go go girl poems
Kathleen J. Kramer
Amen 3
Only Daughter 4
Sweet Sixteen 5
Fortune 7
Engaged 8
Disengaged 10
She's Not A Little Girl Anymore! 12
Twinkle Toes 14
Liberation 16
Like Gone, Baby 19
Starry Eyed 21
Joyride 22
Closed for Repairs 27
Come Back 30
The Mambo Club Stays With It 31
Karaoke Night at the Mambo Club 32
So What 34
.c.World Without End
I.
1945: the bomb had been dropped
from discussion. Uncle Sam stepped
out of the posters and appeared
at county fairs wearing stilts
so high he couldn't hear a thing.
Citizen surveillance was inevitable.
There were rumors of miracle
machines, mighty in their minute sizes.
Robots would replace men.
Appliances would replace women.
Deserts would bloom,
we'd put a man on the moon,
there'd be no more disease,
all our time free to spend
with our families.
Television was inevitable.
Sex could be trusted
to pick up
where the war left off.
The girls were back in the kitchen
wearing aprons pressed with sizzling
irons of immaculate boredom.
The boys took their victories back
to factories the girls had run.
Increased productivity was inevitable.
Thanks to modern anesthetics and twilight labor
girls became Mommies as painlessly
as boys had always become Daddies.
Daddy had his Cuban cigars and cocky
smile until he came home from work
and had to feed baby his bottle
while Mommy talked on the phone.
Corner bars were inevitable.
II.
Daddy started making home
movies ~ like someday
he'd need proof, evidence,
of what, he'd never know.
The bar of hot lights needed
to film Junior's first Christmas
made baby cry and Mommy yelled.
Daddy was always too close,
out of focus, never
in any of the movies.
He operated the projector,
but when everyone was sleeping
he played the movies backwards and
*suddenly he's wearing a smoking jacket,
holding a brandy snifter. He's blowing smoke
rings into the polluted Pittsburgh night,
waiting for some broad*
reminder of the president
he was supposed to be.
He gave at the office, leaving
little time for home movies,
but he bought a new Super-8 camera.
The film moved so fast, he could shoot
with only the light of birthday candles,
five of them, at a party for their youngest
about to start kindergarten. Mommy cried
because she wanted another baby
*something to hold* and Daddy saw it all
through one zooming eye.
By the time the kids
are teen-agers, movies will talk.
He'll have had enough.
.c.Amen
1945: America was too proud of herself
to be comfortable so she celebrated weekly.
Expert wives and executive husbands
entertained in their homes but others
needed a place to drink
that they could be proud of.
Imagine science and grace as a decor,
the chemical innocence of ambition,
the enormous restraint of elegance:
simple, synthetic, *theory.*
The Mambo Club ~ *perfect* ~ exotic, glamorous.
Voluptuous pink neon bulbs buzzed deliciously
over red carpet tongues leading to frosted
glass doors. Inside, even the air
was chilled, menthol blue.
Behind the bar, a white neon light
radiated purple against a mirror
that doubled the number of liquor bottles.
It was in Pittsburgh. Plastic palm trees drooped
over sticky linoleum. Grilled food was served
on Formica tables with paper napkins.
Watered-down booze was mixed with powdered juices
in drinks served with little paper umbrellas.
The wives saved them as if they knew
it wouldn't last. The husbands destroyed
them ~ their way of agreeing.
.c.Only Daughter
I knew she was gonna be a girl.
I'd had four boys before her.
I knew the feet in my ribs,
the fists on my kidneys
of little boys trapped
inside of me.
Ed was having a party
when my water broke ~
11:00 PM, December 31st, 1949.
I sent one of the boys to get him
so we could go to the hospital.
Jimmy came back and told me daddy said
I didn't need him to have the baby.
I had the last one alone and didn't mind.
And she was a New Year's baby, a girl.
I wanted her to be the first child born
in the '50s, but the cab didn't show
until 11:45 and her head
had already started tearing me.
I tried to hold her back,
but she was born on the cold
plastic seat of a speeding cab,
the last child of the '40s.
.c. Sweet Sixteen
My father couldn't afford to feed
a sixteen-year old daughter.
He said the way I was fillin' out,
he wouldn't have to.
He signed me out of school.
In 1965, a tomato didn't need smarts
to get a man ~ I was so pretty
he wondered if I was his. Either way,
he swore I wasn't going to marry
some trash. I knew better
than to argue.
He started inviting men over to play
cards. I'd watch my mother rip
the pretty plastic cloth off
the kitchen table and replace it
with a liquor bottle and thick little glasses.
Her eyes busy on the floor,
she'd tell me to stay put in my chair,
turn the radio on for me,
wring her hands on her threadbare apron
and disappear into her chores.
Whiskey made daddy's eyes look
like glistening red slits with greedy
secrets. After he'd lose a couple hands,
he'd make me get off my chair and spin
around with my arms held out
"See? What I tell you? That's my little girl."
my arms heavy, back arching,
*What you been feedin' her, Ed?*
tippy-toed, my cheeks aching
as I smiled ~ my only response.
*And she's quiet, too.*
Laughs from their throats
brought drinks to their lips.
My body felt so stiff, my bones
creaked like ice bending.
I~d sit back down and rest
my arm on the radio, feel
its orange heat and buzz
that made me as invisible
as music in the air.
Staring at yellow linoleum squares
with pairs of cherries in each corner,
*I was a girl wearing a bonnet,
picking only perfect cherries
and I wouldn't need my parents
to hold my ladder,
wouldn't need them for anything
and then they'd love me,
everyone would love me
and I would never have to get married.*
.c.Fortune
My mother rubbed a heart-shaped locket
between red and wrinkled fingertips.
Inside was a wedding picture taken before
daddy rubbed cake in her face.
She wore the hinge out from peaking
at her virgin smile. She rubbed
the lopsided locket like a magic lantern,
saying *it could've been a lot worse.*
I just turned 16 and was going to have to marry
someone. Larry Wort had money. Daddy said
he could give a girl everything she ever wanted,
but the way Mr. Wort looked at me
while he shook Daddy's hand
made my stomach sweat
on the inside. He winked
and smiled with only half of his mouth,
gripped a cigar in his teeth ~
the kind of man that even men respected.
He owned a place called the Mambo Club
and wanted me to work there.
If everything worked out, he'd marry me.
I imagined smiling at a hand-kissing
Cuban waiter. I would be the hostest
with the mostest, puckered-up
like a movie star.
After telling me how lucky I was,
my mother paused and said
*you could do a whole lot worse.*
.c.Engaged
I had to start calling him "Larry"
like I was an adult. I kept forgetting
that we were engaged.
I didn't get a ring until he saw
if I was going to work out.
On the drive up to Pittsburgh,
he talked about what a little doll I was,
how much beer I was going to sell.
I had no idea how those worked together.
I was supposed to be a waitress at his club.
"Larry" said I was going to be the entertainment, too.
But he never told my dad that part.
Acid gurgled in my stomach again.
It seemed only a second from when I saw
pink neon lights stuck in the velvet
shadows of the steel mills,
until I sat stunned on a cot
in a large closet with a window,
my new room with the hot water heater.
The Mambo Club had what any soon-to-be bride
would have to call charm.
The high-noon dark of the noisy bar
seemed familiar, ripe,
almost rotten with magic ~
so dark anything was possible.
My pupils adjusted
and I could see the bandstand
he was making into a stage
with mirrors behind it,
just for you, he said
and winked.
I felt giddy, suddenly nauseated,
the cling bing of pinball machines pelting
against my head, ricocheting
back to the stiff, stubby fingers
of men who stared at me
from under their eyelashes.
It felt like a room full of daddy.
It smelled like a room full of laps.
*Home.*
.c.Disengaged
I wasn't allowed to live with "Larry"
in the apartment above the Mambo Club
until we got married. But it didn't seem polite
to ask when that would be:
mother said *never pressure a man.*
He wanted me to wear pretty things
and dance for the customers,
show them what I was made of.
He bought me costumes and thought it was precious
that I refused to wear them. I "modeled" one,
the least I could do, and he started tearing
strips of masking tape with his teeth. He stuck
red balloons on my chilly polka-dot bikini and tummy.
The customers could bust a balloon for a buck.
He had to bloody my nose that first night.
I stared at the spotlight like it was God.
Like it hated me. Did my routines
on the stage and then on the floor, dancing
through lit cigarettes jabbing
at my balloons, white explosions stinging
my eyes, arms over head, spinning,
trying to smile, men laughing about popping
my cherry. I thought they meant balloons,
something plural.
When they were all were busted,
I ran in my room, tore the shrunken
rubber off me and tried to change
but my blouse stuck to me,
everything stuck to me.
All I could think was *no more*
but never made it past the kitchen.
He said he didn't like to hit me
but it sure felt like he did.
I laid my hand inside the mark
his had left on my cheek.
My palm cooled, absorbed
the rough red swell of his heat.
Then came flowers and milk
and soft kisses and tickles.
Lipstick and chocolate
and ribbons of lies.
Desperation has no memory.
.c.She's Not A Little Girl Anymore!
My crying was no good for business,
so Larry, my "fiancee" and boss,
let me wear a leotard instead of a bikini
under red balloons I wore for his customers
to bust with lit cigarettes while I danced.
One night some guy got real ugly
after he paid and popped
his way to my skin and found the leotard
instead, so he bent me over a table.
When Larry tried to get him off me,
I felt a slivery edge against my neck
*back off or I'll cut her*
and everything got real quiet
except for the sound of my leotard
being cut. When I heard his zipper
ripping open, I was grateful
that he was behind me.
There was this thump and squishing,
like a truck tire on a kitty's belly ~
only the driver keeps going, reverse
forward reverse forward
reverse.
I remember sitting on the cold plastic seat
of a squad car drinking my first cup of coffee.
I felt the restless itch of blood drying
as police drove me to the hospital.
They needed what was left of my costume
and wanted pictures of my front,
with the hospital gown open, for evidence.
I only let them photograph my black eye
from when my cheek cracked on the table.
They said it wouldn't be enough and left.
As the doctor snapped on rubber gloves,
his eyes never stopped questioning me.
He smiled, *Did he come inside you?*
"I think so, well, I mean, he was."
He threw his head back in a laugh
that exposed every filling in his teeth,
*You don't even know what I'm talking about.*
How could he think I didn't know?
And he fingered my sores, hard,
asking if they hurt.
He patted my head and pushed me back
on the examining table's crinkly wax paper
I confused with my skin. Bones broke
when he separated my knees.
I felt hot light and a breeze as he whistled,
his slippery blue-white fingers
hurting me all over
again. I kept thinking
it can't last forever
Larry couldn't marry me knowing his friends saw what happened.
And no judge would convict the guy
considering what I looked like
and what I was doing with it.
Larry was real nice, said *that~s a girl*
when I smiled, told me to relax
and work in the kitchen.
Mother's letter said work hard and don't worry,
men marry all kinds these days.
She sent money in case I was with child,
said *you're as grown as a woman gets.*
.c.Twinkle Toes
I was washing dishes one slow night,
watching the thin skin of soap bubbles pop
and lose their color to the air.
As a truck drove by the window,
I looked up into high beams
and thought of a new name: *Mazzie Starr.*
*Mazzie Starr* was too glamorous
to be pushed around. I'd claw and crawl
my way to the top, be independent.
No one would be able to touch me.
As soon as I found out I wasn't pregnant
from when that guy got mad at me,
I took the money my mom sent
to Linette Lovejoy's Studio of the Dance.
Mom's letter said "it" happened to her
and a lot of other girls. Forget about it or it
would keep happening ~
men could smell it on you.
But Mazzie Starr would dazzle them,
show them I wasn't just some stinkin'
broad. People would come
to see the fancy steps I learned
while dancing on bright yellow mats
covered with a man's footprints.
In the movies, no one danced without
a crowd of couples clapping.
I had no idea how far away Hollywood was.
My audience was the same old men with soggy
chunks of cigar on their lips grinning
while the young ones hollered *take it off take it off.*
I did my "Happy Talk" number and they laughed.
*Where were the tap-dancing
sailors who won wars
and knocked on doors
while hiding flowers
behind their backs?*
The worse things get,
the fewer questions
you ask.
*Chin up, toes pointed,
shuffle ball change
and a cha cha cha.*
.c.Liberation
Larry lost The Mambo Club to
Bruno, an out-of-towner
who called me a dish.
He had the old neon sign removed,
put up his own ~ The Piranha Lounge.
"The" and "Lounge" were a harmless blue
and "Piranha" was a thick, vicious red.
Nicki, his girlfriend, lived with him
but they weren't even married.
Her red hair was full of breezes like her
hollow eyes. Everything about her was easy ~
the way she talked, the way she sipped
highballs, lit cigarettes, fingered
the naked pages of Bruno's magazines.
He told her to break me
in while he remodeled.
I would've given anything
to be just like her but hated her kind
of dancing and costumes.
The backsides were completely
cut out. And when her top came off,
white circles the size of communion wafers
covered the tips of her breasts.
She hula-hooped her hips, pouted her lips.
The guys would start hollering but soon got real quiet,
like any noise would strangle
every remaining ounce of air
from their hollow mouths.
She tried showing me how to do it,
but I couldn't forget about being half-
naked. My knees abandoned me. I smiled
like a ballerina with blistered
lips and missing teeth.
She said *I felt just like you did at first*
and could tell I didn't believe her.
She slammed her drink down,
told me to grow the fuck up,
*they ain't coming to watch you _dance_, you know?*
Up at Bruno's apartment, she made me
my first pitcher of Harvey Wallbangers
and showed some adult movies she starred in.
I felt like an idiot for being so embarrassed.
If she could do *that,* I could be a go-go dancer.
She said you get used to it.
I~d been at the bar long enough
to figure she was probably right.
Her and Bruno went in the bedroom.
When I heard her screaming *more*
I hurried downstairs into the Sunday
night silence of the empty bar.
Alone, I loved being fucked-up,
being fed-up and glad, so full
of shit that nothing mattered ~
*free.*
I wanted music
so loud I couldn't hear
inside my head. Like Nicki said,
if you can't beat it, fuck it.
How could relief be wrong?
I walked onto the hollow stage
and became a real woman
like Nicki. I slipped out of my clothes
and into one of her G-strings covered
with blue sequins the color of true
blood, before it's exposed to the air.
I pulled its stiff strap slowly inside me
and danced like my body was a charm to tempt men
into killing me: an unhappy woman's final victory.
It was easy until the bar was full,
until I lost my shirt
in a room full of eyes
that tattooed my skin
with invisible holes.
I wanted the men to grab me so I could feel
on the outside what I felt on the inside.
Maybe then I would've known it was real.
Maybe then I would've stopped.
.c.Like *Gone,* Baby
Psychedelic lights swirled
peace and love over flat-black walls
that absorbed everything.
America was free to be as
ugly as she wanted.
I did the pony and the jerk
but nobody paid attention
to anything except my titties.
Sitting at a table, trying to hustle
drinks off truckdrivers,
I'd wrap my palms around candles
in glass covered with white plastic netting
that softened in the hum
of flame absorbing air.
When I got drunk, Bruno thought I was crazy,
walking to each table, sniffing dirty roses
like the Queen of Sheeba in my feather boa,
gently bending over to enjoy them,
getting my fanny spanked by men
that Nicki set me up with.
I learned why men love cars.
They trap women in them
and call it a date. After a few,
I quit fighting so it wouldn't hurt
when I peed the next day.
Nicki taught me about love.
In order to love a man,
you gotta be a man
which makes it impossible
to love anyone.
She turned tricks to buy fancy
toliet water and said it was a shame
that I didn~t have the heart of a whore.
I thought she meant I didn~t have a heart.
I should have known she'd be leaving,
should have known why
she had to keep moving:
Go Go Girl.
.c.Starry Eyed
The water heater in the corner gurgled
regrets behind a silver satin screen
as similar strangers burned rubber
leaving the long-empty parking lot.
My mop's moldy pine smell was enough
romance for me, Mazzie Starr, the exotic dancer
who knew that being seduced
was like being laughed at. But nothing
was as bad as being alone in the dark.
Mornings at The Piranha Lounge
came in the afternoon. I made coffee
like I imagined wives did, re-cleaning
and meticulously measuring everything.
I unfolded the morning paper like I was important,
making a lot of noise, ignoring creases,
making a point of being alone.
When you make a living being stared at,
you can't be too alone.
Bars of hard yellow sun pinched
through venetian blinds
magnifying everything
into ugliness. I could see
brown dirt on black paint,
tiny cracks in my cup, memories
overtaking the backs
of my hands trembling
for the vodka in my coffee.
I would plop my feet up on the table
and bump my pink fuzzy slippers together
in a shaft of sun, sending bits of sparkling
dust tumbling like lost stars in the tears
confusing my eyes ~ one for every kiss
that made the night a little darker,
made the dawn blaze
with a brighter shame
reminding me
of my beauty
by blinding me.
.c.Joyride
Bruno was too drunk to drive
and I was too married to argue ~
another silent joyride.
The thump-click of the one windshield wiper
that worked was a cheap relief,
the needle of a faulty compass
pointing at him then me, on and on.
I imagined lives lived in houses passing
by my side window ~ newlyweds in duplexes,
retired couples in ranch houses by country clubs.
I hated leaving the bar, hated thinking
about who I wasn't. I swear
he made me go just to remind me.
It'd been about five years since Nicki
(my best friend) left him. He owned
the Piranha Lounge where me and her
were topless dancers. When I told him
she was gone, he tried to rape me
(the closest thing to her he could find).
I was so pissed, so fucking mad
that I gave him the best head
he ever had, figured we'd be even.
I never felt so dead
honest.
Nicki taught me well.
I controlled him
by doing what he wanted,
but doing it so fucking good,
he'd want only me.
I drank a lot, started gettin' off
on making men want me.
I loved watching Bruno blot sweat
from his bald head while young men stuffed their hard
earned dollars in my G-string.
But even that got old . . .
The warm windows of distant houses
stared welcomes at me ~ *the women inside
brushed their hair a hundred times
before bed. The brush is soft and lovely
like their husband's watching eyes
while children slept with night lights
quieting their windows.* Lights blinked
each time Bruno's car passed a phone pole.
Blink blink blink blink blinkblinkblink
moving faster and faster, not
forward or backward or sideways
but all ways at once, car spinning
into a ditch, into the thud of my hip
against the door handle, my last breath waiting
for the next impact ~ the innocent driver
I only imagined was headed right at me.
Thump-click thump-click
the engine dies
with the wiper pointing
at Bruno.
"All right. You can drive."
It was the closest he ever came
to an apology and the closest I ever
wanted to come to accepting.
I walked around front of the stalled
Delta creaking, tapping,
as I went to open his door,
"Forget it."
Walking back to the passenger's side,
I saw snowflakes colliding
as if the wind was blowing
a thousand directions at once.
My fingers couldn't pull the door handle.
Snow stung the thin skin
on the back of my hand.
I begged him to let me drive.
"Fuck you. Get in."
I didn't want to get in,
but I didn't want to freeze.
"Get in the fucking car.
Get in or I'm leaving you."
A breeze of edges tore inside my jacket
and stayed trapped around my stomach.
I opened the door and looked at his dull
head and miserable jaw and remembered "no."
Frozen. Snow twinkled and fought
in the headlight's beams.
Then he pulled away so fast
the door closed itself.
I felt like I'd miss him
if I never saw him again.
But I wasn't feeling
that lucky.
I started walking the wrong way
wondering if he'd come back. I jumped
off the road, down to the railroad tracks
by the river. I imagined the headlights
passing above were him.
I needed to think he cared.
The river was running high. As I walked,
I could hear its voice, spoken only
when it rubbed against its shores.
The silver-brown current bent ice-
covered saplings that creaked like my bones
when daddy spun me like a bottle
in front of his friends
who called me jail bate,
right after my chest ballooned-out
and my hips tightened their curves.
Where could I go? I demanded
an answer from everything, hurt
my voice from repeating the question.
A train approached and I ached
to hop on board
or under its wheels.
I was married to the fucking
bar. Bruno wasn't the first man there
who took whatever he wanted from me.
But he was the first who cared
if I started giving it to anyone else.
Why else does anyone get married?
And he owned the place, the old Mambo Club
I thought was going to be a fucking palace.
Instead, some steelworker puts a knife
to my throat and starts slapping his hips
against my pretty ass.
My mom said to forget about it or men
would smell it on me. Even in the red stench
of Pittsburgh, they could smell it on me.
At least Bruno married me.
A passing breeze reminded me
I was soaked. I shivered and crawled
back up the hill to the road, thinking
about how easy it was to crawl ~
at least I couldn't fall.
I hitchhiked back to the bar, and when the kind sir
stopped to let me out, he reached over to
open my door and copped a feel of my soggy tits.
I hadn't lied about where I wanted left off
so I guess he felt entitled.
Bruno wasn't back yet.
I figured he went out
for a whore so I fell asleep easy.
He wouldn't be waking me up.
The phone panicked in its cradle.
A voice said "is this the wife of Bruno Pluto?"
I admitted it. "You should get down here right away"
They never called before, always let him sleep
it off there. "No ma'am, your husband's had an accident."
I thought he hurt someone. "No ma'am, your husband's dead."
I thought it was him,
thought he paid someone
to call me and see what I'd do.
I hung up.
The night broke-out in fists
and deep voices boomboomboomb
*Open the door, this is the police. Open up, lady.*
There's always one nice guy
in the bunch. He told me Bruno
had driven his car into the river.
But there were no skid marks,
and the passenger door
hadn't been closed all the way and
did I grab the wheel and
jump out at the last minute?
No. We had a fight and I walked home.
(dead?) No, no one could have seen me
because I was thinking on the tracks
till I got cold and hitchhiked home.
(Bruno's dead?) No, I didn't
get the guy's name because he, well,
when he was letting me out,
he tried to grab me, my chest.
They could all see why (yuck yuck yuck)
and laughed while someone squeezed
my elbows behind me, all of them staring
while he cuffed me.
The detective ground a cigarette
under the toe of his shoe,
looked me up and down, said
you have the right to remain silent.
*The right?*
there's a poem missing here. but keep going.
.c.Closed for Repairs
I never wanted the Piranha Lounge, but boy
had I earned it by the time Bruno~s
insurance policy paid off.
I hated the place because it
made me what I was.
I love it because it
made me what I am.
I didn~t care if Bruno lived or died
so it was easy to be his wife
until I was arrested for his murder.
I was acquitted, released,
and the bar was mine.
I scrubbed dead ghosts
from every floorboard and rafter.
But even Mr. Clean
couldn~t ease the odor:
dry but somehow still rotten.
I scubbed until I sweat
and screamed, my skin burning . . .
After hearing the applause
of naked mirrors being smashed
with a bar stool, I decided
to do the renovations myself
and tore down the splintered stage
where I had danced ridiculous.
The place wasn't a titty bar, it was a nightclub
that would serve drinks of pastel greens
and demure reds, concoctions
named after stars born in my own constellation
twinkling with wishes, light-years old,
about to come true.
I tacked endless strings of tiny blue lights
to the ceiling. As I walked through the bar,
blue twinkled under the lace canopy that hid
the wires. It was finally happening,
I was going to be discovered, loved.
I dipped star-shaped sponges in glue
and then onto the walls. Throwing
fistfuls of blue and silver glitter,
I scattered stars from my fingertips.
I decided to keep the floor covered
with glitter so strangers could follow
a twinkling path back to The Mambo Club.
When I'd worked enough
(after about six whiskey sours), I started
lighting candles in deep bowls
where the wind could whisper
flickers to the flames but never
put them out.
I put on my favorite record,
"Harvest," *Dream up, dream up
let me fill your cup with the promise
of a man.* It was my turn to dance
the way I always wanted:
clothed and alone with no spotlight
except for an occasional moon,
I'd twirl on the fire escape
I called the verandah
wearing baby-doll pajamas
made of cotton so thin
it couldn~t keep moonlight
from tingling my skin.
I~d sing to a sky full
of friendly stars and
hit every note perfectly,
blushing at the sound
of my own voice, music
descending and settling
on me like gold
talcum powder.
I danced a cheek to cheek
with the memory of a man
I invented, felt someone watching
through my wind chimes
as my bare feet warmed
on the smooth black iron
that held the day~s heat.
Sometimes clouds stole my stars.
I'd sit in the rain smelling roses and rust,
wishing upon raindrops for a lover.
*It can't be all in my head* I repeated,
until I'd remember being bent over
and driven into, sucked
dry, arrested and strip-searched,
married and widowed: sleepless nights
swallowed tomorrows.
I never wanted to open the place again,
didn't want any more
of what people had to offer.
On the first anniversary of Bruno's accident,
(I wanted him dead, so help me God,
but I couldn't kill him) I sat in a booth
to wait out the rain and lit a midnight
cigarette. I blew smoke rings,
floating white holes that disappeared
into the innocent air of what had been
The Mambo Club.
My finger found a hole chewed in my seat
by a mouse. He swallowed a gutful of vinyl
for a drop of spilt ketchup.
I needed to be that hungry.
Anyone empty enough
to hope for hunger
finds it immediately.
After spending so much time alone,
I realized how beautiful I could feel ~
how slow and irreversible
loneliness could be ~
how scared I was.
.c.Come Back
1973: people wanted somewhere to drink
that reminded them of the good old days.
How quickly they'd forgotten.
I restored the Mambo Club. Pink
and white striped awnings fanned
over the doors and windows buzzing
with electric pink lights. Everything
inside was stylish again.
I gave my story to the press
to help promote my grand opening.
A Pittsburgh boy got famous painting
soup cans so I wasn't surprised
the Mambo Club and I were interesting
reading.
I told the reporter about being raped,
married and widowed in the same club.
He was puzzled: why re-open? why not leave?
It was the last place I'd been
before the rapes. It was
the only place I felt
like it wasn't my fault,
the only chance I had
to find love.
.c.The Mambo Club Stays With It
I couldn't sell liquor on Sundays
but kept the club open
and served coffee to groovy college
students who I thought were so open.
They came to see folk acts who worked cheap
(they really came to stare at me, a real ex-
go-go dancer) and smoked foreign cigarettes
while nodding their heads to songs
about the exploitation of migrant workers,
but they never tipped.
Then there were the real intellectuals who used
words like "liquefaction" and "preclude"
and left dirty needles in the bathroom.
What is it about being "introspective"
that makes the world so unbearable?
And what is it about being "self-expressive"
that precludes the need for liquefaction
in the form of a bath?
No wonder evolved junkies wore black.
I overcharged fancy-schmancy
students because they acted
like they deserved to be served
for free and that scum like me
should pay for the pleasure.
I never overcharged the mill hunkies
because they acted like they deserved me for free.
They slid their hands on me
like my skin seethed suggestions.
I told myself that they didn't phase me ~
that they didn't really touch me. Nobody
had touched me in years.
I was saving myself for someone special,
a college student who always had
a corsage in the refrigerator
and a cloak for every puddle.
Hope can cause the worst kind of hate.
.c.Karaoke Night at the Mambo Club
The glass block windows
once installed to stop thieves
are now ~ with a splash of neon ~ vogue.
Everything that once made the place
a dive is now referred to as quaint.
And somehow I~m still single ~
but successful and self-fulfilled.
It~s Karaoke Night at The Mambo Club!
This new crowd thinks they're cool
sitting on red-vinyl barstools,
and they~ll pay three fifty a drink
to prove it.
I watch them look at pictures of me
wearing G-strings. Fuck it ~ I hung up
everything that made me: broken records,
old costumes, shrunken balloons,
newspaper clippings about Bruno~s death
and my subsequent arrest and acquittal:
marriage and death certificates
hang like my honorary degrees.
People talk about the subjection of women
while examining my pastie collection
that's now preserved behind glass
because everyone who saw them
touched them. How nostalgic.
As if deliberate disgrace
is more dignified than the plain
old shame of a tramp, I should thank
Madonna for increasing
every whore~s clothing allowance.
Women of the nineties are muscular
but aren't allowed to eat
so clever young men carry condoms
on sticks that look like delicious red suckers.
I watch men singing "Hot Blooded"
or "Do You Think I~m Sexy"
doing the dance of the drunken pelvis.
I let them do all the talking,
knowing they count on me
to be easily impressed.
Young men think older women are easy
because we~ve already had the dick
so now they think we need it.
I smile, do a shot, feel it burn my throat
thinking of my younger days ~
the low tolerance for whiskey and men
and wonder how many years
my last kiss will have to stretch across.
oh my honey adam duritz . . . where are you? oh yeah. you're on the
other side of the ocean . . . you didn't even have to fly over me to get
there . . .
.c.So What
*Twinkle twinkle Mazzie Starr,
how I wonder who you are.
Climbing roses to the sky,
never knowing what~s too high.*
Night deepened with the silver mist
of the moon~s borrowed light
until the freckled dawn
whispered morning.
So what if there is no moon ~
if it's only a street light?
So what if the flags waving themselves
for his arrival are only laundry
flapping in the alley?
So what if seeing him felt
like a question answered?
If the mind has a thousand eyes,
how can the heart see anything?
all poems copyrighted by kathy jo kramer, 1994
who will love such a jo?