The flim-flammer jumped in the fliver and faded


So pale, he looked like he'd just
been unwrapped from a Chicago overcoat,
he slammed his hand on the bar, cursed
that canary who'd once been his getaway
sticks before his long ride to San Quinton.

He ordered Java, downpoured with cheap rum,
and guzzled. I slithered over in my shimmy 
sham red dress, knowing I'd be heavy behind
the eight ball with Jimmy The Boss, if this
lunger slipped me Orphan papers instead of mazuma
for a john thomas dip in the back room.

Acting more vigorish than I felt, since 
this dude wasn't quite ringers with Clark
Gable or Sam Spade, I wriggled my plump
peaches, remembering what mama always
said--'choose the ones, darlin', who
have the bees & don't snap a cap
once the honey tree has been too long
relieved of its sweep sap.

Reeling him in turned out to be duck soup,
so I tucked my nippers back into my g-string
and screamed OHHHHHHHHH during his fifteen
second ride into nirvana behind me.

He slipped me some green, melted out
into the night to the soft windsongs
of Glenn Miller while I re-adjusted my dress,
strolled out in search of some other 
lonely, dead dude just waiting there,
hungry to buy himself a dream, too.

Pris Campbell
©2006

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This poem grew out of a challenge at MiPo using slang from the forties.
Know any? If not, here's a chance to use Google!



Here's Ron Androla reading the poem for me. Great reading, Ron, and thanks!

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