"ratatatat" poems
Me and the crew riding around in the PT Cruiser.
Soda oozin' out the cup like the one of Biggest Loser.
Don't let the insults be spiky, like the shell of King Koopa.
Goin' back and forth : we in the movie Looper.
Be chill like the Buddha.
Dude, uh, I think you dropped your burger.
Electric surger blew up like the Time Warner merger.
The inside of our place on fire ;
The officer called us liars.
Wanted to throw us in the manor on the Cliff of Briar.
Yeah, it's an American Horror Story.
Being profiled because of ethnicity,
We're Mexican, see,
But we're not gonna steal something worth $3.50.
Looking at us like monsters of Loch Ness.
Yeah, we may come from a pool of cess
But you're simply too incredulous
To think of a time other than 1955.
You can ruin our lives
And throw us in jail in the blink of an eye.
Don't even need to find
A shred of evidence to kick our behind.
You feel like we're behind your back
Cocking our guns with a slight click-clack.
About to shoot them off with a ratatatat
While we're caressing our "gang tats".
But that's not how it is.
You think we all give weapons to kids?
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 3:09 PM UTC
Do you think that you’ll remember
washing your least crusty mug
in the cracked bathroom sink at four am,
blinking afterimages of Wiki articles
and Midwestern poetry out of your eyes?
(Always the Midwestern aesthetic–
what is it about starkness that drives people?)
You’ve spent too many mornings
watching dawn from the wrong side, pacing
up and down beneath the streetlights
as they go out one by one.
The earth keeps turning but
your thoughts scattered last night
and they never came home.
The percussion is
(you heart is)
pounding,
crash ratatatat thump,
ratatatat crash, time
slipping between your fingers
in fits and starts to the beat
fluttering in your chest;
no repeats or hesitations.
The topic is–
Magpie, bird brain,
you line your nest with tinfoil
to keep the world at bay.
You’d say “I want to believe”,
but instead you just play the song again,
hoping that maybe this time—
Did it take this long to realize
you’ve answered your own question?
You have to run
when there’s nowhere to stay.
Maybe you should take a vacation
to the desert yourself,
get some dust under your nails
so you’ll stop chewing them off.
Quit glancing at the clock, sweetheart;
you’re on a timer here.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 7:25 PM UTC