"and in an ending I don't think I'd mind being
the man in the top hot with a drink on a corner
and a code mortar microphone and a whole world
to gratefully see seething."
To void that ending and to that end we come
to clasp hands and cross thumbs cause I'm
looking to be a bread winner and I'm
willing to start at crumbs and the path
of broad shouldered madness starts at the
beat of the bread factory's drums
so the point is what they hoped could be
and what I knew I could manifest was
not the bloody nosed virgin draped in
the company vest and so with fistfuls of pennies
I walked on and maybe for the best knowing that
somewhere upstairs insanity crossed wires with
the concept of self respect
and with a renewed tenacity I bit the fabric
of legitimacy until it ripped and within it sat
the carcasses of actions unrealized and I think that
in an ending so abysmally cliched
as a street preacher soothe saying
so that his bills can be paid
by spare change coaxed free by an
inconvenient rant and saliva chinned rave
the satisfaction of a life well lived
would continue to evade and instead of settling for
something akin to a kids coloring book
I realized what died was a passion
for the mastery of the hook
the line and sinker that twists expectations at the plate
and without further adieu I invite you
to check your children at the gate,
because a three ring show is open for guests
and I'll pack them in until they die in the press
to see the headless hobo and the legless ballet queen
the 13 murdering midgets and the glut with the zipper seam.
It's all inside and I can't promise you the sublime,
but if you'll settle for the mind and
all it's rot gut wonders,
the half digested divine,
and a bucket of some of hell's plunders,
I'll keep it beneath the striped tent
beside the freak show on the street
outside earshot of your home and
your factory floor show front seat,
but if you do feel like dropping by and
seek to know the nature of your beast and
don't want to pony up for the total mental buy in
remember it'll only run you ten cents
(it's practically free) and ten seconds
of your time to peel your eyes and see
the stupendous, magnificent,
to its end death defiant,
perfectly innocent, inoffensive
and misfit, paper fold, still unsold
man eating toothless lion.
