Joy Has A Tax Bracket

I propagate a stockpile of strange school mandates To the chalky dilettantes who date tan faceplates I hit every open mic shouting slogans in Sanskrit Wearing my burlap hoodie and my secondhand knit When the elders all jet in they battered Chevys I snatch my weekly ration of unwashed heavies From ladies who are dazzled by the clamor Of the juice bar fighting, flip flop wearing grammar My body’s leased to invisible wars Like a test dummy posed for a couple lost causes Splashing out muddy tones in a tie dye festival Bagging up hearts while they clutch their astrology articles I say lipstick’s churned up from crushed up beetles I say your Air Jordans are stitched by invisible people I say down with big sugar, dethrone the landlord Next thing you know she’s weaving hemp in the sandstorm See how quick that morph? You’ll be chugging fennel tea and quoting Rimbaud at your day job Pledging to unschool your own spoiled upbringing While sprawled in my studio flat, junk art swinging Patchwork coats draped off her bony frame Romanticize this sweaty brain She’s a future senator turned thrift store bore, American lore And I’ve seduced so many broke muses, I founded a union Named myself emperor of the floor Call me a smuggler of lore when I whip out my “one solo” Ha ha! Ho ho! Ha ha! Ho ho! Guess what? Joy has a tax bracket We’re not a perfect match, that’s just a quip on a jacket I don’t love you, I am just a walking satire Let’s read sonnets at a junkyard fire You think I’m just a basement ghoul? Good thing for me I got grabby hands and opposable tools You want my life lecture, huh? Trade your princess tiara for this moldy poncho Ever shared a mattress with a runaway scarecrow? Stacked up tension wrapped in nervous laughter Folded like napkins in the hands of slack actors I lace my sentences with Zen speak and biker fables But I can’t tell the difference between Whitman and Clark Gable Flat chested praise singers reawaken my gutter wits But I ain’t sniffin’ around like a newborn mutt Nope I got opposable thumbs, and I’m just a lonely runt I used to cram abroad Flexed faux knowledge now I’m the poster boy for half wit frauds Rap barons swim in accountant scams I sell mix CDs that leak off yoga class scams I fought for all of my footnotes just by breathing Like a moon calf hanging at the old Popeyes When they fried up the double legged bat chicken Rewired and renamed, but hey, tastes finger lickin’ Other damsels hawk the new boss dream Scaling up like a pyramid scheme Penny fables torn up from the public seats Lay in my roach motel and cast rune stones Spill some sweat and swap unfounded manifestos With muddy, clunky rainbows Guess what? Joy has a tax bracket We’re not a perfect match, that’s just a sticker in a packet I don’t love you, I’m just a poorly paid actor Let’s read psalms at a nuclear reactor You think I’m just a grumbling crook? I don’t need you, I got opposable hooks I’m always pulling dates ‘cause I’m happy with my flaws No! All the heartbreakers who dated the scruffy dreamers, Wave your mismatched socks in the air, let the world see your beater! You feel me? Hey, unfollow. Very cool. All I have is rusty wit and a Netflix password Sneaking weak jabs ‘til she called me a man-bastard Said don’t even hazard Can’t two tired bodies share bread crumbs over lentil platters? Tryna nibble her honey pot and get dive bombed By her dreadlocked bouncer How am I supposed to test the waters? Must be a porch squatting radical clinging to bad mantras Or a washed out saint whose ego’s stuck inside a mason jar Spraying hate at the nearest dive bar? Probably. She’ll think I freebase my way from a satellite crash Just to pick a thrift store diva at the back of a flashmob bash Even if I’m bow legged, humpbacked, drooling and scalped She’ll swoon at my broken art spout Even when my poems sound like I’m a soggy bootleg Of whoever first spun Rucker outta their own head And yeah, I’m pure B movie Dreaming of dropping name tags at vegan diners Chewing wheat paste, chasing expired flyers I slide into basements with tofu and half a sermon, Buying lamp shades stitched from suburban vermin, She reads horoscopes carved in expired bananas, While I juggle my debts like a broke cabana dancer, Grimy sandals stompin’ out the ghost of good credit, We sip mushroom broth and trade unopened edits, Her playlist’s a shrine to forgotten bandwagon anthems, Mine’s just a crow in a trenchcoat dancing at random, Barter my dignity for one good molasses kiss, Get ghosted, then haunt her Whole Foods shopping list, Shout slogans through traffic cones, beg for loose crumbs, Get snubbed by influencers selling false tongues, Knit my apologies from half-baked koans, Chuckle like a mutant glued to rotary phones, Selling my visions door to door on crutches, Toting a box full of pamphlets nobody touches. Planting cacti inside my busted tires Like poetry for the serial monogamist, yup Poetry for the chronically anonymous, yup Guess what? Joy has a tax bracket We’re not a perfect match, that’s just a rumor on a jacket I don’t love you, I’m just a poorly paid actor Let’s read poems by a bombed out tractor You think I’m just a creaky old shuffler?