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Thursday, September 29, 2011

HIS COY TOY (a modern-day take on Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress.")
















I'm not interested in the official version
of anything
all sanitized and polite
but lacking any kind of soul
and Nietzsche was right
about one thing
you've spent your whole life
trying to keep your base instincts under control
that's not the way I want to roll
anymore
we'll order moon under glass
a little pinch on the ass
and we're on our way
if there's an inner skank
that's present here
I'll thank
you to acknowledge it
over a beer

Oh
would that we could contain our drool
until the third date
then at the crack of the starter's pistol
we'd burst out of the gate
no need to wait
any longer
the requisite number of days having amassed
so you'd feel that you hadn't been cast
in the role of the slut
but that's all a game
such fear of shame
we carry

there's no time to tarry

I know what you're going to say
but hush your mouth
I'm a nomad from the frozen north
poised to explore
your deep south
and yes I've read the official version
that you're not a tart
but I know your heart
wasn't in it
and time is passing by
it's all over in the wink of an eye
would you rather say in the end
you hoarded that
which you had every right to spend?




Wednesday, September 21, 2011

NEBRASKA BACKROADS












So I was watching this news show on TV about teenagers and how stupidly mean and cruel they can be to one another, with all the online bullying and that kind of crap that goes on. Suddenly, I flashed back to Elaine. Hadn't thought about her for many a moon. On a whim, I thought I'd try to look her up online. I've had little success trying to find people with ordinary surnames...it's the proverbial needle in the haystack you'll never find unless it pokes you in the butt. But Elaine's last name was unique. I figured there couldn't be more than one of her out there, and I was right. I typed in her name and hit enter. And there it was. A whole extended family photo album from back in the day up to nearly present time had been transferred to the net, with captions identifying who was who. I began to scroll down...



We were both fourteen. Eighth graders in that tiny town. She was sort of cute, and I was attracted to her. One day I found myself walking her home. Somewhere along the way we stopped and engaged in a long, sweet, warm embrace. An innocent, but romantically charged kind of thing to be sure.

Then one night a bunch of us kids were out joyriding, and I ended up in the rear seat of the car as it wended its way along a dark Nebraska back road. Elaine was sandwiched in between me and one of my classmates...I'll call him him Buzz. I was thinking that this might be another opportunity for me and her to get cozy with one another.

And then...

I looked over and Buzz was making out with her. And he was feeling her up.

Everywhere.

And she was letting him.

A myriad of emotions swirled around in my head. I was a bit behind on the learning curve, but it didn't take long to catch up. Elaine was the first "loose" girl that I had encountered at that tender age.

After a few minutes, there was a break in the action and Buzz looked over at me and said, "TAKE OVER."

And Elaine looked at me expectantly.

Now, had we all been ten years older, my response might have drawn some raised eyebrows, and likely some comment about me being a kinky kind of cat. But none of us were that hip at the time. I was nervous. And I think my sense of it was-- at that point--that she was already damaged goods. So I said...

"That's okay...I'd rather just watch."



A couple days later the phone rang and it was for me. Elaine was on the line. Before I could get a word out, she called me a few choice names. Then she said she was calling just to tell me that nobody liked me. In fact, everybody hated me. I was taken aback. Where was all this coming from? (As far as everyone hating me-- that's another story for another time.)

I couldn't believe that someone I was in the clinches with just a few days earlier could turn so hateful and mean. And it's quite likely that she started a one person crusade to turn most of my peers against me. It's taken me till now to grasp that Elaine must have felt rejected by me--in her dissolute sort of way-- in the back seat of the car that night. My first painful experience with a woman scorned.


So I'm scrolling down the family photo album, and there she is. Her high school graduation picture, taken just four years after the last time I ever spoke to her. She was dolled up and decked out, and even cuter looking than I remembered. But if you looked closely at her eyes, they looked sad.

Scrolling further down. There she is, at her sister's wedding. Older and...well...

It's incredible to watch someone you haven't seen since adolescence age before your eyes in a few minutes. And here we are--the new millennium arrived and we partied like it was 1999...and Elaine is a matronly, frumpy looking, somewhat overweight woman who didn't exactly hold her looks. Hey, it happens. I'll never criticize someone on that basis. Oh, and there's her husband. Uh-huh. Suffice it to say she stayed in that same rural area and married one of the local boys. They do look content together in that photo. They look like...well...they deserve each other.


I thought about what her life must have been like. I thought about what my life--alternately crazy, exciting, bizarre, the heights, the bottom, the travel, the glory, the faded glory, the women, the heartache...and, if nothing more, the fodder for writing--had been. There's no way to compare one life to another. In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. I heard that in a song somewhere.

But I will admit to what I felt for a small moment when I had finished looking at that photo album.

It was a feeling of triumph.




Thursday, September 15, 2011

JUST ASK














So here is my card
I hope you'll keep it handy
And when you call my number
Just ask for Love

Don't as for Robert
Don't ask for Bill
Don't ask for Andy
Don't ask for Phil

Don't ask for services
They can't fulfill

When you call my number
Just ask for Love

Don't ask for the doctor
He'll just give you drugs
Get them cheaper on the corner
From your neighborhood thugs

Don't ask for Ms. Anthony
Cuz she's too busy lying
Don't ask for Obama
Cuz he's too busy crying

Don't ask for no truffles
Or them fancy dishes
Don't ask for Osama
Cuz he sleeps with the fishes

Don't ask for Mr. Gibson
Cuz he's been black-listed
Don't ask for Mr. Cheney
He's too sick and twisted

I'll make you squirm
and squeal with delight
the neighbors will hear us
all through the night

So don't ask for Rhonda
Don't ask for Kathleen
Don't ask for Shlomo
Or for Mr. Clean

Don't ask for rainy day people
They only love you when it's raining
Don't ask for the plumber
You know it's too draining

Don't ask for sex tapes
No classy or trashy 'uns
What more do you need
To see of the Kardashians?

Don't ask for Yoda
Don't ask for the Klingons
Don't be that person
My dog wants to pee on

When you call my number
Be ready to get your freak on

I guarantee you
we will fit like a glove

When you call my number
Just ask for LOVE !



Friday, September 9, 2011

HAPPY FOOL















I'm just a happy fool
don't know that I'm s'posed to be miserable
takin' it as it comes
day by day

Market's in a free-fall
Cops  yelling " Up against the wall!"
London is burning
(not Paris for a change)
yet the world keeps turning
think I'll go to the mall

Economy teeters on the brink
Ask the man in the street what he think
gas prices are through the roof
think I'll go out and have a drink

I'm just a happy fool
don't know that I'm s'posed to be miserable
takin' it as it comes
day by day

TV screamin'
'bout all that's wrong
and here's a new movie 'bout monsters
stay tuned for more doom and gloom
after these words from our sponsors

If you're gonna try to fly
then don your clean underwear
'cause the perverts now wear uniforms
and they'll be touching you "down there"

Folks are easily manipulated
we follow along like ants
one news story
after another
designed to make you crap your pants

Makes some folks wonder
why they should get up in the morning
but all I see
is a new day dawning

Ten years after and people gettin' jittery
'cause Al Qaeda's playing their games
turn it all off
save the aggravation
and your life will be the same

I'm just a happy fool
don't know that I'm s'posed to be miserable
takin' life as it comes
day by day


Friday, September 2, 2011

STREETS OF GOLD





















Through the dark
glassily
in a neighborhood where
loneliness is but a salt
shaker of dreams
in a port of stormy
maggots
leaning toward the light
toward heaven and its
prospects
prospecting for streets
of gold
to its holiest depths
when what is hell
is growing old
kicked to the curb
out in some suburb
of grease and candlelight
making the best of
one's shittiest days
where you wear
your scars on the inside
for all to see as something
that seems to be something
else
that seems to be something
else
that may not be what you think it
is
are you mental
too sentimental
it's elemental
to the essential meaning
of nothing
take the train to nowhere
where thinking invites pain
visions of a country lane
two sides of the same
coin
in a Buddhist trance
and I just want to see you
without any pants
and we can prance
into a frenzied night
from here to eternity
if you'll only
Be My Baby
be my baby now--a oww
oh whoah oh oh oh...