Mel

Poor Melissa, without hair,

Burned it off with a boatman’s flare

took a train to Carson City,

Where life itself got wicked shitty.

She hated the heat

and hated the sand

Tried the barmaid beat

to escape the bland

Got spunky once

on a table top

showed up in a video

for twenty a pop

Her hair grew back

(of course, of course)

Met a guy named Jack

(was hung like a horse)

Never in love, never in hate

Malaised herself accepting her fate

Jack found her dull

after fuck twenty-nine

and cracked her skull

on a bar room sign —

She discovered her will in a flash of rage

Jack’s eyes are gone; he lives in a cage.

Mel moved again, but just ’cross town,

her spirit changed; she icksnayed the frown

Shaved her head, became a punky-looking chick

Smiled all day, never took no shit

Around the hood, she grew iconic,

screamed a throat in her band “Laconic”

Violent lyrics, violent bars

Fuzzy mic, grating guitars

Gyrating, thrashing, acting a twit

“My happiest moments doing that shit”

I’d like to say she was bought by a label,

But her only fame was that dance on a table.

The band sucked royal, she’s admitted four times

The worst in all of music,

“Even crap that rhymes.”

Anyway I’m in Flagstaff, hearing her tale,

it’s two a.m.; she’s tired and frail

She sat on my bench to chit-chat in the dark

(and we’re the only scrags left in the park)

Her hair has sprouted, whiskers on top,

She rubs it a bit; I hear what she's dropped.

“Stories are nice,” I say to the wind,

“Just not when you’re in them,” which gets me a grin.

She asks to borrow my coat for the night

Her eye catches sparks of traffic light

She’s playing me hard, but what the hey,

I go even further: I show the caché.

I point to my blankets; “Tell no one, you.”

“I won’t”, she says, and I pass her the blue.

“You stay near and I’ll scare off the creeps”

(I’d pay for her story with her good night’s sleep.)

She nods okay,

Lies down,

crumpled in blue,

and when she thinks I’m not looking--

about an hour into the silence of the night,

she weeps.

Mel, oh Mel, left Carson City

Where life threw bags of shitty, shitty, shitty.