Art Thieme posted this in another thread, and there were a few typos and some questions about stanza spacing. Art, I wonder if you could copy this and paste it into another message with corrections.
-Joe-

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Thread #55428   Message #881997
Posted By: Art Thieme
03-Feb-03 - 10:38 PM
Thread Name: Recitations Anyone?
Subject: Lyr Add: THE MADAM STOOD IN HER PARLOR WHEN A ...

I don't know where I got this---but it's in my file along with stuff I brought back from trying to drive to Alaska over thirty years ago. We lost 2 of our 4 cylinders near Whitehorse and had to turn around.------------
Art Thieme
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Title???

The Madam stood in her parlor when a knock was heard at her door,
The girls all gathered 'round her to display their stock and store,
She peered through the panel grill like a panther stalks a deer,
And with a quick respond to the cute little blonde she whispered in her ear,

"He is fresh from the hobo jungles, dear, with a great big roll of hay,
So stick right close beside him and make the sucker pay,
I sent my spotter down last night to watch the boats arrive,
And my taxi driver picked him up in an east-end bootleg dive.

He'll be my guest while you get dressed in your finest evening frock,
His tonsils anoint in a cocktail joint but bank his roll in your sock,
Offer your charms to lure him---make sure of your feminine wit,
But get his jack and then come back. It's a 50-50 split."

"Hello, dis place!" said Micky O'Shea, as the Madam ushered him in,
"I'll down me sum of the good ol' rum 'cause I know you're drinkin' gin,
Here's to the ladies--bless 'em--and here's to the rum---drink her down,
Skol! Fill 'em up! Bottoms up you Wobs. There's plenty more liquor in town.

Now trot out the girls for my choosin' for my flesh is seared with the flame,
That has burned in man since the world began. (O, need I mention its name?)"
Now dearie," the Madam intruded, I know you're rarin' to go,
That roll you pack of the hard-earned jack is a mighty big wad o' dough.

Just be advised by one who is wise to the ways of the huntress clan,
Steer clear of the harlot, the woman in scarlet, she is out to fleece you, man.
So let me make you acquainted with the right kind of gal to squire,
She's honest and true---she'll see ya through. Shake hands with Molly McGuire."

"What a woman! My God! What a woman."--thought the man from the log-jammed streams,
I'd follow her track to hell and back, she's the girl of my fanciful dreams.
I've lain all alone in the forest with boughs for a bed,
With the towering pines up above me and the murmuring winds overhead.

And I've heard her voice in that stillness, and she has come like a nymph before dawn,
To soothe my soul with her fondness. With the stars and the night she'd be gone.
And often I fancied I'd seen her in those big deep pools of blue,
Where the cataract leaps in the river, I've heard her laughter there too,
And now, just to think she's beside me, God it's hard to believe,
"Come honey, let's head for a nightclub," said the blond little daughter of eve.

Ten thousand drums and a big brass band, strange animals purple and red,
Were climbing the walls with ten-pound mauls and a-thumping 'em down on his head,
A circus of serpents performing in a bathtub full of champagne,
They were long---they were lean, they were purple and green and writhing around in his brain.

A woman---a marvel of beauty--a form like a sculptor's dream,
With rippling laughter in her eyes like the moon on a mountain stream,
Was calling him close to her bosom, was enticing him to her embrace,
But always her image would vanish and the floor would wallop his face.

Now, was it a horrible nightmare, or the jims from the liquid fire,
Had the Madam not made him acquainted with a girl named Molly McGuire?
He seemed to remember a roadhouse where the twinkling bright lights shone,
Then, sudden, he ran through his pockets---his roll---my God--! It was gone.

How cold were the streets of the city, how barren and friendless, how bare,
How lightly the now it fluttered, pure white, on that turbulent air,
How soon were the flakes soiled in the gutter, their emblem of purity stained,
Like the maiden whose visage he'd conjured in the forest where solitude reigned.

He was heading right back to his little log shack on the north-bound boat that night,
How he's spent that day it was hard to say, but he seemed to remember a fight,
Battered and bruised and badly used and nursing a big blackened eye,
While many a dame of skidroad fame was waving her love good bye.

When the steward tapped him on the shoulder and beckoned him on with a sigh,
"If you're Micky O'Shea, then follow me. You're wanted in stateroom nine."
It was Molly McGwire, his heart's desire, that opened the stateroom door,
She said with a grin, "Come on right in, you're blocking the corridor.

You'll think I'm tricky, but listen, Micky," said the blond as she opened her purse,
"Last night on a spree we saw a J. P. and you took me for better or worse.
And here's the whole of your hard earned roll that you gave me to hold for you,
And now I'm your wife you can bet your life I'll always be honest and true."

There's a house in the city that's built on the sins of the Devil ordained,
Where the snowflakes drift in the gutter, their emblem of purity stained,
There's a little log shack in the forest where these two kindled a light,
And snowdrifts gleam in the valley, untrodden, untarnished and white.

Some obvious typos corrected. --JoeClone, 26-Feb-03.