She’s my snapshot honey in the middle of the night, my crack-shot-baby, mouthing from Mapplethorpe’s black and white that everything, every little tiny thing is gonna go galloping the way they will, driving it into the heart of the matter whether you like it that way or not. She’s shining through my headphones like a backdoor sweetheart stuck in the center of attention in the middle of the room. A skinny female shaped pulsing lightbulb glowing in the center of the tomb where the coffin of the days should be.
Bobby’s on the radio moaning the guard is changing, the power’s all run out and they (whoever They are) are shaving heads down on Skid Row. That much I can dig, but then the moonfaced boy turns round, straight faced declaring he is just a simple song and dance man in a fool’s retreat, it’s best to ignore him I guess. Strains of the British invasion fade in. Bobby, Bobby, love ain’t enough, but it sure beats twist and shout.
She’s my Jersey-cool beachside Angel with a candy-store smile. You know when you are a mile ahead, when you left the crowd behind on the boardwalk, the board walk and you have no choice but to wait a little while for company while your brain gets it’s itch scratched by the chugga chugga of Lenny’s guitar scratching the frequencies. It’s ok though, cause Pearl’s on the deck now, you know she’s got your back when she screams to take a little bit of her heart instead, sacrificed on the rock and roll altar by a man wielding Abraham’s knife.
You know Grrrls, we are ugly but we have the best tunes, or at least that is what the handsome devil on the left hard shoulder tells us, smirking. It is not so easy when life teaches you gotta play the game, gotta be a little bolder, even when you are barefoot dancing in the nuclear rain. Everybody knows for pleasure you have to deal in a little pain, but those usual clichés bowled towards the general position of my home-girls, my ride-or-dies who hunt the royal big cat prey on the back of the eternal horse, fail to deter or encourage, they evaporate, they disappear on the wind like so much nothing.
A vacancy. A hole. An emptiness peddled by men who would rob you of your beauty and your power so you will bend to their will imposed upon you. It is all about the center of the matter, the heart of the body, the promise of internal eternity. You are ugly, ugly ugly be grateful for this spurt of life, this smear of affection. Knock knock. Open up. Who’s there? Johnny. Johnny? Fuck Johnny, or rather don’t really don’t. Give me a bubble of possibility instead.
Train track walks , locker room talks, pretty for a boy? Why don’t you smash his head wide open, and give yourself a little joy? It was all hot wax, Village coffee shops, glass shatter book stores, but the cream still rises to the top no matter what. I saw horses, horses as I floated above my body, dragging me away to another dimension. They are only ornamental factory made knickknacks, smooth sheen powder pancake glitter dust-collecting china white ponies.
Gloria! Gloria announces she’s in the living room with a poppy picking scream: I bow down to the New York Queen while the cheap seats shout “She’s off her head!” Off looking at all the wasted boys at this party all strutting only for themselves while my baby baby baby is left up upon the shelf, waiting for an appraising eye, an appreciating glance, a deep click in the psyche. A fan folded up, hiding it’s beauty within. Within hidden there is….
….a picture perfect Rimbaud recollect. A Paris graveside marionette. My sepia deepest darkest souvenir says, Patti, “If I had a clipper ship could we disappear?” Instead I do the watusi with switchblades preferred, while you dance the sweet-pea. Your voice was all I heard. Your voice was all I needed to hear, as the American rain washed me clean from top to toe. Detroit lake baptismal font, played out by Iggy Pop. MC 5 eulogy. Alice through the looking glass cooped up on a dirty dance floor.
You are a far more deserving inventor than those who went before you, Patti. A musician in fact, someone who found something resembling the key of love. In Ethiopia, I heard you say there is a key…..In Ethiopia, lost in the radio, somewhere I found me.