a couple of old poems
Here are 2 or 3 old poems (sorry!) but I promised Ringoluver one of them. These were written during my idolizing of Laraine Newman era. I'm sure I have some fanfics around inspired by her too, though I changed the names to more generic ones.
Ringoluver wrote a poem done in the style of Patti Smith (you should read it, it's great!) I said I once wrote one trying to imitate her style too, the one she wrote about Edie Sedgwick and Brian Jones, and though I probably missed nailing it, it's here:
from April, 1983
large features on a shrunken face she's got
big wide eyes large nose long teeth
and over all a naive innocent look
eyes are soft and bluish-green the mouth
vulnerable in a sad way
jewelry placed on such little
earlobes and arranged on a pillowed
long autumn frizz
she smiles so frank
so appraising self-critical
and hyperactive to the
point of starving
insomnia amphetamines gold chains and
rings didn't make her
want to keep him alone
and so self-sufficient restless
she flails her skinny arms around
to show them off in unspecific gestures
manages to look good in
out-of-date corduroys because they keep
her warm and proud oh
be loved he loved
wants to run his hands
over you all over once again soft neck
scrawny shoulders
thin flat tummy
and long flat hips
nonexistent tits
cold feet
he could
name the bones you had
spinal cord collar bones rib cage
such delicate
skeleton that
lay beneath him nightly
and cut to soul
hurting, slicing, rubbing
pure knives
indirectly she correctly
prefers to hit
the mark of society
sickness, she wears her boniness
as a way
of defiance the
age she grew up with created
this emaciated disease
marasmus
suffered long, danced so strong
friend of musicians
helpless hopeless
physical mental need
he wants to save
and she won't allow rescue
with subtle dignity
she politely lifts her
long, manicured middle finger
to fuck the
normal world
around her
***********
2nd poem:
In the 1986 book Saturday Night, Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, speaking of how Laraine's anger was the type that turned inward, wrote the following:
Laraine, when she wasn't at NBC, spent most of her time the fifth season sitting in her apartment watching TV, lonely and depressed. She was especially morose and unproductive when she didn't have a boyfriend. The friends she did have tended to be what one writer called "no-account rock-and-roll types," people who were not particularly nurturing. When she was at the show, she usually stayed in her dressing room by herself; other than in blocking sessions and during the show itself, most members of the production crew never saw her.
She spent so much time playing solitaire that Gilda had a deck of cards printed up for her with Laraine's picture on them. Many of the show believe she suffered as much from anorexia as Gilda did from bulimia; her weight dropped at times to eighty pounds. She always seemed to be sick and in pain. Production assistants bringing scripts to her dressing room would find her lying on the bed. She'd gesture weakly when they came in, as if she couldn't get up. "Oh, okay," she'd mumble, "put them over there."
Laraine's problems were immensely compounded by drugs. According to several of those who worked with her, she developed what one described as "a hornet's nest of drug problems." Cocaine was a major part of that. By the time Laraine left the show, she was all but shattered. "Laraine," one friend said, "just kept getting thinner and more fragile. It got to be very painful. She was quivering like a little dog. She really let the drugs get to her. She got more and more self-defeating. She was really unhappy. She'd sit and twirl her hair and stare. She isolated herself.
*********
And so I paraphrased that into the following poem:
Notes about Laraine
1986
your open soul is fragile, sad...
the state of the world leads no way
for anorexics born in LA
and coping is ambivalent
on comfort of cocaine
yet the inevitability of pain
leaves you quivering
like some discarded puppy
Have you ever defined
the solitaire?
the self-defeat of erratic care...
your men were never the nurturing kind.
*****
here's a little drabble:
(Once you let down your guard
I know you prefer your comedy hard)
*******
and finally, something even older, from February 1983, I dreamt this poem in my sleep and woke to jot it down before I forgot. It sounds like it may or may not have been inspired by Laraine, who knows?
does she come from a place far below the surface of the fabled waters
sweet soul is such a fragile spirit
one of the few who
gives a damn
about being bewildered and confused
about the state the world is in
but winter anorexia doesn't belong here
i see your hurt
the non-cope visage
and why (nuclear wars and rapes and stabbings)
are you even here
don't you know that if he could
he would lift you gently up
and take you to a place far far away
some other world
where crime doesn't bleed
bleed-greed
strange woman...enigma...
who was cruel enough to place you here?
in earlier times she would have come
from the nude farm,
or been the bohemian mystery
barbarians didn't believe in---