Written by
Maggie Estep |
I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with
dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull. I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.
So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and rake
them down the chalkboard of the job market's soul.
So I go in the beauty salon.
This beautiful Puerto Rican girl in tight white spandex and a push-up bra
sits me down and starts chopping my hair:
"Girlfriend," she says, "what the hell you got growing outta
your head there, what is that, hair implants? Yuck, you want me to touch
that ****, whadya got in there, sandwiches?"
I just go: "I'm sorry."
She starts snipping my carefully cultivated Johnny Lydon post-Pistols hairdo.
My foul little dreadlocks are flying around all over the place but I'm
not looking in the mirror cause I just don't want to know.
"So what's your name anyway?" My stylist demands then.
"Uh, Maggie."
"Maggie? Well, that's an okay name, but my name is Suzy."
"Yeah, so?"
"Yeah so it ain't just Suzy S.U.Z.Y, I spell it S.U.Z.E.E, the extra
"e" is for extra Suzee."
I nod emphatically.
Suzee tells me when she's not busy chopping hair, she works as an exotic
dancer at night to support her boyfriend named Rocco. Suzee loves Rocco,
she loves him so much she's got her eyes closed as she describes him:
"6 foot 2, 193 pounds and, girlfriend, his arms so big and long they
wrap around me twice like I'm a little Suzee sandwich."
Little Suzee Sandwich is rapt, she blindly snips and clips at my poor punk
head. She snips and clips and snips and clips, she pauses, I look in the
mirror: "Holy ****, I'm bald."
"Holy ****, baby, you're bald." Suzee says, finally opening her
eyes and then gasping.
All I've got left is little post-nuke clumps of orange fuzz. And I'll never
get a receptionist job now.
But Suzy waves her manicured finger in my face: "Don't you worry,
baby, I'm gonna get you a job at the dancing club."
"What?"
"Baby, let me tell you, the boys are gonna like a bald go go dancer."
That said, she whips out some clippers, shaves my head smooth and insists
I'm gonna love getting naked for a living.
None of this sounds like my idea of a good time, but I'm broke and I'm
bald so I go home and get my best panties. Suzee lends me some 6 inch pumps,
paints my lips bright red, and gives me 7 shots of Jack Daniels to relax
me.
8pm that night I take the stage.
I'm bald,
I'm drunk,
and by god,
I'm naked.
HOLY **** I'M NAKED IN A ROOM FULL OF STRANGERS THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE
RECURRING NIGHTMARES WE ALL HAVE ABOUT BEING BUTT NAKED IN PUBLIC, I AM
NAKED, I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE, THIS REALLY SUCKS.
A few guys feel sorry for me and risk getting their hands bitten off by
sticking dollars in my garter belt. My disheveled pubic hairs stand at
full attention, ready to poke the guys' eyes out if they get too close.
Then I notice this bald guy in the audience, I've got a new empathy for
bald people, I figure maybe it works both ways, maybe this guy will stick
10 bucks in my garter.
I saunter over.
I'm teetering around unrhythmically, I'm the surliest, unsexiest dancer
that ever go-go across this hemisphere. The bald guy looks down into his
beer, he'd much rather look at that than at my pubic mound which has now
formed into one vicious spike so it looks like I've got a unicorn in my
crotch.
I stand there weaving through the air.
The strobe light is illuminating my pubic unicorn. Madonna's song Borderline
is pumping through the club's speaker system for the 5th time tonight:
"BORDERLINE BORDERLINE BORDERLINE/LOVE ME TIL I JUST CAN'T SEE."
And suddenly, I start to wonder: What does that mean anyway?
"LOVE ME TIL I JUST CAN'T SEE"
What?
Screw me so much my eyes pop out, I go blind, end up walking down 2nd Avenue
crazy, horny, naked and blind? What?
There's a glitch in the tape and it starts to skip.
"Borderl...ooop.....Borderl....ooop...Borderlin.....ooop"
I stumble and twist my ankle. My g-string rides between my buttcheeks making
me twitch with pain. My head starts spinning, my knees wobble, I go down
on all fours and puke all over the bald guy's lap.
So there I am. Butt naked on all fours. But before I have time to regain
my composure, the strip club manager comes over, points his smarmy strip
club manager finger at me and goes:
"You're bald, you're drunk, you can't dance and you're fired."
I stand up.
"Oh yeah, well you stink like a sneaker, pal." I peel off one
of my pumps and throw it in the direction of his fat head then I get the
hell out of there.
A few days later I run into Suzee on Avenue A. Turns out she got fired
for getting me a job there in the first place. But she was completely undaunted,
she dragged me up to this wig store on 14th Street, bought me a mouse brown
shag wig, then got us both telemarketing jobs on Wall Street.
And I never went to a beauty salon again.
|
Written by
Sylvia Plath |
Somebody is shooting at something in our town --
A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street.
Jealousy can open the blood,
It can make black roses.
Who are the shooting at?
It is you the knives are out for
At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon,
The hump of Elba on your short back,
And the snow, marshaling its brilliant cutlery
Mass after mass, saying Shh!
Shh! These are chess people you play with,
Still figures of ivory.
The mud squirms with throats,
Stepping stones for French bootsoles.
The gilt and pink domes of Russia melt and float off
In the furnace of greed. Clouds, clouds.
So the swarm balls and deserts
Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.
It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!
So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.
It thinks they are the voice of God
Condoning the beak, the claw, the grin of the dog
Yellow-haunched, a pack-dog,
Grinning over its bone of ivory
Like the pack, the pack, like everybody.
The bees have got so far. Seventy feet high!
Russia, Poland and Germany!
The mild hills, the same old magenta
Fields shrunk to a penny
Spun into a river, the river crossed.
The bees argue, in their black ball,
A flying hedgehog, all prickles.
The man with gray hands stands under the honeycomb
Of their dream, the hived station
Where trains, faithful to their steel arcs,
Leave and arrive, and there is no end to the country.
Pom! Pom! They fall
Dismembered, to a tod of ivy.
So much for the charioteers, the outriders, the Grand Army!
A red tatter, Napoleon!
The last badge of victory.
The swarm is knocked into a cocked straw hat.
Elba, Elba, bleb on the sea!
The white busts of marshals, admirals, generals
Worming themselves into niches.
How instructive this is!
The dumb, banded bodies
Walking the plank draped with Mother France's upholstery
Into a new mausoleum,
An ivory palace, a crotch pine.
The man with gray hands smiles --
The smile of a man of business, intensely practical.
They are not hands at all
But asbestos receptacles.
Pom! Pom! 'They would have killed me.'
Stings big as drawing pins!
It seems bees have a notion of honor,
A black intractable mind.
Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything.
O Europe! O ton of honey!
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods.
She began looking in the sky
—expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch.
No one.
She looked next in all the learned books
and the print spat back at her.
No one
She made a pilgrimage to the great poet
and he belched in her face.
No one.
She prayed in all the churches of the world
and learned a great deal about culture.
No one.
She went to the Atlantic, the Pacific, for surely God...
No one.
She went to the Buddha, the Brahma, the Pyramids
and found immense postcards.
No one.
Then she journeyed back to her own house
and the gods of the world were shut in the lavatory.
At last!
she cried out,
and locked the door.
|
Written by
Bob Hicok |
Drunk, I kissed the moon
where it stretched on the floor.
I'd removed happiness from a green bottle,
both sipped and gulped
just as a river changes its mind,
mostly there was a flood in my mouth
because I wanted to love the toaster
as soon as possible, and the toothbrush
with multi-level brissels
created by dental science, and the walls
holding pictures in front of their faces
to veil the boredom of living
fifty years without once
turning the other way. I wanted
the halo a cheap beaujolais paints
over everything like artists gave the holy
before perspective was invented,
and for a moment thought in the glow
of fermented bliss that the bending
of spoons by the will was inevitable,
just as the dark-skinned would kiss
the light-skinned and those with money
and lakefront homes would open
their verandas and offer trays
of cucumber sandwiches to the poor
scuttling along the fringes of their lawns
looking for holes in the concertina wire.
Of course I had to share this ocean
of acceptance and was soon on the phone
with a woman from Nogales whose hips
had gone steady with mine. I told her
I was over her by pretending I was just
a friend calling to say the Snow Drops
had nuzzled through dirt to shake
their bells in April wind. This
threw her off the scent of my anguish
as did the cement mixer of my voice, as did
the long pause during which I memorized
her breathing and stared at my toes
like we were still together, reading
until out eyes slid from the page
and books fell off the bed to pound
their applause as our tongues searched
each others' body. When she said
she had to go like a cop telling a bum
to move on, I began drinking downhill,
with speed that grew its own speed,
and fixed on this image with a flagellant's
zeal, how she, returning to bed, cupped
her lover's crotch and whispered not
to worry, it was no one on the phone,
and proved again how forgotten I'd become
while I, bent over the cold confessional,
listened to the night's sole point of honesty.
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
Here,
in the room of my life
the objects keep changing.
Ashtrays to cry into,
the suffering brother of the wood walls,
the forty-eight keys of the typewriter
each an eyeball that is never shut,
the books, each a contestant in a beauty contest,
the black chair, a dog coffin made of Naugahyde,
the sockets on the wall
waiting like a cave of bees,
the gold rug
a conversation of heels and toes,
the fireplace
a knife waiting for someone to pick it up,
the sofa, exhausted with the exertion of a whore,
the phone
two flowers taking root in its crotch,
the doors
opening and closing like sea clams,
the lights
poking at me,
lighting up both the soil and the laugh.
The windows,
the starving windows
that drive the trees like nails into my heart.
Each day I feed the world out there
although birds explode
right and left.
I feed the world in here too,
offering the desk puppy biscuits.
However, nothing is just what it seems to be.
My objects dream and wear new costumes,
compelled to, it seems, by all the words in my hands
and the sea that bangs in my throat.
|
Written by
Michael Ondaatje |
Since my wife was born
she must have eaten
the equivalent of two-thirds
of the original garden of Eden.
Not the dripping lush fruit
or the meat in the ribs of animals
but the green salad gardens of that place.
The whole arena of green
would have been eradicated
as if the right filter had been removed
leaving only the skeleton of coarse brightness.
All green ends up eventually
churning in her left cheek.
Her mouth is a laundromat of spinning drowning herbs.
She is never in fields
but is sucking the pith out of grass.
I have noticed the very leaves from flower decorations
grow sparse in their week long performance in our house.
The garden is a dust bowl.
On our last day in Eden as we walked out
she nibbled the leaves at her breasts and crotch.
But there's none to touch
none to equal
the Chlorophyll Kiss
|
Written by
Delmore Schwartz |
(after Spillane)
Let us be aware of the true dark gods
Acknowledgeing the cache of the crotch
The primitive pure and pwerful pink and grey
private sensitivites
Wincing, marvelous in their sweetness, whence rises
the future.
Therefore let us praise Miss Marilyn Monroe.
She has a noble attitude marked by pride and candor
She takes a noble pride in the female nature and torso
She articualtes her pride with directness and exuberance
She is honest in her delight in womanhood and manhood.
She is not a great lady, she is more than a lady,
She continues the tradition of Dolly Madison and Clara
Bow
When she says, "any woman who claims she does not like
to be grabbed is a liar!"
Whether true or false, this colossal remark
states a dazzling intention...
It might be the birth of a new Venus among us
It atones at the very least for such as Carrie Nation
For Miss Monroe will never be a blue nose,
and perhaps we may hope
That there will be fewer blue noses because
she has flourished --
Long may she flourish in self-delight and the joy
of womanhood.
A nation haunted by Puritanism owes her homage and
gratitude.
Let us praise, to say it again, her spiritual pride
And admire one who delights in what she has and is
(Who says also: "A woman is like a motor car:
She needs a good body."
And: "I sun bathe in the nude, because I want
to be blonde all over.")
This is spiritual piety and physical ebullience
This is vivd glory, spiritual and physical,
Of Miss Marilyn Monroe.
|
Written by
Sylvia Plath |
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,
Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand
To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed
To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit----
Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.
Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that ?
Naked as paper to start
But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk , talk.
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.
|
Written by
Maggie Estep |
Liner Notes - (from No More Mister Nice Girl)
I was having a foul day. Some
geezer harrassed me on the street and I got completely bent out of shape,
but the guy was huge so I just stuffed my retort. Went home to drink
coffee. No milk. I ripped through the cupboards and found Non Dairy Creamer.
It tasted like ****. I got into one of those senseless rages where you
throw stuff. I hurled the Non Dairy Creamer and it fell into the tub where
I was running some bath water. The creamer erupted and made this bathing
gel of Non Dairy Creamer. I was ready to kill myself. Instead I wrote Hey
Baby.
So I'm walking down the street
minding my own business
when this guy starts with me
he's suckin' his lips goin'
Hey Baby
Yo Baby
Hey Baby
Yo
and I get a little tense and nervous
but I keep walking
but the guy, he's dogging my every move
hey Miss, he says,
Don't miss this!
And he grabs his crotch and sneers ear to ear
so finally, I turn around
Hey Buddy, I say
I'm feelin' kinda tense, Buddy
I got a fuckin' song in my heart
so come on,
Let's go
I got a huge bucket of non-dairy creamer
and some time to kill
so let's do it
we'll make some foul-smelling artifical milk
and drink gallons and gallons and gallons of it
Get our bladders exceedingly full then
sit on the toilet together and let
the water run in the shower
and torture ourselves by not letting ourselves urinate
as the water rushes loudly
into the bathrub, okay?
We'll do it together
writhe in utter agony
Just you and me
and I'll even spring for some of that blue ****
for the toilet bowl, all right?
I mean, that's my idea of a good time
so how bout it, you wanna?
The guy backs up a bit
Whatsa matter, Baby?
You got somethin' against men?, he says
No, I say
I don't have anything against men
Just STUPID men
|
Written by
Steve Kowit |
This evening, the sturdy Levi's
I wore every day for over a year
& which seemed to the end
in perfect condition,
suddenly tore.
How or why I don't know,
but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.
A month ago my friend Nick
walked off a racquetball court,
showered,
got into this street clothes,
& halfway home collapsed & died.
Take heed, you who read this,
& drop to your knees now & again
like the poet Christopher Smart,
& kiss the earth & be joyful,
& make much of your time,
& be kindly to everyone,
even to those who do not deserve it.
For although you may not believe
it will happen,
you too will one day be gone,
I, whose Levi's ripped at the crotch
for no reason,
assure you that such is the case.
Pass it on.
|