[Refrain]

Music, headphones, stream of consciousness, and a little bit of poetic fascination lit by Aley

Wow this got complicated. Read the left, then (both) (because I can't format the right half to the right side) – or just jump in. Whatever works.

I’m in the mood for a simple rhyme
something to pass the time
an upward climb
repining
past lines of calcifying
deposits of hearts-on-the-rocks
write-on-a-note-and-stick-it-in-a-lunchbox thoughts
you know, like a box of chocolates (not up to snuff)
with slugs in the almond crunch spots (sometimes it’s hard to show your love enough)

[Interject]
“Ew.”

Of course not
Let’s stick with the Juice box nutrition facts
sweet as thumbtacks
sugar bombs to mothers with unbroken backs
whose children yearn to play on railroad tracks; (escape the pack)
Pinings and musings and thoughtful whinings
like those little nonsense sayings inscribed
on dove’s down spilling into pillows (imbibed
with the sweet breaths of…)
poppy flower death in Oz

[love is a lost cause]

Let’s get a proper line in here
run it through the walls to clear
the telephone lines I smear peanut butter through
on long-distance calls late into the jam on a Saturday night (faux pas)

[what?
No no, I mean… it’s alright. Star 86 hit 7 (on Verizon).
Right.]

Have you ever flown a kite so high you thought it might
bring down heaven if it ever left the sky and,
out of concern for the fates of passers-by
insisted on never leaving the park acre of your jungle gym castle empire?
Neither have I
I was the kid who didn’t cry
or curl up in the half-tires and sequester
my favorite cuts to fester
as I wondered and infection
set in upon my satisfaction
(to die upon a bed of dirt and wood chips -
the story in the paper would run fast clip:
“Kid, aged 3, found inside tire, say authorities”) (I don’t wanna die that way)
No, I left without spite
took respite in little night-time “I can’t sleep” dreams
stuck in the hollows of my brain
imagining game shows, prizes of women, entirely based upon
bids as to whether mom was in the turn lane (booster seat neck strain)

[scat stop]

bop bada boom drop atta patta zit zot
high lip big shot pulled into a parking lot
snapping Spanish panic as a bat
badadada bat mat skit atta baff tat (I can’t pronounce that)
blared from the backseat subwoofer in his Cadillac
(did you catch that?)
patch me through into the bzzz-wap
atavistic dial tone techno-scat
working through your ears and
catching cochlear reception channels
follicles slicked back like a handsome man-bat
so loud was this guy’s speaker-shat as he popped his trunk
and dropped a load of smack
Playing in the background, pat pat pat
like the “ratta-tat” that the gun wedged in his belt-strap
couldn’t make with the safety on
he may as well have left it at home
bang tat “holla where ma boys at” (well shit)
last words of a subcompact (it was an accidental act)

[the hell was that?]

pass me a kit kat
I need a break from the bull-shit
hit it like a rehab druggie hits a bong full of water vapors (I said I’d never go back)
needs to breathe adrenaline chambers; doesn’t care if the high’s a faker (I do care I just)
full of hot wax slowly settling
into his last pockets of reserve
oozing out the eye sockets (I can’t explain in all this racket)
of a man detesting of the slightest dispute
of his assorted knick knacks (I still keep your photo in my wallet)
representing repressed encouraging
thoughts that just might
break him of his misanthropy
in the throes of mental anarchy; he
sucks in the vapors and ignores the taste of chocolate as it
develops in his brain and fools his body into
thinking it might escape the pain (I know it’s useless, I just can’t drop it)

[dude that’s… more than I can take]

catch me unawares
music scares
scares
pares away the limbs
growing from my prosthetics
implants crafted
to give my thoughts outlets
through a drainage spout
like a nose for brain gout
mutates
gotta cut it out (crashing)
(pulse is flat-lining)

[cut-off]

I can’t just sit here rhyming 4-3-4-4-nonsense timing
doesn’t let a guy get a sidewise line in
let me hear what you gotta say about me
“Clear as clay - kinda like gay festivals in Shakespeare plays - asking where this dogs-baying nonsense prattling on without pay gets its due when it doesn’t even have a name?” ( — I’m flattered, thanks)

In answer, I [Refrain]