It’s exactly like ’99, when Ken was bumped
For Blaine – Summer’s brother,
If you’ll recall – or in ’88 when
The Rockers were repositioned
As the Sensations and the alliterative
Dana, Diva and DeeDee (as if
The Ramones never existed)
Became the Barney-flavored
Bopsy, Becky and Belinda.
Baby Bop became green all over again.
It’s exactly like that
As she sits on the famous sofa
Trying to explain that yes, with three percent
Body fat it has been a while
Since she experienced cycle,
Fuck you very much for asking,
That no, it’s not difficult being
The oldest of eight, although
At thirty-nine years difference in age
She doesn’t feel a real bond with Shelly,
Byron, Keats or Todd, for that matter,
That delightful fully bendable sibling
Who has been missing again for fifteen
Years after taking twenty-three or so
To climb K2,
That yes, she does like younger men,
Always has, likes that feeling of power
In the saddle on the throttle in her
45-degree angle hips. What
Of it? Pound’s been dead for thirty-
Four years and counting now but most
Of his work died a hundred plus plus years ago, died
While it germinated in his tiny fascist brain –
The couch seems to elicit
Exactly this type of confession,
This kind of soul-spewing invective
Against fathers, mothers, all of the voices
One hopes to escape.
It’s so easy to
Accessorize your past,
To embroider a real “yes, but if…”
Twirly-fringe on the skirt of history,
Like oreo cookies were never analogies,
Like having your teeth ripped from your bone
And flesh with nothing more to deaden
The pain than a personal sense of style
And a minor imagination
Coupled
With a trailer-park upbringing
That keeps eating the muscle
That wants to flex against
The establishment she wants so badly
To be accepted by:
Entering under the EXIT sign again,
Just like poor Francie, a dolled-up
Aunt Jemima if ever one existed:
Pour some syrup on the pancake make-up
And see if a good Aryan model doesn’t reinforce
The Fatherland’s desire for cleansing.
Look again at those fine Carson boys -
Kit, Ken and Tommy –
The uber-jaw with the blue and
The blonde, the pecs primed out
Like an SS statue at the assembly hall.
Everything begins to depend on accent
And inflection. When Ken screamed,
“She’s such a bitch, a talentless,
No-good hack of a bitch!”, wasn’t
He really saying, “Love me, please”?
Of course he was, we all are
When we pop off at our predecessors,
The same way Pound stood
On the ruins of Whitman
And tried to make a pact
Of forbearance and commerce.
Ah, the dirty institutionalized sense
Of Industry!, again, of preening
To the spawn and the collectors,
Of the slimy trail of market positioning,
Like brats chomping on the flesh
Of their mothers, it’s all in how
You spin the spin on your spinning.
‘Tis why she’s on the couch today,
Putting her brave eyes-forward face
On the unofficial authorized fictive
Autobiographical tale: yes, she does
Enjoy leather and chains, yes,
Nipple-less life is no problem really, yes,
There was once a slight pudendum, no,
Her ass is not completely flat, not completely.
She survives the countless decapitations
Through encrypted art exhibitions
And meditation. And this year’s editions
Feature organic green tea. That helps
Relax the soul after a bit of history
Replacement. Skipper has been sister,
Cousin, niece and archenemy.
Ken is bed-toy, boyfriend and friend,
And unfortunate Midge is collectable-only forgotten.
No, she doesn’t suffer pangs of regret –
(So close in structure to ingrate
And parsed about the same: to again
Bemoan the moment re-do passed from
What if… to so what…) – about anything
She has claimed or anything she has worn.
No boa too bold, no garter slung too high
Or flung too low – a girl’s gonna get
What a girl wants and everything between
Her and her desire is but a piece
To be enjoyed and envoyed to the attaché
At the heart of procurement,
And who or what gets hurt or how
Is but a piffle towards the master plan.
All to the greater good and where
Does regret fit in with that?
What to do over again?
Take back something said, something
Worn, some heart broken like some lost
Shoe? Ken can go to hell, she says,
They all can, for that matter,
It’s ending exactly the way she wanted
And for all the exact reasons: it comes
Down to pride or jealousy, maybe disbelief.
One man’s talentless hack
Is another man’s pioneer, the touchstone
Of Veritas, Aesthetics and the fine line
Between fact and immeasurable
Grief.
What’s a world without Barbie®
If Barbie® doesn’t get to write the story,
Exacting the way she wants it to read?
So many monkeys typing, literally,
So many tales to tell, unerringly,
So many visions to redact, see
The world through cleansed eyes,
Exactly.
©2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved
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