me camp,?My walkers to the graveyard daisies toeing,?And shaking this too upish generation,?Pass checks through cigarette asphyxiation.
Epilogue
To just one girl I've tuned my sad bazoo,?Stringing my