What’s a Chick Got to do to Get Service in This Joint? Canto 11

CANTO 11  October 16, 2011

I don’t know why I’ve been so reluctant to write about Philadelphia.

That’s where I started getting theatrical experience.

I took important classes in playwriting at the Philadelphia Company.

I directly, badly, a show at Philadelphia Company.

We finally moved out of our friends’ apartment on the Main Line

We rented a house in the Greater, Scary, Northeast

But had no furniture and after letting a sink overflow, were thrown out.

We found a place on Spruce Street with a little bit more furniture

Ethan found a job in a book store

And I went to work for the Institute for the Study of Civic Values

It was basically just a place to get grand money to study…civic values?

But it was enough income for me to pay the first month’s rent

On an apartment for E. and to move him out.

He tried deciding to love me just before this happened

But it was too late

So I had that big, empty apartment all to myself

I couldn’t afford it. I have absolutely no idea how I met

The woman who would be my roommate on South Street.

But there I was in the first floor bedroom of a two story apartment

In a neighborhood that had just started to gentrify

There were still winos and prostitutes and Head shops

It was wonderful and magical.

Unfortunately, it was also the place where I met my

Second Schizophrenic. But I didn’t know that at the time.

I first had a wonderful affair with a man who is now my oldest friend

And while we were not in love, he was a great teacher sexually.

We began cheating on each other on almost the same day

And were able to laugh when we said goodbye and remained friends.

The man I cheated with was genuinely psychotic, but I didn’t know

I tried to please him but I refused to cheat on him even as he cheated on me

Frank, the friend from Atlantic City hated him

But that’s a story for the next installment

And this one was hard enough.

I Wake To Find Myself in a Strange Apartment

I wake to find myself in a strange apartment

Full of my possessions.

I wake in panic over all my life’s problems

And can’t remember one.

I make a list of everything that needs doing

And just like that, it’s done.

The World is starting a brand new revolution

I am too weak to join.

I’m too fat and old to lose myself in romance

Addiction has lost steam.

The leaves are falling now, and the night air is chill

Why have I survived it?

Or is there a limit to the thrills Life can have?

No more saviors.

I haven’t got the strength to race for fame’s rewards

And face it, out of time.

Is that the secret connection that we share?

That we never did relax

But fought when we should have been carelessly laughing

Each day was life or death.

There is an art to being retired at last

Using all that free time

For more than “Look at me!” in Twitter and Facebook.

And being of some use.

One Free Verse and One New Sonnet

1. Two Beats

Noise in

My head

I can’t

I won’t

Nothing

To do.

Act two

I wrote

Not safe

Your life

Is yours

Too far

To help

Let go

Let God

I care

Too much

You don’t

Hear me

Old voices

Dead air

Bury

The dead

Move on.

2. Sonnet V.

The question has turned from how to why we

Bother to survive to breathe one more day.

There will be no house or children for me,

And the career has been tossed far away.

Existing to buy and use medicines,

To demand that doctors extend my life

Through testing and treating and vitamins.

I’m nobody’s mother and no one’s wife.

And yet here I am, living on the dole,

Writing sonnets to justify being,

Trying to ignore Old Age’s high toll,

The MS challenge of unplanned peeing.

I hope I just gave you a tiny laugh.

And found a way to pass an hour’s half.

Bad Sonnet Theater Presents A Foul and Rotten Mood

You know you’re in a foul and rotten mood

When you respond to Rumi with, “Bite me.”

Look around at our reality, Dude.

Times I think you’re happy just to spite me.

An orgasm ain’t going to pay the bills.

And the economy says “no” to dreams.

We rant and we march while the rich man chills.

Echo is the sole result of our screams.

But if we don’t choose death, then we must live.

And stop daydreaming of wine and of roses.

Forget our income and learn how to give.

Appreciate what’s under our noses.

What did Willie say about “petty pace”?

Maybe it’s time to slow down and to breathe.

And stop trying to win the human race.

And stop letting our anger boil and seethe.

And stop judging ourselves and finding fault.

Enjoying life before it reaches “halt.”

Why We Call Them Laugh Lines

Skin tags and cellulite. Little brown spots.

My days as a sex bomb are over.

 

And if I diet down to fighting weight,

The loose skin would lose you, lover.

 

I wish the inspiring words were true,

And the brain and Art reign supreme.

 

But no matter how old and drab men are,

They need to fulfill their wet dream.

 

She is young and firm with tits out to there

Never a Grandma with a limp.

 

Fulfilling your fantasies with a sigh

Sans the cane that screams “she’s a gimp.”

 

So, enjoy the hordes of extra women.

I pray that you find your honey.

 

Bring your witty wisdom but most of all,

Don’t forget to bring your money.

I'm Finding it Difficult to Write These Days

I’m finding it difficult to write these days. I’m frightened and angry at what’s going on in the world. I feel inadequate and disenfranchised. To get out from under the heels of the banks and corporations is going to take a huge and horrible effort that the comfortable don’t want to join in. I’m afraid that they will stand back and do nothing if the police and armies try to halt the voices of dissent. I hate to see that racism is alive and thriving and yet the other side seems not to know that they are racist. There is no honesty about it, which makes it slippery and hard to catch and kill.

Right now I really don’t care about anyone’s sexual pleasure, not even mine. Love, it turns out, does not cure everything and is not being embraced by vast numbers in the world. Frankly, I am tired of hearing every wet and sweaty detail of someone’s sex life which will turn to bitter odes of regret and anger when sweetie pie moves on to the next conquest.

Yes, I have my ducks in a row and I’m comfortable, but I never thought that in my retirement years that I would be considered an enemy who deserves any suffering that comes my way, but less so because I’m white. Gee, thanks, you Nazi, Ku Klux Klan reject. I want to enjoy my Golden Years, but that’s not going to happen when I am surrounded by the vultures of the corporate world, trying to think of every possible way to grab my last nickel and leave me in their wake.

It just seems indulgent to write about the personal and not about the revolution or the grief and anger that is feeding it. I thought that I would be gazing at my own naval and coming up with a song for all the abandoned women of America, whining about some man or men, but now, all I can think about is the children and the lost futures they are facing and I have to get my head out of my crotch for once.

Which is why I’m not writing much these days.

Two Poems and An Essay

I

Who gives a good flying shit

If you get laid or I am loved

In this God-damned mess of a world?

Now, there are children starving

Homelessness and illness rampant

The climate is becoming Hell.

We cannot be distracted

There is no more time to prepare

Lust and dependency must wait.

And if we’re both too old now

To have our demands satisfied

There’s a war that we have to win.

If future generations

Are ever going to have the chance

To have the joys we threw away.

II

Helpless

To save the world

And of no use

To you

And yet

Both entities

Are surviving

Somehow

III

Playwriting is a three dimensional art, but so is cooking or designing a building. The other thing that they have in common is that they expensive and will never be the same again. How do we adjust? Are we able to return to telling a tale by the firelight and enrapturing a hungry crowd? Are we able to make a simple meal from basic foods that is healthy and will feed a thousand? Is that the true metaphor of Jesus and the fish and wine? And can we learn to build a clean and sturdy house that has only the room we need, with the most efficient storage that any man can afford? That is powered by the wind and moved by the sun. If we can’t do any of these things, then our Civilization may actually be doomed.