DANCER

with real toads--d'Verse Poets Pub


She was the pride of the neighborhood,

sitting pretty on daddy's knee--

now she wonders how she got from there to here

when the world looked the same each day,

the changes like time-lapse photography.

But she's got a date with Jimmy tonight,

and everything's gonna be alright.

Bobby sox queen,

young boy's dream,

twistin' the night away

under the shadow of the red menace,

till queen of Camelot

sees it all blow up in her face...

the illusion that we are growing

toward something other than death quickly dispelled.

Doin' the frug and the monkey and the funky

chicken, while sacrificial lambs are led to slaughter...

the domino theory collapsing under its own weight

as overgrown boys play games with real men's lives.

But she's got a date with Jimmy tonight

and everything's gonna be alright.

Dirty dancing, disco inferno,

and win one for the Gipper--

slashing social programs like Jack The Ripper,

in the land of the free and the home of the Atlanta Braves.

Now, some of the men still stare,

but when she looks in the mirror

it's getting harder to save face...

it all went by in the blink of an eye,

from cold war to hot flashes.

But she's got a date...

Rumbling through the desert night,

Jimmy riding shotgun in the Pathfinder--

she stops along the back road,

and when she is ready, wraps her lips

around his shaft... and swallows.

"Jim Beam you're a HELL of a lover," she gasps,

then caps the bottle and sets him back onto the seat--

turns up the radio and begins to dance in the moonlight.

And somewhere in the night

the KILLER still wails GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

and dreams of the budding nipples

of his child bride

as he slugs down a six pack of Ensure,

defiant till the bitter end.

She sways to the music and

the world goes rushing by as it always does--

but she is happy now...

thinking only of how this unbearable lightness of being

can be reconciled with a heavy heart.