Sestina #6

Collaboration with Aytch Rae


Handful of pocket lint can't dent what he owes
Nickeled and dimmed away his dreams, just dandy
Through tricks or trade, try to scrape up some loot
Skim through the streets looking for a new fool
blind and loaded enough to take the wager
leave them in the dirt busted and owing a marker

4 a.m. screams blast away dreams of his grave marker
from birth until death trudge along in line, die and still owe
a pound of flesh. Can't find a war to wage or
another piece to sell to a rich boy flaming dandy
Gutter stutter step, pavement pounding, fool
den of thieves brimming with liars and loot

Plunder the poor, keep for the poorer. This is no ballad for a lute
no more words for the hallway poem scrawled in black marker
significant as cobwebs and dust motes, infamy's fool.
Between what you bleed and what you pay you may still owe
piper paying with sweat and knuckle skin, fine and dandy.
A backstreet devil suckers bet, only you will take the wager.


When the odds aren't even, adds season to the wager
and the reason for the evil, the root, is lust for loot
Red, white, and green, obscene Yankee Doodle Dandy
working to put a foot in casket, starker the grave marker
Hindsight highlights chains of choices, reaping what you owe
what you no, what you know and who you try to fool

Gold shackles and raised hackles, pity the fool
dancing for his daily dollar salt mine boogie and wager
Sweat and shame and debt and blame the only things he owns
secret and steadfast held close precious pirate loot
Re-walk weary steps X is the spot marker
darker than an Alaskan noon in winter, just dandy

The burnt-out ends of smoky days, a scuffed and sullied dandy
a miffed and muddied loser hemming hawing trying to fool
his life an allusion, forged and copied to make his mark or
erase it all. The devil's calling in a marker made on a piss poor wager
on busted knees and broken dreams, lured by loot
cocaine breakfasts pissed away life in the end you'll still owe

Dive-trapped dandy, boxed in by wagers
fool to believe relieved of the loot
he'd escape the marker we all owe.