Pt. II

Did you kick over the paint can?
Windows close on reversal

Which release is the starting line question
for compulsory recognition?

Stuffed full of voice is one way
to ride the rollercoaster,
but the accordion folds of under-air
attend swell selection harsh.

Too many cave tunnels
only make announcement extend itself
brightly in joyous jealousy.

Once did livid the potato peel oratory crests,
bringing it back to hard slices.

Bringing it back to ringtones,
to crescent catapulted calories
in rainbow saturation.

Juggle the threshold tabletop.
Cones gone sideways are often acidulated
through the shear act of overeating.

Don’t swizzle on the gooseneck,
the rewound tape deck.
It’s just the sound of a bus stop revival.
You can wait your whole life inside the water,
but it up an apparated
with last night’s murmuration.

Practical flight plans have expiration dates,
listed next to calories per can
per hour
per listening session.

And when you realize
you haven’t moved in decades
your first reaction shouldn’t be
stumbling on the sidewalk.

The course correction software
is watching and it has the benefit
of brief but bearable static connection.

Awareness of the conception is integral
if stasis is the shunted direction.
Tired eyes, tired action.
Tired code closure is prime
for this somewhat streamlined
racehorse mentality.

The fire is expected though,
and not at all the first interruption you’d expect
at this stage in the game.

The machine, shuffling along
as it has been, doesn’t seem to mind
that we forgot what we’re here for
when it rips its way clean through
to the next set of sheets.

If it weren’t for the protections we put in place,
the audiophile kleptocracy would have swallowed Sunday
last year when we only automitically realized
we were still holding hands.

Jay Mollerskov 2/19/26

This was part 2 of 2 of a poem written in February while listening to an electronic music performance by John McCoy at the Formations Series for New & Improvised Music at Woodland Pattern, Milwaukee. See part 1 here: https://racinewir.com/2026/04/29/for-john-mccoy/

Jay Mollerskov, ArtRoot Writer-in-Residence 5/7/26