| |
The Gold Club
By
Jan Steckel
Red
and purple bubbles rising
Narrow bands of cloth
Six-inch fuck-me Lucite heels
Little tits (it's the afternoon shift).
Give it up
Clap your hands
You get what you deserve
here at the Gold Club.
We keep bringing out the pretty ladies for you
Make sure you get your fill
of our all-you-can-eat buffet.
Bringing out another tasty, tasty dish.
Let's give it up for….
Diamond band around her ankle
Sparkling white bikini
Long straight nose
Powerful brows
Grace incarnate
Calf muscles defined
Evanescence playing
“Wake me up inside”
Bubbles rising in tanks behind her
Hair falls to the small of her back,
blue-black.
Bronze skin
Breasts small enough to be real
She smells like all good things
She smells like summer when you were fourteen
She smells like every girl you ever loved
She smells like the dreams
they sell in perfume shops
but still, something of her
must inform the store-bought scent
Something from her body.
Something real.
Oh for a bottle of absinthe,
The bitterness of wormwood,
the sweetness of hallucinations,
the river of desire,
the fire of inspiration,
as old as Tyre,
crimson and purple, ground shells,
the boat sets sail in the morning,
what have we but tonight.
This is the oldest city story,
this smokeless bar,
these lights,
these girls,
these lonely men with money in their pockets.
Two men sit at one table
talking on cell phones,
small lights glowing.
Not talking to each other or the girls.
The men are round, without definition.
How does the wonka-wonka music sound
to the party on the other end of the phone?
Are they negotiating deals,
making money to spend here on another night?
This is the origin of commerce, fellas,
music and female bodies writhing
in guttering light
in a tavern on the wharves.
San Francisco, city of the ages,
Babylon, Tyre, New Orleans, Marseilles, Crete,
hasn't it always been like this?
What is the difference
between a wife and these dancers?
Here the exchange is on the tables
It's on the hip under the G-string
in the sinuous cobra dance,
in the eyes so far away,
It plays around the red slash smile
She pays attention if you pay….
What can this strip dancer feel?
But something of it must be real.
Oh you stolid wives,
with your thickening bodies,
how could you hold onto your men
without these places?
Matrons, you are foolish
to try to hold your men from this,
the very center of the reptilian brain.
Work it.
Wear those fishnets and those thigh-high boots.
Take the starch out of your hair,
and let it fall in your face.
It doesn't matter that your flesh sags.
He wants his comfort and his ease
just like you,
but he wants his tasty dishes, too.
So feed his fantasies,
you good wives,
like an all-you-can-eat buffet,
and be his whore.
If you mix hearth and heat like that,
he'll come home still
to get his fill,
and something of it will be real.
Copyright © 2007 Jan
Steckel
|
