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Performance Art

The sax on my personal soundtrack
squeals rage in rippling gales
sounds like a bell-shaped curve
he always come back to 'do' so
why don't we flock around the mike
in the downstage middle spotlight,
you can feel the heat, can'tcha?

Break into the red plastic skin
of  the booth second from the back
share a sandwich with the guitar man
if I put my head down for just a minute
I can do another set yet for that boy
standing by the men's room door
sad as an empty sack, no receipt.

When I sing "kiss me" I don't mean you,
Mister, I mean that guy over there
in the crisp white shirt, no tie,
"kiss me"he's a younger Montalban
or Banderas something in his stance says
dance my way, tango maybe tangle later
I need a face to sing to for the words to live.

One more night in the Tropicana Room
in the drizzling hustle to the van I look back
to see him standing under the dead neon sign
looking my way, makes me wonder if
happy endings are just for movies, aren't they?
Sticks says "Make up your mind" and I get in
again, married to the music and the band.

 

New poem re: facts, lies, net search

Parts of a Plot

I’m past vague insinuation in a poem-

I want facts: Pasadena before Gilley’s,

Streisand blowing her nose at the Hilton.

My dad said, "She’s gonna be somebody."

They were involved with politics then,

met TV stars on the stump, got free tickets

to classy events. We ate cereal dry because

the money went to the party and the parties.

 

That’s meat and potatoes poetry, facts mixed

with deprivation and stolen silver, ashtrays,

one diamond earring found in an elevator.

Mom watched the paper for a desperate plea,

talked about piercing her lobe to wear it, but

what would she do with all her ear bobs then?

Those days gas cost ten cents a gallon in Houston,

a dime less than Sunshine white bread, sliced.

 

Dixie was my best friend, she was a fat girl

whose dad captained an oil tanker and was gone

all the time, the house was crowded with exotics,

carved ebony animals from Africa maybe, fabrics

in piles on tables- expensive smelly silks from India,

her mother couldn’t sew, couldn’t cook, smoked

on the patio in a chaise lounge while she yelled

at everyone but mostly, Lupe, the Mexican maid.

 

I wrote a poem about them in high school- Dixie

and her mother. They moved, snuck off in the night,

cleaned out the house, left the front door wide open.

We walked to school together, I was the first to know

they were gone. There was a stray dog in the kitchen

tearing into the trash- I took a fancy beaded bag

from under a pile of junk, cherished it for years,

wrote the poem and lost them both eventually.

 

If I could remember a last name I might

search the net, look in the phone book like I do

for old boyfriends and people I hate, as if they

might move to Richmond. Maybe they read poetry

sometimes and remember, think about getting in touch,

wonder about the little lies that make a poem work,

puzzle over why someone would write about it.

Not all facts, more like the myth of a fingerprint.  

 

Where do they go on Father’s Day?

Those whose fathers wear no crowns,
earn no accolades, parade past in whispers
told to sympathetic strangers by the hour

broken into like an easy safe, throw money 
at a thief for love in fear of having none, 
give away what they have not learned to make

are there simple rooms where soothing music 
disarms the pistol in the mouth, asks
no questions, entertains a different lie?

Jesus was the last prodigal, Martha dutiful
as ever covering the dough with sifted sugar.
each pretends the meal in tribute to a myth.

   

Shann's April Poem-a-day Project

 

 

© Shann Palmer, 2003 

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