This is not how I envisioned my last night in the Heart of Dixie:
A wrong turn off Interstate 59
My car pirouetting around dark corners in –thisville and -thatville
For the last hour there has been “no room at the inn”
as I meander down Highway 11
with Providence’s mocking echo in my brain:
“poor planning on your part
does not constitute an emergency on mine”
To the left of me
Slumbering indifferent edifices
To the right:
tantalizing glimpses of
A jeweled moon ornament
Adorning the pregnant belly of the night sky
Outshouting the feeble whispering of the stars
Its bluesilver breath festooning the mountains and hollers
But I must keep my eyes on the road!
(Is the center line weaving a bit?)
As I clench the steering wheel
and snatch glances at the tableau,
fragmented vignettes of sight and sound bombard me:
Teddy at Paw Paw’s feet, listening to his tales
Randy and Kelly dancing in the “Moonlight Lounge”
Mark, “The Different Drummer,”
beating out the rhythms and cadences
of the lives of the boys
Jeff reeling in the mother of all bass
or am I dreaming?
Against my will
The steering wheel turns to the right
And the car glides over the spangled grass
It stops, I unbuckle the seat belt and run to Randy,
who almost drops Kelly in midswing
as they gaze at me in astonishment
Mark’s drum riff segues into a distant tattoo
Paw Paw gathers Teddy in his arms
The fish leaps free of Jeff’s rod
Jerking him to his knees
And everyone fades away
“STOP! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”
Red and blue streak the air
and “Fort Payne’s Finest”
Sashay towards me, handcuffs dangling
"…you know, Bubba, some of ALABAMA’s fans ain’t wrapped too tight..”
Kathy Egan April 2000
Five minutes to showtime....
He looks in the mirror
before combing his hair....
And he's not there!
The corporate entity "The Fans"
with bulging eyes, cavernous mouth
tongue desperately protruding
has erased a piece of him
with every autograph...
Every smile...
Interview...
Concert...
What does he have left over for himself
or his family?
"The Fans" are never satisfied
(if i can but touch his hand...
catch his guitar pick as he throws it to the crowd
i will be healed....)
He must always be "on"
never allowed a bad day or mood
He needs "The Fans" to adore him/leave him alone
sometimes he doesn't know which one he wants....
He, Teddy, Mark, and Jeff have birthed this monstrosity
out of their need for fame and fortune
If they feed it, it is still hungry
if they starve the beast,
it will fire them
--HEY, RANDY, GET THE LEAD OUT! WE'RE ON!--
He drags himself away from his nonimage
and assumes the position as fan fodder....
Kathy Egan 1999
heart fragments scattered
on pyre of self-consuming
impotent desire
Kathy Egan 2000
HIGHWAY GHOST
Into the velvet darkness
My Altima and I streak like panthers
Trying to make time
Curious idiom: time simply IS,
Not to be made or unmade
By the exigencies of humans
Another cookie cutter rest stop
Pasty trucker faces
Needing another caffeine jolt for the road
“..that blankety-blank four-wheeler
needs to stay off the blankety-blank road..”
(are they talking about me)
the mountains hump their dinosaur silhouettes
snugly against the night sky
soon their black integrity will be corrupted
by insidious dawn
what is any sane person
doing out in the intergalactic void
at zero dark thirty?
I have accomplished my mission
I have put “Randy’s Dream” and the
picture I drew of him
Right into HIS sacred hands
Tom Petty chronicles small-town Indiana boredom
And Mary Jane’s last dance
As I pull out into the corridor
Blinking away the “white line fever”
And hoping not to become an item
In tomorrow’s news
Copyright 1999 Kathy Egan
My dream
is to travel
exotic lands by your
side roaming where wanderlust takes
our hearts
Copyright 2001 Kathy Egan
PAPER KISSES or UNDER SIEGE
The sensual mouth
of my favorite celeb
refuses to cooperate
the 8x10 glossy
remains steadfastly chaste
as he winks at me
In vain do I try
to storm his lips asunder
and thrust my tongue
between the ramparts
of his teeth
Copyright 2001 Kathy Egan
IRRESISTIBLE
his voice
seducing so
soft and delicious too
he touches without undressing
my soul
Copyright July 2001
Kathy Egan
torrid
ecstasy of
spiritual desire
pervading ordinary zones
like parallel species of fertile
creation
Kathy Egan
March 2002
FAN FANTASY
night's embrace
wrapped us in the
moonlit glow of
remembered love
and hot, sweet dreams
from times of
innocence
Kathy Egan
February 2002
AFTERSHOCKS
his words
so pain-encrusted
studded through with icicle tears
eyes despairing as he speaks of
road's end
Copyright 2002 by
Kathy Egan
GOODBYE?
Goodbye
God be wi' ye
So final
The French and Germans
express it better:
Au revoir
Auf wiedersehen
resting assured in the comforting implication
Of seeing the departing one again
The Hawaiian Aloha
Encompasses Janusian hail and farewell
the past and the future
In the same breath
You may ask how can we live without our icons
but we can’t lose
What was never ours in the beginning
Teddy, Randy, Mark, and Jeff
Were loaned to us
By God
Fort Payne
Their families
It's time to give them back
The guys need to fall in love
with their women
all over again
Reacquaint themselves
with their children
Get to know their neighbors
Randy, go mow Mama's lawn
Teddy, now you have time
to play with your grandbabies
Mark, your beat will go on
Jeff, cut the solo CD of your dreams
“We will go out gracefully
when the time comes,”
Randy said many years,
concerts,
and songs ago
But you are not
leaving us comfortless
We are not burying our boys
If we catch an occasional performance
at Myrtle Beach
See Jeff and the Alabama Goodtime Band
at his Warehouse
We, the fans, will be grateful for that
and will treasure the memories and the joy
We love you
Kathy Egan
copyright June 2002
Thirty years of Mountain Music
How we hate to see you go
Before your final curtain
Play for us one last show
Wand'ring minstrels of our nation
You've spread your message through the land
Legends of your own creation
You, the boys in the band
The journey has been long and fruitful
You've sung our lives and cried our pain
Your words have lifted us above the stars
Work the magic once again
In Germany in 1982
Katey and her Southern man
Listened to My Home's in Alabama
his feelings she could understand
Memories of Angels Among Us
And Dancin' on the Boulevard
Your Old Flame will burn forever
in our souls and in our hearts
One more time to feel the essence
One more time to dream the dream
One more time to show us your world
One more time to reign supreme
Copyright 2002
Kathy Egan
After a decade
of shimmering promises,
struggles,
and disappointments--
in 1980
against all negative expectations
four young upstarts
shift the paradigms of country music
and ignore the crunching
of its unwritten rules
under their boots--
"My Home's in Alabama"
breaches the aristocracy
of top 20 hits
they appear as "New Faces"
at the Country Radio Seminar
their signatures adorn
a covenant with RCA
the cool, metallic kiss
of the brass ring
brushes their fingers--
Randy’s beloved father dies of a heart attack
Elation and grief tango in Randy’s spirit
OK, Randy, wipe the dirt of his grave
from your hands
and hit the road you’ve made it
the fans are waiting
He must cut and paste his sorrow
onto the clipboard of his
life’s document,
stuff his anguish and his clothes
into his suitcase
Your father would have wanted you
to get on with your career
they never met him
how do they know what he wanted
First platinum album, first number one single—
Adulation of fans, TV appearances,
Fame beyond the Bowery—
None of this ever visits the far country
Where his silver-haired daddy lives
Farmer, musician, and poet,
half of the template on which
his son was formed
You don’t think you’re gonna stop now, Randy?
You’re only as good as your previous release
Year after year, triumph after triumph—
occasional setbacks
last album sold only 500,000 copies
gotta back up and regroup
Icy talons claw and poke at Randy
As ALABAMA picks up trophies
At music award shows
he sings of life’s suffering
And fails to claim his own
Randy’s wife is tired of sharing him
With the fans
But they made him
His son has a ball game
But the guys must film a video
for their latest #1
His daughter has a school recital
But Country Weekly wants a photo shoot
An airplane's tortured midnight scream—
Randy jerks out of bed, heart jack hammering
Agony squeezes his chest
And cries the name of
Gladstone Owen
Copyright October 2002
Kathy Egan
RANDY AND KELLY:
AGAINST THE ODDS
Kelly’s parents scolded:
“He’s too old for you!”
“Find a boy your own age!”
Randy’s kin lamented:
“She’s too young for her love
to be true.
Stay away from that teenage jailbait
Or face her daddy’s rage!”
With timely assistance from Uncle Sam
The American warrior and his lady
transported their daughter to a foreign land
So that she would forget that older man
Singing at the Bowery,
Randy staunchly ignored the female raptors
who nosed around his group
And the icy fingers of dread that gripped him
with fear of Kelly’s succumbing to flowery
Blandishments from a youth
In the Old World of castles,
Alps, medieval towns, bierfests, and lederhosen,
Kelly saw only the bottomless aboriginal eyes
Of the one her heart had chosen
The possibility of a fraulein of Randy’s generation
Snaring his affections was a constant tribulation
Kelly left as a girl, innocent as a dove
She returned to the States
as a woman in love
Their marriage should have put an end
To the harping
But both sets of parents
Found more reasons for carping:
All he cares about is
singing with that stupid band
He’ll never get anywhere in life!
She has a long way to go
Before she matures enough
To be a true wife
Fast-forward through twenty-odd years
Three children, an English Tudor house
A musical career, fortune,
a thriving cattle business
Adoration of fans; respect of peers
Randy and Kelly couldn’t have done more
To give the lie to the fearful seers
Sometimes conventional wisdom is best ignored
They say living well is the best revenge
And the most effective way
your point to have scored
COPYRIGHT 2001
Kathy Egan
My Favorite Web sites
official fan club website
an excellent site
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