Mitt Romney's
Lap Dance
Go to a tiny
dressing room.
Put on an American flag bikini,
using falsies borrowed from Rudy Giuliani’s
dress-in-drag-for-laughs wardrobe.
Make sure that your Mormon underwear
stays firmly underneath your bikini briefs.
Wait for George Herbert Walker Bush
to knock on the dressing room door.
Walk with Bush 41 to the back room
where Bible-believing Fundamentalist Christians await.
Choose a Fundamentalist Christian.
Ask him to sit in a chair.
Whisper into his ear:
Yes, I believe the entire Bible should be taken literally.
Elect me and I’ll do anything you want.
Go into your dance.
Start slowly as the jukebox plays
Lee Greenwood’s GOD BLESS THE USA.
Then get more excited and feverish as
the music switches to Contemporary Christian goddesses
such as Jaci Velasquez and pre-1985 Amy Grant.
Get close to the Fundamentalist Christian
without touching him.
Excite him again and again
until he yells HALLELUJAH!
and stuffs a roll of thousand-dollar bills
between your bikini briefs and Mormon underwear.
Let Bush 41 lead you out of the room.
Listen to him as he croaks:
You gotta keep turning these people on.
Then hold them at arm’s length.
Who cares if they whine?
They have no place else to go.
But you saw something Bush 41 didn’t:
the Fundamentalist Christian’s hunger
for someone to deliver on his desire
for the United States to re-adopt values
cherished long ago—in Salem, Massachusetts.
You might want to be nothing more
than the CEO of the United States,
continuing the erosion of the government
in favor of more privatization and profiteering.
But the Fundamentalist Christian wants you to do God’s Will.
And God help you if you’re in the White House
on January 20, 2009
and you fail to return his calls.
Steve Martin
Oh to wear a white
suit
and wrap a fake arrow around my head
and do banal routines with quotation remarks around them
and play the banjo
and occasionally remind my audience
that I took a few courses in philosophy
and have the chance to host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
so many times that people still think I was a regular from 75-80
and do my routines and catchphrases in arenas
and in Vegas until I feel like vomiting in the wings
and go to Los Angeles
and first make movies that are extensions of my stand-up act
and then learn to stop relying on schtick and play “realistic”
characters
and have my stories automatically published by THE NEW YORKER
and prove my worth as a “serious” playwright by creating
PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE (the title alone proves I’m serious)
and get rich and richer
by making walk-through high-concept comedies
that make enough money for me to buy the art that I like
(and give money to LACMA)
and, on top of that, enable me to shop in privacy
even during daylight hours
and—finally—write a book about a past
I now have more affection for than I once did.
I could have done all that
if I had been born Steve Martin.
An Encounter
With Tom Cruise 11/1/07
I was on the
sidewalk outside the Cinerama Dome
when Tom Cruise was talking to paparazzi
about his latest movie LIONS FOR LAMBS.
Feeling a bit irreverent, I yelled to Tom:
HOW DOES IT FEEL BEING FORTY-FIVE?
Silence.
Then Tom said:
I’m not forty-five.
I’m thirty-five.
Next year, I’ll be thirty-four.
How old are you?
I hesitated to answer.
But a few seconds of intense, irritated stares
from members of the Entertainment Media
changed my mind.
I said:
I’m forty-eight.
Next year, I’ll be forty-nine.
Tom said:
Thanks so much
for explaining the difference
between you and me.
The Entertainment Media applauded
as I left the scene of my verbal crime
and headed to Amoeba Records
to track down VHS/DVD copies
of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY.
The final poem is from the chapbook BORN TO WALK:
WHEN BONO WENT REPUBLICAN
What am I supposed to do with my money-
give it back?-Rod Stewart circa the late 1970’s.
It seemed like a good idea to make nice
with George Bush Jr. and Jesse Helms
in hopes of getting wealthy conservatives
to agree to forgive debt and fight AIDS in Africa .
You only have to look past the fact that they’ll give
“crumbs” from their vast bank accounts
and bring you into their offices to say
“Hey Bongo, can you autograph your iPod
for my grandson?”
while being wary of funding condoms
and sex education other than abstinence.
It seemed like a good idea on paper
to move the song publishing company away
from the home country of Ireland
to the lower-tariff Netherlands .
Shouldn’t U2 benefit from capitalism by not paying Irish taxes
on songs mostly written in the south of France ?
It was a great idea
(mostly hidden from the public)
to buy a large share of Forbes magazine publishing stock.
Face it, it’s a big-business world
and maybe Forbes will contribute 7 cents on the dollar
to future AIDS or poverty funds or ads for one.org.
It was a terrific idea to have The Gap agree to carry
Red clothing mostly worn by socially conscious
upper-middle class youth.
Sure, the immediate funding will help
give comfort and added life to a few AIDS victims.
But eventually, Red clothes will be given to Goodwill
and upper-middle class youth
will go back to uploading resumes
for 100-hour-week jobs-perhaps for
corporations like The Gap--
which will extinguish any desires for
long-term social consciousness.
You still read the Bible and have committed the verses
about the rich man and the eye of a needle
to memory.
But it’s hard to cut back on the lifestyle
So you continue to wear the glasses that filter out
the harsh light of other people’s reality
as you travel from one city of blinding lights
to another.
