MUSICAL Poem: Change pocket, by Leeza Pantano

i stay inside and ruminate
in a four-walled room like it’s innate,
inert but roaming a mindscape
a mind at stake, but how to escape

the era kaleidoscoped into an atom,
too much to ever fathom,
but there’s no way around exploring this chasm
this hairline crack that contains it all
the birth, the rise, the peak and fall

so where is the bottom, the end of this mixtape?
it wasn’t mine to play, and I didn’t make it
loops over and around again, history replays it
self over masses, arrogance betrays it

leave or be left, kill or be killed
neither choice leaves room for the inevitable rebuild
just a cycle in pocket, saying here’s the beat don’t drop it
compelled by all the music noise, too loud to stop it

but then there is you, bright shiny new
sparkling penny off the old press
impressed to be with you
so this cycle, I’ll chop it

try to keep that change in pocket,
in locket, won’t drop it on rainy days while on the street walking
and the little minted coin will always tell it like it is
you are a small one in a hundred, that’s what the truth is
but change is just perspective; flip it & you win.