The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum by Irwin, Wallace, 1876-1959

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 pipe-dream off as it occurred, And as I've tipped the straight talk every word, If you don't like it you know what to do. Perhaps you think I've handed out to you An idle jest, a touch-me-not, absurd As any sky-blue-pink canary bird, Billed for a record season at the Zoo.