Roger's Instant Poetry

As you surmise, I’ve thrown everything possible into this story. That includes taking a stab at poetry. It’s well hidden, but nevertheless it’s present. I guess it’s an attempt to show that Roger wants to be a creative dude. On the way out, he hears Otto recite a few simple things, like “Free is me,” and “It don’t mean a thing / If it ain’t got that swing” (apologies to Duke Ellington). Starting in San Francisco, Roger has a go at it as well. He blurts out, “Virgin mirth, glorious youth, sweet as nectar,” almost out of nowhere, to which Otto replies, “My pack’s too heavy to listen, Roger.” He also toys with what he calls “remixed Shakespeare.” On Day 14, after Otto jokingly calls Roger “a bleary-eyed bastard,” Roger comes back with, “You spleeny, dizzy-eyed wagtail.” That was gotten from a joke sheet that made the rounds a long time ago with fellow employees at Verizon, called “Make Up Your Own Shakespearian Insult,” which I’d been dying to use for years in a constructive way (thanks, Ed Rosado).  But does this impress Otto?  Hell no.  At the height of their argument in Southern California, Otto adds on the mustard and screams, “And your poetry sucks, Roger.” That doesn’t stop the phrases from coming out, however.  When the guys pull out of the Grand Canyon, Roger tells Otto, “I need sleep, sleep, sleep; deep, deep, deep; now, now, now.”  At the end of the book Otto tries one more time, “Sea to shining sea is me / Coast to coast / that’s the way it’s gotta be.”