A make-up artist? Um … no thanks.
That’s not my kind of courtship caper.
I want the girl who wrote a paper
on Massachusetts’ failing banks.
You can keep your belly-dancer.
The nimbleness that I would seek
is cerebral: I need the geek
who’ll find a cure for prostate cancer.
A chick who’s slick in silk and satin
is just what I’m inclined to spurn:
the only beauty I discern
likes reading Ovid – but in Latin.
The field is very small, because
I’m fussy, biased, preferential:
to me, it’s utterly essential
she knows who Dosso Dossi was.
I need you to be erudite:
call if you can tell apart
bead-and-reel from egg-and-dart:
the stamen from the Stagyrite.
One thing that’s truly terrific’s
knowing the plot of Lavransdatter:
write to me about grey matter
in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Sharon Tate? Scarlett Johansson?
My type is more Diane from “Cheers”.
She had stuff between her ears:
so save the blondes for Charlie Manson.
My ‘ask’ should now be quite transparent:
I’d love a lassie with a brain,
who writes reviews of Citizen Kane.
Where are you hiding, Hannah Arendt?
Complicity is easy for the Right,
one single flag to which they all adhere –
“someone might steal my loot”. This primal fear
prompts pistols under pillows, sleepless nights
and riot cops. Who needs a Stagyrite?
But Lefties hold their differences dear.
Each Keeper of the Flame is more sincere
than Cash-Is-Trash-ists, Ogden Nash-ists, quite
apart from Crypto-Fascists, Widow’s Mite
Apologists, Red Guards, or those who steer
by Stalin’s light (Stakhanovites). It’s clear:
you’d never have a play without a wright,
and so each faction finds its Miller Lite:
Kropotkin, Castro, Kopp – who’s cool this year?
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