On the night train, the red eye plane,
flying home to NYCeeeeeeeeeeeee,
from the city of Los Angeleeeeeeez

Feeling flush, dropped some cash,
got me a seat in extra large first class

Seat 2C, plenty of room for my toes,
to wiggle, to dance, lay down some poetry tracks,
pretending I'm a **** jive,
bad *** from the
make-believe west coast

A short guy, with fedora down low,
an older man,
looking about nine years older
than somebody I might know,
hiding his eyes @ 9pm
neath some excellent Raybans,
slip slides into 2D,
gives me a smile,
and says Hi, I'm Paul!

I look once at his face and say,
listen Rhymin' Simon,
I'd know you any place,
no worries, your secret,
with me is safe,
cause dudes in row 2,
gottta stick together, be cool,
we're riding first class,
over the land of the free

What ya do for a living he asks,
a little of this and a little of that,
all of which, ain't no **** good at!
so I spend my cold, hard time
laying down cold hard verse,
can't stop, cause it's my daddy's dying curse

He said that's cool,
I like to do that too.
guitars on planes
drive passengers insane,
they take up too much
overhead compartment space,
I just scribble me some rhymes and
let the music come
when I got two feet
on the ground in the city
we both come from.

Paul:  
You got any stuff writ
on that yellow sheet,
or just pretty blue lines,
a big pad of nothing?

Dude:
Man you may got diamonds
on the soles of your shoes,
but pay me some 'spect,  
you talking to the man who penned
Sad Eyed Teenagers of the Lowland
on Hello Poetry, gad ****!

Paul smiled and said
you can call me Al,
and if you feel like blowing some lines together,
we got five hours till we can see
the house that Ruth built.

Dude:
Hit me with your best shot,
I'll show you what I got

Paul:
And she said honey take me dancing
but they ended up by sleeping
in a doorway
by the bodegas and the lights on
upper Broadway,
wearing diamonds on the soles of their shoes

Dude:
Just cause the union of the monkeys
in the Bronx Zoo done gone on strike,
don't mean the lion ain't
still king of the hill,
roaming free,
inside this New York city jail

Paul:
And the sign said,
the words of the prophets are written
on the subway walls
and tenement halls
and are whispered
in the sounds of silence

Dude:
A home-grown poet.
I am
soul enslaved to words.
the alphabet - my oxygen molecules,
I am both,
addict and dealer
a  ****** poet
******

Paul:
You don't need to be coy, Roy
just listen to me
hop on the bus, Gus
you don't need to discuss much
just drop off the key, Lee
when get yourself free

Dude:
Contact with the atmosphere
makes self pity die,
blue blood turn red,
the TNT tightness in my chest exploded
I got no place
to store these words,
the cops think I'm
some kind of verbal
terrorist

On and on thru the night,
riffing, rapping, rambling, and spitting,
ditties and darts, couplets and barbs,
single words and elegies,
free verse and a lot of fking curse words

It was a moment, a time
that deserved
to be preserved,
and so this poem got writ

You may think this story apocryphal
which is another way of saying untrue,
but I got his boarding pass and it is signed,
to this crazy poetry dude, long may you rasp,
it is signed by Mr. P. Simon, a big fan,
it has never since that day,
left my grasp

June 5, 2013