Three Years Ago
by
Rp Verlaine
Was it waitressing?
Metaphor, coming closer
to her meaning . . .
net stocking legs
spread wide
when I paid the bill.
Or worse— was I just being
serviced?
The answering machine
spit out the evidence
without giving a fuck.
She was ready
for her closeup.
Her last message said
that she'd gone to L.A.
to be an actress,
but now I know
she meant asterisk.
6 months later:
on the strip she meets
a pharmaceutical survivor
who slipped, and is now pushing
illegal powders in glycine.
Watching pachucos
drag evil
machines,
he talks to her,
seeing her flesh tattooed new
but flesh still clean
he says ‟actress,
you‵ll get old here,
or disappear
in a third-rate chorus line
with every verse queer.
“Actress take this . . .”
The pimp says ‟actress, porn
films are the new art form
take this . . . take this‶
the pimp says ‟Actress
take this.”
3 months later:
she ties black belt to her arm
in the bathroom of a rented club.
Cool jazz music pulses inside
as the hypodermic
slides in before the
camera cuts.
The music
doesn‵t
stop as the actor
enters in her and the camera cuts,
but all she sees
is her blood
'til the rush
when the hypodermic
slides in.
A year later:
men dodge rain
into peep show heaven,
slamming quarters to see
videos, see her
repeat disintegration,
repeat fade to black.
While outside, her eyes scan
cars, L.A. police cruisers she‵s been
behind bars in topless, nude
as police patrol heresies
from the dreams of its gutter evacuees
her soul‵s devoid of magic
she‵s turning tricks
not quickly enough
the pimp‵s rear view sees.
Even later:
Baby, I never wanted this poem,
baby I never wanted this
poem, yours.
But nobody called off
the drug assassins, who fed your flesh
to the creditors or the cheap heretics
who celebrated Mass by creating
their own, worshiping you.
'Til your blood
was cheaper than the wine
and every derelict pissed
a thousand stray trails
that all led back to you.
Today:
police says
‟Did you know this OD?‶
to pimp or dealer on strip.
His eyes glow dark
as the coat hanger marks
her corpse detailed.
‟Don‵t know the bitch”
voice trails like
samurai
too evil to die.
‟Don‵t know the bitch‶
says ‟No, No, No.‶
And I say
No, neither
did I.
Rp Verlaine lives in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from
City College. He taught in the New York Public schools for many years.
His
first volume of poetry, Damaged by Dames & Drinking, was published in 2017 and another, Femme Fatales, Movie Starlets & Rockers, in 2018. A set of three e-books titled Lies From the Autobiography vol 1-3
were published from2018 to 2020. His newest book,
Imagined Indecencies, was published in
February of 2022.
Bernice Holtzman’s paintings
and collages have appeared in shows at various
venues in Manhattan, including
the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s
Club, the Black Door Gallery on W. 26th St., and
one other place she can’t
remember, but it was in a basement, and she was well received.
