Cast Aside

Sat where it’s sat since chauffeured in gently No driver now for the rusty old Bentley Its tyres and battery equally flat A rusted up den for an old ally cat Manicured lawns, bindweed infested No gardener now as hardship suggested No tourist, no fan, nobody interested Intruder detection no longer tested Inside, a rocking chair, no longer plush Creaks like the bones of the wizened old lush Who stares at the walls of the now peeling flock And pays little heed to the un-ticking clock Newspaper clippings lay where they fell Sometimes she grins at the stories they tell But just as though they were still pinned to the wall She picks up not one, she remembers them all They’d urged her to dance, they’d begged her to sing But all of a sudden the phone wouldn't ring Now cataracts sully the stars In her eyes And stubbornness stifles her arthritic cries The phone once rang often, to her recollection But now she just listens to check the connection No point in a phone when you're no longer known And the sound of alone... is a dialling tone Dancing for Hollywood bought her the world But one willing bint and her stardom unfurled A word of advice for which she will vouch You’re born but you die on a man’s casting couch And as she sits there in her old rocking chair With her makeup undone and her unkempt hair Now she succumbs to Hollywood’s ills As she rocks back and forth with some gin and some pills.