Scarlet's Poetry Den "Litany of Scars - Notes to a Missing Lover"

YWCA Dust (Listen to the poem in RealAudio G2)

dust settles twice as fast around here
from dust to dust as they say
I shovel it off the furniture once a week

if it rained while I slept
I swear the stuff would harden around me
into a full body cast

the ashtray is getting cancer
add a layer of tar
soon I'll be ready for feathers

typing typing
my life depends on it

something about the black & white
makes me grey
Lady Grey
covet the Rolls-Royce
Silver Shadow '44

4 am
the place is like a morgue
I almost wish somebody got drunk
forgot to turn her radio off
before she passed out

silence compels me to cry out
howl of birth
the typewriter and me scream
I'm sure to wake someone up

won't somebody call a doctor?
my head is splitting
proof positive some senior citizen
across the street just died

Golden Age
ha!
tell me about it
tell me about having to shoplift
just to eat

the weary and the naked
sagged wrinkled skin
rips my young vision
shreds the tapestry
threads slide through grasping fingers

Lady Grey
a negative somebody stole
to pay the rent
smile bartered for cash

someone found my picture in an alley
pronounced it dead

Lone Ranger rode across the TV screen
me in his six-gun

one shot, sir
I said
that's all I'm good for
hit the bull's-eye

Bull
there's a lot going round
like cancer
like VD/AIDS
you can buy it at the supermarket
stew it in your own juices

a man put my picture on a billboard
some delinquent
marked it with a moustache

YWCA dust
somebody wiped it off the billboard
found a vein of silver
mined it
discovered a well of blood
patented it as healing balm

I got sick in indelible moustache ink
as I licked my lips

sued for damages
the judge sent me to jail

Lady Grey
Lady Grey wept
while I looked stonily into the mirror
a pillar of granite
a pillar of salt
cursed the serpents that bound my limbs

mused on poetic justice
bit my tongue

ached and sank
into YWCA dust

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Last updated on September 6, 1999
© 1976-1999 Scarlet Delaney - All Rights Reserved
"Lisa" is original artwork by Regina Lafay and is used with permission. You can visit her gallery at http://www.lafay.com.