Coming back sometimes, flipping times like a rolodex

to my younger self, hammering away sans respect

to the idle box i’d be spamming and scratching

looking for fire with a match that wasn’t catching

stomp and stammer, praying for the manner

of device and craft, of thor’s fucking hammer

to break the wall of the world with my science

mjolnir’s breaking, now i got to try this

hustle and grease and the black knight’s deceased

trying to get more when the most is the least.

if i can just keep moving, keep rattling the wires

the solution will fall out, and my brain on the spires

now

i’m older and colder and Mulder and Scully

stomping on the ice, glass that i sully

with my whisper-gleams that i steal from the fabric

Hoppin and bopping and boosting the magic

easy to forget the eggs, the chicken and the box

which came first, doesn’t matter when the locks

you break are the locks you make

and the chains you snap are at the bottom of the lake

with the lady and the blade and the fool and his masquerade

while i’m sitting at tea with Death saying ‘pass the marmalade’

then

now

two mirrors looking back, and neither the wiser

my heart is a storm and my third eye’s a miser

but all that i have is two holes in my soul

punctured and engraved and bound in white gold

and sometimes they line, like a telescope made of pain

and all i can do is yammer and dance in the City of Rain

reaching back now, holding hands with a shadow

of me and me and my brain in the green window

hold on to me then, and i’ll hold on to you now

we can’t forget what and we never bow

thirteen devils singing on the mantel

five demons bound silver and vandal

flipping and flapping and laying down the lines

hoping and hopping that i don’t forget the rhymes

please forgive the memory still burns

sunlight and salt and what are the words?

i end this here, but howl all the same

straydog stammer remembers his name.