BIG
ROAD IN+OUT OF BIG SUR WASHED OUT
SUMMER TWENTY SEVENTEEN
All roads leading in+out of me are oblique Not that I was
ever a lover of linear Life a circuitous route to: #fillintheblank
If a map had been handed out I would have squandered it
Now on secondment to the Purgatorio with flaming red hair
Looking more like Woody daily (No not Woodpecker…pecker)
Yesterday a young nephew reported: A friend said that he saw
my uncle walking with a flame haired call girl! Said brother
blushed purple His call girl decidedly blonde right now Old
poet remonstrated (a la Jimmy Durante: That’s no banana that’s
my nose) That was no call girl boy That was me
It has always been my bane (or boon?) to look escort-ish Once
in a therapy session with a cheating Polish boyfriend the therapist
said: You dress kind of tarty I took it as a compliment +slashed his
tires That was 32 years ago
I wore:
A $500 black patent leather pencil skirt
A $750 clingy red merino sweater
And $1,750 black Chanel heels with giant roses
Boyfriend was a Polish dybbuk prince No shit
Today I sit (in paisley +denim+suede cowgirl heels) Tarty
Reading Sam Shepard’s Seven Plays Post-it notes prominently
displayed around his chiselled face They say: write about lazy
man’s synchronicity i.e., algorithms fake news fake Gods Russian
orphan girl dancing with wild abandon
Sam is still glaring at me Bedroom eyes Untergahucked eigen
(yiddish for dark circles) Slash of mouth wants a redheaded
call girl bad Instead Jessica Lange showed up +tortured him for
30 yrs. Likely PTSD after manhandling by Kong
I’m sure that Sam would have been no problem for me Though I
may have given him a run for his money Hear my last analyst +current
husband’s lament: Why do you have to be such a tiger? Implosions on
the horizon ( POW! BAM! SPLAT! )
Final digression I take you back to the young Russian orphan dancing
with wild abandon at a wedding in St. Catherines A godforsaken place
Timmy’s full of those who couldn’t find a Starbucks gnashing While
Natasha-esque teen is dancing Adopted at 3 months now 18 Mother
dead last week Fell from horse +not found for days
Girl in black lace Long+lean Black eyes +hair Deadness to spare But on
the dance floor she morphed into Elvis+Mick+Aphrodite androgyny There
she danced her grief +danced our longing to be free Mostly of the need to get
back on the 406 +return to homes we never should have bought in the first place
__
You hunt for a way of being with everyone. A way of finding how to behave.
You find what’s expected of you. You act yourself out. (Sam Shepard Action 1974)
RIP Sam Shepard Nov 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017
Summer 2017 Ode to the memory of discovering BIG SUR 1987
