Polka Dot Soiree

Fall 1986: A bad season of
collapsing walls. My last band
had folded wings that summer.
My guitar was frozen in
its case, a stone thing
falling through blue plush
into a well of banshee
booze, hauling me down
a tide with those fingers
of big night music gripped,
like stone, around round
my ankle. I had tried
swearing off the alchol
but going it alone I hadn’t
a clue what to mend or
forgive or give back. And so
I found myself out again
in that old the zombie zone,
suited up with a
a lunar-cold vengeance.
Real things fell from
angelic aeries, like
the massive oak
I discovered
on top of my garage
apartment after work
one day, the walls of
my tiny cheap room
buckled out. I retrieved
journals and guitar
and natty slax and got
the hell on outta there,
setting up in a tiny
room in my mother’s
house. That was when
I started writing down
the malaise, even
as I headed full force into
it. I made a weak
(inept, too wounded)
attempt to love a German
exchange student
named Magritte but
the clearer motions it
demanded -- stability,
fidelity, sacrifice --
kept getting lost in
the murk of tequila.
One night I called
her to make plans
for dinner and a
Pat Matheny concert,
and found myself
after ringing off
walking right out
the door, engorged
with that cactus gestalt.
Long hours later screwed
to a barstool in
my favorite water
hole, the blackout man
crept from his
grave, that barking
hell-bent satyr equal
parts fang and cock.
Followed a woman
back to a house
where someone had
died recently --
there were piles of
bills on a table, ashtrays
of a ghost
overflowing like
sewers, the smell
of oatmeal cookies
and piss. In my journal
the next day, I wrote
“heights of sex around
2:30 and 6 a.m., yes,
but the falloff was
meteoric” -- the blisses
of that season seemed
carved not from waves
but their riptide. The
next night -- the one
before my date
with Magritte -- I
ended up at Fern Park
Station drinking the
night away to the
sound of a bad big
hair metal band
& Kim the topless
dancer invited me
back to her apartment
for more of the same
though blacker in in
is blare. Bare overhead
bulb & Van Halen
squealing on a table
radio as we did shots
& drank beer. After
I fucked her on the couch
(from behind, hard,
like a wolf), she sighed
and said “I have always
hated you” softly
in my ear. The next
day I called in sick
and shook Kim awake
to drive me back to my car,
the late morning
overheated and
shriekingly bright,
all knife and no ocean.
I was 29 and falling
down the oubliette of
my old dream of
love’s billowy perfection,
refusing to let go
down those gripless walls.
Back in that room
in my mother’s house
I slept fitfully for the
afternoon, making coffee
at 4 p.m. and casting
an I Ching oracle. --
The Abysmal Doubled,
like snake-eyes formed
from six faces of two
coins, two hexagrams of
drowning stacked on
each other, auguring
the dangers I swam
without and within.
It offered the image
of a melancholy heart
going down in freezing
brine, a place shared
by the moon, thieves,
wisdom and darkness.
“Surrender is the
only escape,” it whispered
through the hungover
creaks and folds of
the afternoon. Ah
but what to surrender
and how to let it go?
What of the dream
I had in that season
of the purely curved
woman in a black and
white polka dot dress,
walking up to the
stage where I stood
trading licks with ZZ Top.
Her breasts hips and
ass waving like a tide
toward me, her eyes
so hot on mine
the way I thought
every woman I ever
desired looked at me,
a feminine veneer
for a greater ocean
behind, her kiss
which came later
absolving every
abyss I now swam
through. She took
me to her bed of beds
on some island
of sweet delight,
fucking me every
way I came,
sighing up from
that billowy descent
how she loved me
utterly -- udderly,
lutely, resolutely,
undulantly, you
weave all the sounds
of love’s pious assent --
and yet the dream
was striated with
my late and fallen
ennui, and I doubted
her words though
I knew they were true.
And then I sensed
she would be gone
and forever hence
with me: “The eternal
moment” I wrote
in my journal. Such
was my appetite
for her, for you,
my bittersweet
ocean’s absentia,
my dark-blue drawing
wave, my hunger
which all the
bars and beds
could never sate.
The Florida of that
season now
18 years ago was
in every appearance
a nightmare of
overbright streets,
the necropolitic
spookiness of
all that suburbia
just a false front
for the land I
was dying in, eternal
night inside a
brilliance. Reagan
was in his second term,
the Chicago Bears
were mauling the NFL
and rock n roll
was a glitter in the
eye of the pax MTV.
I closed my journal,
cracked a beer and
toasted that bad age
which molted
into this one. Later
with Magritte at the
Pat Matheny concert
I heard the best score
yet for my love --
a long dark pulsing
rendition of the bossa
nova jazz soiree
“Are You Going With
Me,” watching Magritte
pull as far away from
me in her seat to
watch the band. I
loved that music most
when I watched her
face drift off toward
it, the woman lost in
the tide and me trying
to wade in after. After
the concert Margritte
wouldn’t talk to me
and I dumped her
at her car to head
back out into the night
which is like this
wild witch’s smile,
all tongue and razored
teeth, a pink wet
gullet which swallowed
me as I hit the bars
guzzling Buds and
shots of Rumpleminz.
In that darkling
scree the ache delivered
me to Laurie, an
exfuck who I hadn’t
seen in three years,
now fatter and older
and drunker from all
the ways her love of love
had abused her. I
followed her back
to her apartment (in
a complex attached
by the root to the
whole grim archipelago)
& she let me have
my way with her body
every way I wished
though we couldn’t
stand to look each
other in the eye. We
fucked the rest of
the night and half
the morning, our
pudendas jabbering
like unearthed skulls:
that curtained
room was torn from
some inmate’s
page where night
after night sharks
have had their way
with her, tearing
and plunging and feasting
in slow balletic clouds
of blood. She was
the girl I never got to fuck
inside all the ones
I had, a woman inside
my own self-
ravaged psyche.
I got the hell on outta
there late that afternoon,
coming home in a
fucked out hungover
bruise to find a message
to call Magritte. She
apologized for her anger
at me and asked if we
could meet that night
and make up, maybe
proceed. But how could
I even presume to try
playing love by its rules?
I said sure and headed
out to drink. Falling
thus I finally let go
of whatever hold love
had on me, the wounds
I nursed for all those
woman who had left
me for good, shredding
every guise and gout
of purer feeling to
get down to where
the woman in the
polka dotted dress
resides and queens.
In my cups that night
I drank to dregs
like a drowning man
holding on to the
anchor of his farewell,
all the way down
to that ruined city
where she dreams.
And then I lost
the queen herself,
the one so founded
and floundered in
the marketing of
a metaphor -- accepting
at last that the
dream was only
that, pure seem
and puerile gleam.
And then I really
hit the bars, going
three months of
nightly blackout
drinking, lurking
at the bottom of
a sea with the
rest of the drowned
sailors, arms
wrapped tight
around the coral
bones we dreamed.
That was the brine
in which you were
pickled, never
to return to haunt
day worlds again.
The woman in the
polka dot dress
is that booze which
Bryan Ferry sang
about in that old
Roxy Music anthem,
“The Thrill of It All”--
that pure whiskey
poured into a tight
and nippled dress,
an anthem of desire
which I sang with
all my heart marching
out every door.
The death of every
dream is horrible,
a gripless slide down
all the names for hell.
My dreams from that
time are florid
with descriptions
of infernal gloom,
of vampires with my
face who ache
to die but can’t,
vultures preening
on the moon, carnival-
like rides down
sulphur chasms
beneath the blackest
coldest heart.
My love was torn
by desire’s devil
tongs in one long
whiskey draught:
Sundered till only
my lips remained, still
pursed and ejacualate
of her exalt sheen.
Poor fool. That
season crashed
and burned me
me now nearly
15 years ago. It’s
5 a.m. now on
this second day
of writing this
poem, heaping
so many lines
lines on the ache
I still feel recalling
that awful time. I sit
on my pure white
writing chair in
the house I married
and mortgaged
every dream to
remain in: it’s
a coolish morning
in November and
so much outside
is the same --
a second-term
Bush repeating the
arch Reagan chill, the
Steeler whupping
the NFL’s unbeatable
best, and E! Television
parading the
smiles of hotties in tight
dresses, eclipsing
the shine of blood
everywhere on
Iraqi streets. And
me hurling all this
ink in measure to
a feeling that harpoons
me still when I
recall that woman
in the polka dotted
dress whom I
always wanted and
never met. That image
is like an olive
at the bottom of
my worst infernal
drink. And yet,
today it seems I got to
you at last in her,
that curvy ikon
of those nights in
wild absentia: Or,
to scratch deeper,
perhaps I reach
you best recalling
those worst nights,
my lines sliding
down a time most
alien and strange
and wild. Dare I say
I’m more alive now
in the real work
of daily love for
having lost you
utterly on nights
so long ago? Or
is it that by naming them
the demons drop their
tines and go to work
for us, the woman
in the polka dotted dress
sashayed up close
to this banging stage
where I’m still trading
licks with fire,
translating for her
your own blueblack desire.

with Margritte -- I
ended up at Fern Park
Station drinking the
night away to the
sound of a bad big
hair metal band
& Kim the topless
dancer invited me
back to her apartment
for more of the same
though blacker in in
is blare. Bare overhead
bulb & Van Halen
squealing on a table
radio as we did shots
& drank beer. After
I fucked her on the couch
she sighed and said softly
in my ear, “I have always
hated you.” The next
day I called in sick when
I came to and shook
Kim awake to drive
me back to my car,
the late morning
overheated and
shriekingly bright.
All knife and no ocean.
I was 29 and falling
down the oubliette of
my old dream of
love’s billowy perfection,
refusing to let go
down those gripless walls.
Back in that room
in my mother’s house
I slept fitfully for the
afternoon, making coffee
at 4 p.m. and casting
an I Ching oracle. --
The Abysmal Doubled,
like snake-eyes formed
from six faces of two
coins, two hexagrams of
drowning stacked on
each other, auguring
the dangers I swam
without and within.
It offered the image
of a melancholy heart
going down in freezing
brine, a place shared
by the moon, thieves,
wisdom and darkness.
“Surrender is the
only escape,” it whispered
through the hungover
creaks and folds of
the afternoon. Ah
but what to surrender
and how to let it go?
What of the dream
I had in that season
of the purely curved
woman in a black and
white polka dot dress,
walking up to the
stage where I stood
trading licks with ZZ Top.
Her breasts hips and
ass waving like a tide
toward me, her eyes
so hot on mine
the way I thought
every woman I ever
desired looked at me,
a feminine veneer
for a greater ocean
behind, her kiss
which came later
absolving every
abyss I now swam
through. She took
me to her bed of beds
on some island
of sweet delight,
fucking me every
way I came,
sighing up from
that billowy descent
how she loved me
utterly -- udderly,
lutely, resolutely,
undulantly, you
weave all the sounds
of love’s pious assent --
and yet the dream
was striated with
my late and fallen
ennui, and I doubted
her words though
I knew they were true.
And then I sensed
she would be gone
and forever hence
with me: “The eternal
moment” I wrote
in my journal. Such
was my appetite
for her, for you,
my bittersweet
ocean’s absentia,
my dark-blue drawing
wave, a hunger
which all the
bars and beds had
barely begun to
sate. The Florida
of that season now
18 years ago was
in every appearance
a nightmare of
overbright streets,
the necropolitic
spookiness of
all that suburbia
just a false front
for the land I
was dying in, eternal
night inside the
brilliance. Reagan
was in his second term,
the Chicago Bears
were mauling the NFL
and rock n roll
was subsuming in
the pax MTV. I closed
my journal, cracked a
beer and toasted that
bad age which molted
into this one. Later
with Margritte at the
Pat Matheny concert
I heard the best score
yet for my love --
a long dark pulsing
rendition of the bossa
nova jazz soiree
“Are You Going With
Me,” watching Magritte
pull as far away from
me in her seat to
watch the band. I
loved that music most
when I watched her
face drift off toward
it, the woman lost in
the tide and me trying
to wade in after. After
the concert Margritte
wouldn’t talk to me
and I dumped her
at her car to head
back out into the night
which is like this
wild witch’s smile,
all tongue and razored
teeth, a pink wet
gullet which swallowed
me as I hit the bars
guzzling Buds and
shots of Rumpleminz.
In that darkling
scree the ache delivered
me to Laurie, an
exfuck who I hadn’t
seen in three years,
now fatter and older
and drunker from the
ways her love of love
had abused her. I
followed her back
to her apartment (in
a complex attached
by the root to the
whole grim archipelago)
& she let me have
my way with her body
every way I wished
though we couldn’t
stand to look each
other in the eye. We
fucked the rest of
the night and half
the morning, our
pudendas jabbering
like unearthed skulls:
that curtained room
torn from some inmate’s
page where night
after night sharks
have had their way
with her, tearing
and plunging and feasting
in slow balletic clouds
of blood. She was
the girl I never got to fuck,
the woman inside
my soul who swims
inside every woman
I have ever touched.
I got the hell on outta
there late that afternoon,
coming home in a
fucked out hungover
bruise to find a message
to call Margritte. She
apologized for her anger
at me and asked if we
could meet that night
and make up, maybe
proceed. But how could
I even presume to try
playing love by its rules?
I said sure and headed
out to drink. Falling
thus I finally let go
of whatever hold love
had on me, the wounds
I nursed for all those
woman who had left
me for good, shredding
every guise and gout
of purer feeling to
get down to where
the woman in the
polka dotted dress
resides and queens.
In my cups that night
I drank to dregs
like a drowning man
holding on to the
anchor of his farewell,
all the way down
to that ruined city
where she dreams.
And then I lost
the queen herself,
the one so founded
and floundered in
the marketing of
a metaphor -- accepting
at last that the
dream was only
that, pure seem
and puerile gleam.
And then I really
hit the bars, going
three months of
nightly blackout
drinking, lurking
at the bottom of
a sea with the
rest of the drowned
sailors, arms
wrapped tight
around the coral
bones we dreamed.
That was the brine
in which you were
pickled, never
to return to haunt
day worlds again.
The woman in the
polka dot dress
is that booze which
Bryan Ferry sang
about in that old
Roxy Music anthem,
“The Thrill of It All”--
that pure whiskey
poured into a tight
and nippled dress,
an anthem of desire
which I sang with
all my heart marching
out every door.
The death of every
dream is horrible,
a gripless slide down
all the names for hell.
My dreams from that
time are florid
with descriptions
of infernal gloom,
of vampires with my
face who ache
to die but can’t,
vultures preening
on the moon, carnival-
like rides down
sulphur chasms
beneath the blackest
coldest heart.
My love was torn
by desire’s devil
tongs in one long
whiskey draught:
Sundered till only
my lips remained, still
pursed and ejacualate
of her exalt sheen.
Poor fool. That
season crashed
and burned me
me now nearly
15 years ago. It’s
5 a.m. now on
this second day
that I heap these
lines on the ache
I now feel recalling
that time. I sit
on my pure white
writing chair in
the house I married
and mortgaged
every dream to
remain in. It’s
a coolish morning
in November and
so much outside
is the same --
a second-term
Buh repeating the
Reagan chill, the
Steeler whupping
the Patriots and then
the Eagles -- the NFL’s
unbeaten best --
and E! Television parading
the eternal smiles
of hotties in tight
dresses, eclipsing
the shine of blood
everywhere on
Iraqi streets. And
me hurling all this
ink in measure to
a feeling that harpoons
me still when I
recall that woman
in the polka dotted
dress, like an olive
dropped down the
sloping glass of
my season of
worst boozing. Today
it seems I got to
you at last in her,
that curvy ikon
of those nights of
wild absentia: Or,
perhaps I reach
you best recalling
those worst nights,
my lines sliding
down a time most
alien and strange
and wild. Dare I say
I’m more alive now
in the real work
of daily love for
having lost you
utterly on nights
so long ago? Or
is it that by naming them
the demons drop their
tines and go to work
for us, the woman
in the polka dotted dress
sashayed up close
to this banging stage
where I’m still trading
licks with fire,
translating for her
your own bluebacked desire.