SAME SCENE, DIFFERENT ANGLE

More old stuff... written on location in Spain while I was there working on a film many years ago.  Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my beloved friend Carrie White -- celebrity hairdresser and now bestselling author (Upper Cut, the L.A. Times besteller!) -- used to host regular poetry readings at that dearly-departed, ultra cool hangout in West L.A., Lulu's Alibi.  I had the confidence of youth and thought I had something to say, so I often read my little bits o' verse at her poetry happenings.  Carrie always had themes for each week, and while I can't remember what the theme actually was for the week I read these two pieces, it could have easily been SAME SCENE, DIFFERENT ANGLE:

MELTDOWN
He treated her
as the womanchild she was
plying her with sweets
and grown-up conversation.
She was enchanted,
though aware it was fantasy,
adult eyes seeing clearly
that he would always return
home to another
despite his gypsy soul,
or perhaps because of it.
Still, tears streak her face,
make-up rivulets dribbling
like the illicit ice creams
down the side of her life.
The frustrations of a child,
the appetites of a woman...
She'd learned in kindergarten:
don't take what isn't yours.
 
      -- written in 1989


A GIRL LIKE YOU
A girl like you
should have a guitar
so men could serenade you
up close, not from afar

A girl like you
should have her own fleet
to conquer the world
and lay it at her feet

A guy like you
should go home to his wife
stop writing cliched poems
and face up to his life

A guy like you
should quit wasting time
on a girl like me
who knows all your lines
       
    -- written in 1989