Hit The Road Jack

“Hit the road, Jack,
and don’t you come back no more!”
Ray Charles

“O, like the lizard in the furious noon,
That drops his legs and colors in the sun,
---And laughs, pure serpent, Time itself, and noon
Of his own fate, I saw thy change begun!”
Hart Crane
from The River

He left the scene of the crime
covered in the dust he had inhaled.
"Hit the road, Jack", was all he heard.

Arms and legs recovered,
sometimes a torso or two.
Hey, guys, here is someone’s hand.

See the birthmarks on this leg?
This woman must have had beautiful thighs,
from the looks of it.

"Hit the road, Jack", was all he heard
in the canyons of the city
as he walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Later, the Mafia came in to clean up the mess.
Out of mayhem, the crooks rake in the dough
and citizen lizards pretend to lollygag.