[ Featuring the Tapeworms ]
Yes, Jon?
Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathon Maisto!
Big round of applause for
This guy for putting
Up with my shit for so many years!
(Nice shirt, Jon! Thanks! You're welcome)
Working a little bit better now buddy?
Well, he collapsed with
Stevens-Johnson Syndrome on the ER floor
Anaphylaxis with a pack of bottle rockets
Oh, the way he spun his butterfly
Risked all six his phalanges
With a bag of tangerines in his back pockets
And the method with which
He recycled his vitamins
Had started to leave scars in
The corners of his eyеs
And looked through the white-out rеvelation
Chain he saw no stars even
Underneath the wide Ohio skies
Shields himself from reason in
A Teflon alabaster jacket
Quilted from the finest fibers
Flesh, and fiberglass, and flowers
Screams his thoughts to hear them
With selfist and sarcastic racket
Rabble rousing babble
Round the table people to the power
For what? For what? For what it's worth
If it was going to kill you, boy
It would have by now
For what? For what? For what it's worth
There's no more looking back
It's looking up or looking down
Well, he was uh, well he was uh he was uh
He- he was- he was- he
Was carrying this briefcase filled
With teeth that he had
Ordered online from china
And he had slung over his shoulder
The skin of a cat that he grew up with
And then had uh stuffed to preserve
It's memory in physical form
But decided that with the skeleton inside
The cat and all the stuff-
Stuffing it- it was too heavy
So he removed the skin
From the wire frame of the taxidermy
Thing and he- he slung
Around his neck like a scarf and um he was
Wearing stolen rubber shoes and wrapped
A poison ivy noose
Around his Lotus jugular when they came
Well they found him with a map
To every victim of his love
And a tattoo of a blue jay on his face
And they waited for his vital signs to
Lie and let a flat line cry
A hymn out in Hungarian Harmonic
But he cocked his noggin
Through his stoma sang, "For Auld Lang Syne
Happy birthday to the succulents
I'll die your hydroponics"
His rib cage was a hornet's nest
Palpitations set the beat
His vagus nerve a turk's head
Knot, an axel hitch, a carrick bend
He wondered if the good lord
Jesus charged a cancellation fee
Auf wiedersehn, au revoir
He gripped his wit's right by their ends
For what? For what? For what it's worth
If it was going to kill you, boy
It would have by now
For what? For what? For what it's worth
There's no more looking back
It's looking up or looking down
You settle into a new mind
In a Philippine tub ring paradise of a queen
Size suite of a window micro telecon
A lodge red roof in nights in super
Eight whatever else outside Richmond Virginia
I curled up an old
Showtime softcore porno and
Flipped through my phone for a few hours
Picked up a bag of Swedish Fish and a
Fistful of chocolate covered cherries
And a pack
Of Marlboro next for three dollars and ninety
Cents the bodega by the waffle house
I spun my eyes over the
Beautiful floral arrangements blooming
And tessellating in the stucco on the walls
Anything I figured to keep my mind off those
Goosebumps that were rising and squeaking and
Cracking and quacking and threatening
Anaphylaxis and asphyxiation with
Every sharp inhale that I took with the
Thread of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome behind
My flesh and
I watched as my skin crawled upwards
To form a flesh noose to hang me from
The rafters of that place I had found
Myself in and I watched as my epidermis took
On the shape of whatever I feared
The most in that moment and I sat there
Down in that fly trap ashtray contemplating
My next move and weighing out the pros
And cons of every last rotten pulse!
It was either Wilmington North Carolina
Or the nearest hospital!
For what? For what? For what it's worth
If it was going to kill you, boy
It would have by now
For what? For what? For what it's worth
There's no more looking back
No, no there's no more looking back
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Ah! Ah!
For what? For what? For what it's worth
If they were gonna kill you, boy
They would have by now
For what? For what? For what it's worth
There's no more looking back
No, no there's no more looking back
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
It's looking up or looking down!
