by Sam Markewich

Not you too Colonel!
Seems everyone's gone undercover searching out his discography.
They called it "business as usual", but they didn't tell me. They forgot.
You'll remember in the 60s bussing was a big issue. Now, of course, it's fallen out of vogue I suppose.

That's what happens isn't it? Three weeks of press coverage and a style's formed.
The speak, it changes.

The spigot changes shape,
grows longer,
thinner.
Less
flows out
more, and it becomes more or less the case.
The spigot grows feet.
The feet grow gnarled,
dig their way into the bustle,
start a colportage system,
and we speak it
- Laterally.

"Mmm mmm, this corn's good! Could ya' please pass the buck?"

Think about the powder in the wigs,
how it could've choked you if you breathed it in,
how you could stand there coughing up a colossus and all they'd say is,
"Move over! There, that's better." (That's not all they'd do.)

In This World You Manifest Your Own Destiny.
(the cover up:) "I didn't do it."

Now Colonel, you're an alum of the colonization. You used to be a columnist,
a bus boy, toting off dirty dishes from one gluttony or another
to be cleaned off, bound, spotless, and shelved.
This is what we read:
"Today we give thanks for being too busy to notice." (column A)
The narrative stops there.

Pigeon toes form an alliance, and this columbine pact gnarls its way into the records of business, as usual.