From “Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum”

Prologue WOULDN’T it jar you, wouldn’t it make you sore To see the poet, when the goods play out, Crawl off of poor old Pegasus and tout His skate to two-step sonnets off galore? Then, when the plug, a dead one, can no more Shake rag-time than a biscuit, right about The poem-butcher turns with gleeful shout And sends a batch of sonnets to the store. The sonnet is a very easy mark, A James P. Dandy as a carry-all For brain-fag wrecks who want to keep it dark Just why their crop of thinks is running small. On the low down, dear Mame, my looty loo, That ’s why I ’ve cooked this batch of rhymes for you. Epilogue To just one girl I ’ve turned 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. If that ’s your guess you ’ll have to guess again, For thus I fizzled in a burst of glory, And this rhythmatic side-show doth contain The sum and substance of my hard-luck story, Showing how Vanity is still on deck And Humble Virtue gets it in the neck.