Rattler

 

Rattler

 

Every killed hour, less than drole,

plate glass on castors: shake, rattle, roll

every time someone casually strolls

through or near that aperture.

Why not put your coffee shop there,

by an all too convenient thoroughfare?

 

Slap it down - invite your clientele,

to enjoy concertos conceived in hell

by slack composers late possessed

of decomposing brains long rusted,

who burn it up with McFly and Busted

compiled on tapes marked cacophony,

mixed and put out on public discords.

This, then, your hard earned reward,

chucked chairs on crack ceramic tiles,

gloat at customers getting riled

every time somebody walks out, walks in,

with that absent minded fucking grin

patting pockets - they forgot something

or think they might want for smokes,

and every time they go away, I die a little.

What sanity remains is peanut brittle,

oh, it’s a symphony in a lack of class,

thoughtless, careless, rumbling glass

extemporized like badly played jazz

by hacks that think they’re something neat,

who’d poke your eyes out while you eat,

with fiddlesticks or trombone slides,

or those hats they put on trumpets.

You're a foil to cry, grin and lump it,

mustn’t grumble: this noise always rumbles

along on castors, plate glass trundles,

coiled pendulums mutter sighs, moan

like ageing lungs that wheeze and groan,

while strollers scroll their fucking phones,

patient rattlers recoil on heaped bones.