The poem "The Hot Tamale Man" isn't signed, but the sketch is, Woodman.
Vintage Colorado Poetry is three years old today, and it proves a pleasure to say that.
On a winter's coldest night,
At a corner of the street,
With a smelly, blue gaslight,
Showing up a bare retreat ;
Is a hot tamale station,
And a hot tamale can,
Where the hot tamale patron
Meets the hot tamale man.
With a hand thrust in each pocket,
And his collar rolled up high,
He will scream like a skyrocket
To the passers, passing by.
While we grasp our tainted money,
With an ever ready hand,
And pass the filthy lucre
To the hot tamale man.
But the winter days must end
As the summer time draws nigh,
While our nickels we will spend
For the glass that foams so high ;
And although we love the fragrance
of the ivy-colored land,
Still we miss the warming presence
of the hot tamale man.
Reprinted from:
Sons of Colorado,
A Monthly Publication
Volume One, Number Four
September 1906