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Home  »  Smoke and Steel  »  24. Cahoots

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922.

II. People Who Must

24. Cahoots

PLAY it across the table.

What if we steal this city blind?

If they want any thing let ’em nail it down.

Harness bulls, dicks, front office men,

And the high goats up on the bench,

Ain’t they all in cahoots?

Ain’t it fifty-fifty all down the line,

Petemen, dips, boosters, stick-ups and guns—what’s to hinder?

Go fifty-fifty.

If they nail you call in a mouthpiece.

Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it.

Feed ’em …

Nothin’ ever sticks to my fingers, nah, nah, nothin’ like that,

But there ain’t no law we got to wear mittens—huh—is there?

Mittens, that’s a good one—mittens!

There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens.