Menagerie
Virginia Woolf has elected to stay in for the night.
What's more, the Brönte sisters are starting to talk amongst themselves
And you know how rumours get started.
At the local bar
Bukowski kept the drinks flowing
Until it all made sense,
The cocktails having abandoned all sense of discretion,
Nothing but pennywhistle smiles
And two-for-one come-ons.
Hemingway was in the bathroom,
Polishing his shotgun bishop.
He's well-versed in irony.
Unfortunately, he's forgotten the meaning
Of the word 'hirsute'.
Someone needed to stop him
Before he made a bloody mess of the place.
On the dancefloor,
Sartre was dancing to '80s pop tunes,
Grinding his crotch again Camus' thigh
And singing Everybody Wang Chung tonight!
Poe was sitting at his usual table,
Just him and his keyboard,
Oblivious to Ezra pounding on the table,
Hopelessly pleading for even the smallest scrap
Of his tell-tale heart.
It was all getting to be too much.
I leaned across my table of contents
And stage-whispered to Nietzsche,
My silver-tongued accomplice,
I might be in over my head.
Throw me a lifeline, will you?
No can do, chief, he replied,
Casually running his finger along the collar bone
Of Emily, his trophy-wife acquisition,
A tarnished consolation prize if ever I saw one.
There was no mistaking that look in her eyes,
A look that said I'm here until I'm gone.
Everyone wondered why he couldn't see it,
But then,
It's always darkest beneath the candle.
That's what she said, anyway.
Meanwhile on stage,
Kerouac and Ginsberg were howling at each other.
We yelled at them to just take it on the road instead.
When Jack threw the first punch,
The crowd went wild.
Jesus, I muttered to myself,
Reaching for my rifle,
Just another Tuesday night
At The Menagerie.