Drunk On The Striped Table by Rickie Lee Jones
in my featherless, sagging, saffron wings,
i dance
my Phoenician, waterlogged, orchestrated and forty foot wings
wave in the air
i am drunk laying against the striped table
pushing these banners into the airless beach
waving these flags as i murmur the recipes of prayers to the vendors
and the pharisees in bikinis pumping iron against the sun
the recipes of semitic vendors, egyptian vendors
shaking their backs against the sun
laughing with the sounds of sheets of metal
splashing the naked pharisees
with wild bikinis and the soft fragrance
of dreams
and morning
i walk on the beach looking for a place to sleep
My arms are hidden beneath my sailing skin
i am broke and fucked up and i fall in the sand
and sleeping in the warm cradle of a billion rocks
i dreamed of cher
she came to us in babylon
and she was rattling fluently
her true language
and she was dressed in high syrian rags
her face had white powder on it and there were
little brown moons beneath her eyes
and i saw into her
an arabic women parading around naked
powerful, irreverent but still after all
doing it the old egyptian way
with sparkling clothes and force
now i awake in the afternoon
the arcade is filled with children
families are walking by staring at me
pre-pubescent faces are coming a little too close
i don't even remember if i have on any underwear
i get up and walk away
i never even knew this stuff was here
the twirling music, the games, the money
this commune living sucks
these black panthers suck
these harmonica players
should all go back to the north
canada, new jersey, where ever they do that
blowing
II.
I abandon the old way when i first got to san diego. I fucked anybody i wanted to. I was, however, gang raped by a blues band in an old school bus. That was pretty
horrible. There were only three of them. I can't remember if i got the third on e off me. I think i did. I was so ashamed.
Perhaps people think if you don't scream you're not being raped. Perhaps they think if you say to yourself, just let him do it and he won't hurt you. Or even more
provocative, just let him do it and maybe he'll like you. And of course you've been saying no, no, don't . Or pushing but not pushing too much. Because you're just a little
girl really, and you're afraid, and you're so tired, and you just want someplace to sleep.
That's what it's like when you run away from home.
Lots of people will rape you. And you'll let them. Just to have a place to sleep.
The thing was, after they fucked me, and all this juice all over my thighs, they didn't even let me sleep there.
You think this only happens to me? You're crazy. You think this only happens to girls who are rough? You're wrong. You think this only happens in stories?
Look behind you.
Still i liked the idea of being assertive. I liked the idea of free love in san diego. i liked the idea of saying i want you instead of waiting around so some guy can get his rocks
off thinking you didn't really want him that he won something from you that you didn't want to give him. This strategy, this tradition, is a kind of rape.
This idea that men are suppose to win you, that you are suppose to be aloof, is a small but significant dramatization of rape. I do not like it. not one bit. that sam i am that
sam i am. i do not like that sam i am.
now i could no more say get down here and eat this sweet me than i could
swallow a bull fighter
or write names on the walls in blood
or wear the victims horns on my head
or row a boat across the atlantic ocean again
and though sometimes i am sitting at the desk, or
at a table eating dinner
and there is some one, some slave, or some anything
underneath
eating mine alone
and no one knows
or eating every ones
and everyone is coming
i could never bring anything to reality now
reality is cracked by the blows of terrible
men and nights with pointed teeth
snapping poison at the air
i breath
and all good things now
take place inside my many layered
silence
my eyes
my lips
are sealed
where did you go
when things went bad, anyway?
i sat beside you in that bathroom all night.
you were crying
you were talking to me like a baby
you were gone, man, gone
you just kept getting in the bath
and getting out and letting the water run out
and then getting in again
and all that food i made
it was all over the walls in the kitchen
and there was a heat wave
and the waves were very, very high
and the dogs were turning into carrots
and the valentines were melting beneath
burrito and neon
where shattered places pave the road
the winding road through echo park
that echoes still
your naked body
the bed you brought
those stupid lamps
your body echoes
the last shadows
of me against you
you loved me.
you loved me madly
where did you go?i knew you like that scene of girls chasing you down the street. that's why you always liked to have a very hip car, because it was important that they
chase you in the right car, and i was not about to chase you.
i knew that story of that italian girl in philadelphia chasing you down the night street you were in a taxi cab, that's a nice image. then the japanese girl. but then my feet
were starting toward you and you were turning the corner onto sunset and you left me there in a second day cold turkey. and all i can think of i philadelphia cheese steak
sandwich philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich.
philadelphia cheese steak and every time i think cheese steak i see all this wet cheese and steak.
Here comes the parade! Look! Here it comes!
I let you go.
I let you go. You like to rip girls. I had to let you go.
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