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Friday, May 25, 2012

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.

26 comments:

  1. When there's nothing left, you dance! You hit hard, but then that is the way it is
    This is extraordinary, philosophy/poetry...and dancing, really a striking melody.

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  2. Aaah, this is truly FANTASTIC. It sways, it lurches, it dances, it flashes. How do you perform this? DO you perform it? Is it sung, ranted, wailed???

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  3. Maxine and Lorraine: Thank you so much...I've had an earlier version of this poem for a while--I performed it once, then tucked it away in a folder because I wanted to revise it. Almost forgot I had it. Then took it out recently and made the changes I wanted...I think now I will share it at readings again.

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  4. hey! i didn't know you had a poetry blog too tim! I LOVE poetry. Used to write it quite a bit. great job.

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  5. Brit,
    Why don't you include some poetry in your blog now and then...would love to read it.

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  6. "Aging beauties" and "Ensure" ... what's next "Attends"? Welcome to boomer country ... or not ... I stick with catnip, me thinks ... got some? ... Purrr :)

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  7. CAT: Who needs Attends when regular old diapers will do? I got the catnip...you're the cat...I think something could work out here!

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  8. Oh you are singing my song just a little too well, my friend....havent started the Ensure yet, likely just a matter of time. Hee hee. I so love your view of the world!

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  9. This has a backbone, scoliosis ridden and full of reality so big you can't help but identify. Crazy good and filled with the sermon of life. Was just down your way in Tucson over the weekend. Perfect weather for us Arizonans this weekend. Great writing, enjoyed it very much.

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  10. This poem is filled with the suppressed rage of one who sees the waste of life, love, hope and wonders why others don't. It's a sad, crazy existence, this life thing.

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  11. Sucks getting old, but then, it sucked being young, eh? The Jim Beam date will bring you home late and effed up every time. Some damn good writing in this one Timo--bitter and cynical, just the way I like it.

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  12. she has found her own freedom of a sort..lets hope it dont burn her up in the process....glad she is able to dance and wish she could do it in life...

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  13. We are never satisfied.... but at least we still have a moment to go and dance if only on our own...

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  14. this was GREAT. A melancholic mix of Americana and coming of age...of life lessons/realisations even....this had bite for sure...a dark underbelly... I love our writing style and the ease with which you skip between lines and rhyme... this whole thing was a Jim Beam tinged late night full of small town disappointments- and I loved it

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  15. I think maybe you and I crossed paths at the Fat Chance sometime in the eighties. You write like I think, or... the other way around maybe. Some good stuff, that's for sure. I saw Midnight Oil in ABQ--maybe 87--still feel my hands gripping the arm rests.
    http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/dreaming-downhill/

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  16. oh dang...what a tight, tight write...how she came from here to there...a long way...and when the bottle all that is left in the end...good she still can dance..

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  17. SHERRY: How many octogenarians do you think are slamming down those Ensures that have a little "kick" added?
    HEROTOMOST: Thanks, neighbor...much enjoyed your comment.
    KERRY; Yeah, life...what the hell you gonna do?
    BRIAN:The bottle becomes freedom...and a lover.
    DULCE: We ARE never satisfied...damn, what a crappy day...
    STU: Love your comment...eloquent!
    MARBLES: I hear ya, brother.
    CLAUDIA: Gotta dance, even if you only give the tune a "75"
    HEDGEWITCH: "Sucks getting old, but then it sucked being young." From that, I think we can safely assume that LIFE SUCKS!

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  18. Love the rage, but drinking alone was never a good idea.

    Had cancer not long ago and life may suck, but I seriously enjoy being ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! So long dead, after all...

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  19. This read like a Don McLean song - fun, yet poignant. I'd love to hear this one rehearsed. And that bit about the shaft... nice.

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  20. TIMOTEO, for many years the bottle was my lover, in the sense that it would do anything for me--and certainly I for IT. After time, I was doing all the chasing, bottle was not performing, even tried its best to kill me. So we split up--it was NOT easy, because I had truly put the bottle FIRST, before everyone else, family, friends, job, church, myself, the law, and my God!

    You did GOOD here Sir. Thank you!
    LOVE and PEACE!

    By the way--how did this turn out?--grin! "...thinking only of how this unbearable lightness of being
    can be reconciled with a heavy heart."

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  21. CHARLES: I see your point!
    MYSTIC MOM: Thanks for the mystical comment.
    ALEX: We each get the shaft in different ways.
    STEVE: It's always a bit of each to varying degrees--depending on "Jimmy." Thanks for your comment that came straight from the heart!

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  22. Excellent write - sometimes I wonder how I got to here from there - every little twist and turn in the road leading somewhere I never imagined, wondering where I'd be now if I had made different choices... but did I know I was choosing then?

    Again, excellent.

    Anna :o]

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  23. ANNA: If we could notice the changes on a daily basis, we'd not be as likely to sit on our butts under the illusion that we are basically the same each day, and that time isn't stealing our lives away from us inch by inch...drop by drop...but the changes are so incremental that we wake up one day and, yes--how did we get here from there? (And more importantly: WHERE IN THE HELL AM I???)

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  24. This is
    absolutely
    freaking
    fantastic.

    In love with it.

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  25. AUTHOREDANGIOPLASTY: That's some handle there! Thanks for dropping by!

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