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.