RUBATO HALFSTEP

Blix Varcozen, sliceman for the mob.        He’d started out fixing ounces on the wide end, occasionally picking up some bacon keeping slopes on the quiver.              The Clapping Rileys ate it up with a spork.            They’d seen his slushwork for two coon’s ages before they made a glide on him.  
                                Offer in  the henplate. 
                      A golfer’s weekend later, he’d doused his shit on it.  Six vickies in glove, no blowback.                    Between leap years, he kept low and slow shucking bunji chord 
                                                        out of the back of a pump grinder’s Benny.  He’d paid off the tobacco hounds
every full moon, so his ties were unfurled.  
                                                 The New Amsterdam Lads got wind.  Their ponydope squawked up and down about how Blix sliced dice. 
They wanted
eight minus one. 
                             The Clapping Rileys gave a nickel’s worth, but the Lads hummed “Nearer My God to Thee.”  It was as close to bumscratch as one could get, especially Blix.  
             When the sheets were turned down under
green, humidor skylights,
Blix had
no zip and no chisel.
                               Rileys stood lame and Lads hit lengthwise.  He was his own royal philly and he knew the pocket change. 
Blix would slice
for no one but Blix.




-SLL