1920's Flicker

Category: Poetry
John Dillinger and Baby-Faced Nelson
in a dream together
- one shooting holes thru
theories of his untimely death,
the other frying in an old-time
(e) Electric Chair
with balloons waving, bonbons
going off, the crowd in a joyous,
boisterous mood.

The marquee reads:
"Public Enemy Number One
laid to rest in a
shallow grave as
gravelly as the heart
that beat in his stoney chest."

An adjacent sign noted,
crime does pay the undertaker
but other, good-hearted folks
need look no further than
the Dempsey-Tunney fight
to see which has the
bigger box office draw.

Available translations:

English (Original)