Rat Packet

Packrat

Scuttered from the gutter and into the street,
Scuttered from the street and into the bush,
Scuttered from the bush and into the house,
Scuttered from the house with a bauble or two.
 
Cheap to find, expensive to buy,
Buy low, sell high.
Sell one bauble, find a rat,
Find one rat and you’ve found the pack.
 
And now the rat has got its pack,
But the pack, of course, needs its stash;
Without a stash of hash there is no bash,
And without a bash rats tend to crash,

Alone on the streets where the cats roam free.
So the rat runs raids to stock the stash,
To find some bush, to find some hash.
The bush to hide in, the hash to confide in.
 
But when the rat wants to run free,
It’s rat pack keeps on following.
Because the leader the pack stashes the hash,
And they need that hash to dance and bash.
 
So the leader of the pack squeals to cats,
The cats, in turn, devour his pack.
The rat thanks the cats and the cats purr to him,
“No go find your gutter and scutter back in.”

Trackrat

Scuttered from the gutter, trapped down the hatch

Smoked my last hash-ball, lit my last match

Burned my last bush, and ate my last snatch

Unattached I’ve dispatched of my pack

Shackled the pack is unsure and un-led

I scurry through the sewer the cats overhead

While the rat packs are fewer, the rat packs are dead

Fed to the jaws of the cats

Because I am a rat, but then so were they

Because I led them and fled them completely astray

Because I would command and they would obey

Waiting prey to the claws of the cats

For I am a rat who rats on the packs

A squealing pied piper who’s now on the tracks

While remain pack rats keep grinding their axe

One the backs of the rats who’ve been killed

So I drill deep down like a mole, like a vole

Boring, exploring, deep down my hole

To a place dark and dank that I could control

My soul in the tunnel of the train

And I don’t devein the shrimp that I eat

I’m a rat on the track, not a rat on the street

I’m sly when I lie, when I steal, when I cheat,

When I’m not out bumming on the ‘R’

Barring all bullshit, I bum on the ‘R’

Creeping track into track, crawling car into car

But no track rat near hear ever travels too far,

Else the starving will harvest his loot.

And deep beneath a boot it will squirm like worm

They may let him live, but not for long term,

Yet said price it pays and said price stays firm,

If he’s tailed and derailed from the tracks.

And tax, of course, upon every price,

Undeferrable tax for undeservable vice

Tax upon all of us overgrown mice,

Who, enticed, sacrifice our beat.

To meet all the varmints who barter their charms

For the rats in the vats with the tracks in their arms

The aforementioned wenches, their subtle alarms,

Should we track rats play trick or cheat.

Most just eat of the snacks that we pack on our backs

With the mourners in the corners whom no one attacks

Said vermin determined to sermon us sacks

of swervey unworthy shit.

But I spit at the rail that’s the third from the three

And as it sizzles and fizzles I think about me

Is this how I want my whole life to be

My tail near the rail whence I spat?

For I am a rat who needs New York air!

Some hash, some cash, some Swiss cheese to spare

In a hole in a wall with some crawl space to share

With a pack that will vanish when told.

But sold out I did, my last motley crew

Hellbent these rodents the cats hadn’t slew

Return and resurface revenge will renew

For the pack rat who thought he could hide.

But the pride that goeth before my long fall

I swallowed and followed with a frightening call

Squeal turned to roar, thundering down the hall,

Funneling through the tunnel of the train.

“Insane to submit to this life in a womb,

In a lair unaware when real life will resume!”

I sack all my shit and begin to exhume

From the tomb inside which I am trapped.

Slapped in the face by my new inspired plan,

Ends this radical sabbatical right where it began

The ambitions of which will cull mouse from man

For this plan joins me back with the pack.

Back through the tunnel, back past the train,

Back from the track to the wet sewer drain,

Past the third of the three I scream in my brain:

“I’m the squealing pied piper again.”

Back Rat

You’re back, you rat. You’re the rat who came back,

From the sputter of the gutter, from the black of the track.

You’re the rat who came back and sinned utmost profane.

Come back to retract your now fractured campaign?

Well drain all thy hopes mon brave philistine.

You’re as done as a nun in a porn magazine.

You’re the Queen who cantankerously castled her keep.

You’ve sold out your soldiers, you’ve shorn all your sheep.

Now WEEP and wallow for your misbegat soul.

Wish, rat, you’d never crawled back out your hole.

You STOLE your last kiss and SMOKED your last bowl,

Traitor, prevaricator of lies.

But SURPRISE, What’s this now? That you have a deal?

“To rid of us cats for good and for real,”

Well squeal little rat, and sell us your plan,

It won’t save your life, but may just stretch the span.

You’re a grand gourmet meal: we’ll demand every dish,

So pack down that hash-pipe, and make your last wish,

You snitch and you whisper and throw your last ace,

And though tempting we thoroughly laugh in your face.

You wasted your time! THAT joke was your scheme?

Your mission will fail! Have you no self-esteem?

But you scream, “It has promise! See my point of view!”

“If it’s proof that you want it DID work on you…”

…TRUE are your words, and true are their grounds,

Defrocked and defrauded your logic’s still sound.

Re-crowned you will be for your role in this plot,

And then after we’ll see if we EAT you or not.

Got guts to meet with the hounds of the horde?

To put your balls to the wall and your neck to the sword?

You tore from our den, and to the dogs did you squeal

Of a place that you knew where they could find a nice meal.

A mere mouse was no morsel they’d chew you in vain,

But if they followed the piper into the storm drain…

And in the rain we prepared for this cat and mouse craze,

We opened the storm pipes and lured in the strays.

Amazed, they followed us all down inside,

Before we’d looked back we’d summoned their pride.

And they cried with meows, “We will have you now.

In the gutters with the butter and your guns and your sows.”

Glowering down they came in for the kill,

Slavering jaws and claws with deadly cat skill.

Until then, when they saw a light beaming near,

That signaled the R train was practically here,

And peer right and left did the cats of the alley,

To the right: the 3rd rail. To the left: the dog’s galley.

And talley up we did each death and each slaughter,

To record our revenge for our sons, for our daughters.

And when the water of the storm had finally ended,

There soaking wet lay our rat undefended.

There rended he lay with a backstab impacted,

We thanked our assassin and slowly retracted,

Back passed the gutter, back passed the train,

This tale has no moral. No point to explain.

Twain front to back it’s a moment of zen.

And thus ends this epic of mice. Of men.