Michigan Bankroll [1930 Slang] Poem by R.K. Cowles

Heading to the poker game

I blow my cave hoping to win extra scratch

The front I decide to wear is my righteous rags

I'm not even a block away after exiting

I pass this knockout with nice naps

Every fella is dizzy about

Focus deep into those lamps

Would make any guy feel like a lug

Then around the corner

A goher and a gorilla

Was bleeding a juggin of his tin with bushwa

I drift away

If I don't they'll boot me a payola

I even suspect this game I'm playing

Could be a bunco

I know much about this Chicago

That has invited me has these liver lips

I then noticed the sucker

Who has a scrub as a daughter

Still have a snipe between his lips

Farther down south street

I see an astorperious

Who always bull skating

About mostly dumb to the fact

Last I made a brodie

Of stopping to beef to him

Yet this time I won't

Around another corner

I spot a square John with a bimbo

On his arm being swindled by a chiseler

In a shell game

She looks like the Mary Magdaline

My friend reformed from the local can house

Where you get plenty of jelly

This trek to my poker night hasn't been juicy

Besides been Joed

From not having many collar a nod lately

Last dim with not much doss

I had trouble with the twister to the slammer

And the dreamers usually ends up on the floor

I usually wake before the brightening

Side track for some snazzy line gigle juice

Tonight's poker host doesn't have the real Mccoy

He has the conk buster type

Although I don't want to break this dime note

I need the nobby kind

It might be the only stroll I do this dim

Once around another corner

This muffin with oomph held a roscoe

To this half portion's noggin

Who held in one hand a glass of city juice

As she's ready to crag him

I continue on

So I won't be filled with daylight

For being a witness

Then I came across a few dames

Cruising together, all with made hairs

They say they're heading to a bank night

To watch one of those new talkies

We say our abyssinas

And head to our own destinations

I then came across a sad sack

Who's a real storm buzzard

Adorned with raggy threads

And an old worn out sky piece

Who last week, someone let him have it

Right on his crumb crushers

Which are now icky

He was carrying a cadillac

Around every corner I'm all nerves to each one

Around this corner, it's no different

I pass a hooverville

This dish sits upon her stoop sipping baby

She appears to have no oomph whatsoever

She's been on the make for a while

It's on a pig's eye, if she thinks it'll be me

So far this hasn't been a july jam

Then a few amatuer investors approach

One is a Walter Winchell with a fuss at his side

I focus upon her lovely pillars

He asks me for a five spot

I only give him a ruff

He then seems sore I gave him less

than he had asked me

He then gives a honey cooler to the fuss

And they split

Then this flesh peddlar approaches

Who seems to be bailing

With this butter and egg fly

I pass them and head up the steps

To the cave of the host

Once inside he offers me all the way

For a late dim snack

I prefer not to

Then he gets a dil-ya-ble

In the background on a phonograph

I hear my pal singing 'All of Me'

Earlier in the day on the radio

I heard her singing 'Blue Moon'

Both are killer-dillers to listen to

We agree to start off the antes with a ruff

Than the usual clam

I say 'Now you're cooking with gas'

Then the bidding ends on the first hand

I tell them

'Nothing to bear but their curly hairs'

I win the first

But I better not go when the wagon comes

Because it's only the first

As the ticks go by

My luck could run out