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Letter Home to Heartbreak Hotel
you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave - The Eagles
Dear Heartbreak Hotel,
Jesus is alive and living in hell.
Elvis checked in but wouldn't leave his number.
Jim was neutered last Fall, and has now closed all his 'doors'
while George chases the Presidency again, not realising
Martha's drug problem has got worse and could be costly
to his campaign.
Marilyn and James are now smuggling diamonds
and writing Romance novels for elder citizens
waiting to rekindle their marriages,
while James K. B. and Dylan T. were outraged the other day
when Bukowski vomited into a piano
at their inaugural 'Dead Poets' meeting...
Other notes of interest:
Bruce and Brandon have formed a father & son action duo,
and are now searching for their killers.
Sid's given up bass (he never was any good),
John's doing Yoga (what else could he do?),
while River recently rose from the ashes,
and, as usual, Jimi and Janis are in the toilets
for 'just one fix'.
What else?
Karen's much the same and still won't eat her dinner,
while Kurt arrived just the other day muttering something 'about a girl'
and, the others?, you ask, well, they simply send their condolences.
Reluctantly Refuting a Billy Collins Poem
In the supermarket, seeking to undomesticate
myself from the poem but failing terribly,
I hear Iva Davies, lead singer of Icehouse,
pining loudly to the tune of 'Crazy',
you know, 'Well, you've gotta be crazy, baby,
to fall in love me,' etc. etc., a tune I wouldn't
normally have thought much of, except that I
was just reading a poem I like by Billy Collins
and, in it, Billy was saying that (in love songs):
'There seems to be little room for variations.'
Usually the song goes, 'You're so beautiful
and I am a fool to be in love with you...'
But 'I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful, and you are a fool to
be in love with me.' And I thought, yeah,
right on, Billy, and so it hit me like that.
But, just a few hours later, here among
the sweet peas and Magnums, I realise
his words are now heading for
the clappers. It seems wherever you go
these days there are constant reminders that
all your best truths and maxims, those ones
you'll swear by, your own and others, no
matter how witty and thoughtfully put,
are walking, inching along a tightrope, and
one day, without warning, they'll vanish, go
belly up, no longer believed, no longer brilliant -
and, like you, no longer part of this world.
© Mark Pirie
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