beauty machine

we find them  on roxbury
in front of a club  or  walking
on rue de sachet or sunning 
on   lake louisa,  lean, lithe  angles
  in bright patches of sun  so we follow them
give  them a card.  it's  usually  enough
they're good for a  season or two
but  most of them  give it up
to eat again.


the machine is voracious
you wouldn't think machines
could  have  appetites  but  this one's
become  a god   we can't  conttol.

the girls  love it,  parties all night
the seen and  be  seen after the shoot
vomiting in the bathroom, thank  god
for attendants, i always leave them a  five

we give these  girls  a  good job
make them  look faabulous
glamour   ous, they get  to meet  celebs
it's fun  for  a season.  it's up  to them
 to make  something more  of it.
. use their brains to network.
sweetheart, christie brinkley  was  hot  
because she  was the girl next door , marketed.















*(((((
 

if you hadn't  saved me
i might have had an amy
winehouse life.

i  guess i can thank you  for that.


nah i wasn't that good.
wonder if i would have  even  tried.

you helped me  stay down
where i  belong, factory girl
like when stopped my car
on  the railroad  track
waitin for a train.

\\

it  never  came.

at work the  new  kid
comes up to me, sez
the girls were  sayin  how
they used to be good lookin wit
hot bodies  n  stuff  an they said
  you were too.
i give him a blank stare.
so i was just wondering  if you
uh,  like had  any proof
of that  maybe? i turn
away and begin  to  assemble
the next  piece. women
 who rely  on their looks
to make it in this  world  find it
a  losing game. his
college  boy smirk is  behind
  me,  but  he shuts up.
that's all i ask  from him. 




(*)


 five nine one hundred twelve  pounds.
size 7.  big  bones
i had a hard time keeping  a job.
i would've  eaten. i  truly would  have.
it  was the  poverty diet. this was in college.
no one almost discovered
 me then and any way i was  a sagging tower,
  ashamed  of  my  height.

it  set me apart  and my always  stupid  hair  cuts
 freckles, glasses  oh and .brains.  in a  word 
geek,  in one yearbook pic
i am clearly a guy.  wonder  what  happened
to those brains?  smoke  enough dope i guess.








(*(*(*




this
however
isnt pretty.










i come  home  from getting 79  dollars
worth  of groceries and lug  the cold stuff into
the  house.  start to put it away i was  gonna fix
jambalaya but the  dishes aren't  done and
there's  trash  all over the  counters because no  one
knows  where the  garbage  bags are  and  trash of course
on t he floor and the  cans got
dirty diapers and  recyclables mixed  cuz  no  one's
brought in the bin from the road  can  so i  put the stuff away
and  go into my room to check my  mail and chill out
take a  shower  before  i go deal  with the pile
of laundry on the  floor at the entry  and the rest of the groceries
because my son's  somewhere and  my daughter's  sleepin
and i  guess the  baby's takin a nap   at six  p.m.
even  though her bedtime's eight but she's not my  baby
so  i let em sleep. i'm in my room for  a while  but
 i dont  get  the  shower
cuz about the time  i'm ready to the baby is up
and my daughter walks her into the  room
which totally  fucks my  plans  because once that  girl
sees gramma we gotta  go thru a whole routine
and i love it but  i don't
 have  the energy  right now  to do that  and get the load
out  of the dryer and  throw  the wet ones in it
plus unload the rest of the groceries  cuz lord  knows
the daughter, hereinafter  referred to as  lazy bitch or  lb for short
certainly ain't gonna  do  any of that or  the  dishes  since  she been
home all day and ain't  done  em yet.  so i  say  come on baby
let's go  do those  dishes so gramma can  cook
    we start the  water  runnin and i'm dealin with the garbage
while  the baby plays in the sink  and that  reminds me
 i  gotta  clean up  the dogshit
 that lb's dog  left  on the living room  floor
sometime in the last  24  hours maybe while i was at the beach
yesterday i dunno i  didn't see it till
  i  walked by  this afternoon
with the sun shining thru the blinds
on this side of the house
it really  stands out among the    the  trash or maybe
i  just have a  habit of checkin there
ever  since lb  moved back home
so  i'm muttering as  i grab  the  toilet  paper
and bend  over  to  clean  it  up  cuz  really
  i don't even want a  fuckin  dog
and lb  says something  like i  let him out i dunno  what
but i  stop listening because it's not the point that  the dog shits
in the house it's  that she doesn't clean it  up
but i can't  seem to get that  thru her thick rationalizations
so  i stopped trying about three  months ago  and it's  been
relatively peaceful   because i remember how to  play the  slave
with a bipolar  bitch  but she  goes on and i say something
and  she  says  something
but  it's not  about thedog  now it's about groceries
and why she didn't  get more  than  the two things
i told her  about and  a bag of  potato  chips
when her brother took  her  shopping yesterday
and she says  he would only  take  her to winn dixie
not sav alot  and besides  both  our  tones are  getting out of  hand
and the  baby's in the  kitchen
and  i say  just  don't talk  to me  just  don't talk to  me
go outside to get the groceries and a breath
back inside she  begins to bitch about
what  i  do and do not buy
what how it's  all  junk meanwhile i'm  putting stuff
in the  counters and thinking  that's  exactly why
i want you  to  go spend your  food stamps
on things you want  to  eat  you  stupid fuck  but
i d on't  say  it cuz i have resolved  to  not reply to her
and she  don't  get it for about f ive minutes till i
go  into  my  room and slam the  door
then  walk  back out
 a minute  later with  jeans
for the load  i've started  and  talk  to her  baby
but not  to her then
 she shuts up for the most  part
with an occasional  snarky comment 
but since i'm not  talking  she  can't  get the  rebound
she craves.    later we try t o be  civil
and  she notices the groceries i bought  and  says yeah
i  should just  give you the food  stamps i  have
about 80 dollars  since you  always go
on the way from work.   she  recognises i  got 
   the stuff  she should have gotten yesterday
at the  grocery  store  when i  lined it   up
for her bro to  take her which  leads to me  going to  ask  him
to please go  to  sav a lot when his sister
 needs to  go  grocery shopping
to which he replies  but she didnt want  to go there
she  didn't want to go grocery shopping
so when i  look at her she's all like
i didn't feel  like it
then tried to twist  it  into
i  got  what you  asked me to  get  i don't
 know what to  get you always bitch
about what i  buy and i  tell her
 i thought i made it clear to you
that  you should buy things that y ou like to  cook
things  your  baby will eat.  i  have not  bitched about  what
you have  b ought w ith  your  food stamps i have not bitched  about it
I HAVE NOT SAID ONE FUCKIN WORD
about the potato  chips  and cheezit boxes the  cookies and ravioli
and steaks  i  do not know how  to cook those are your purchases
and you  can  do  what  the FUCK you  want to
with your  food stamps  bitch
and she's all  like why  do we have  to
  turn  this into an argument
and i'm  like   you're  right LB,  there is no argument
cuz   you,  LB  are full of shit
 so just  shut the fuck  up and i  k now she will
cuz that baby be sleepin
 and  she don't want me
 to wake  her up and  then she
 have  to deal with that