....From The Tree Of......................The Ranting Critic
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_______________________________________________________ That Word Didn't hear it till the sixth grade. Marlene wrote it on her notebook. I wanted to know what everyone was fussin about. She wrote it, didn't say it- which is what I did. We were in Mr.Dansbach's Volkswagen bus, and Marlene mottled every shade of red; clapped her hand over my mouth, but Mr.Dansbach heard it too; heads snapped back and forth. Braked like we'd just hit Jesus himself crossing the road- Marlene's face glowed like a burner on an electric stove and I was told I'd made the Blessed Virgin cry. Still didn't know what it was except some powerful clap of sound- a sonic boom the password to hell- no, bigger!- it was the mushroom cloud of Anglo-Saxon potty mouth- and it was mine all mine, when I was four months shy of twelve. Whatchamacallit You jump from lilypad to lilypad, admiring everyone and changeable as a cloudy sky. Your enemies from yesterday are now you dearest Buds; if there's a word for this and I don't know of one- I'd hang it on your door. You are that silliest of creatures you're a male whore. Politico Mayor Tom Murphy's run the city to ground. Laid off seven hundred workers, one hundred fifty police and driven us to bankruptcy. His plan to yuppify downtown, bulldoze irreplaceable turn of the century architecture, put in shopping malls the likes of Lord & Taylor back fired. They high-tailed out, and left us holding the bag of that big-eared, skinny profiteer, whose background is a Northside Nuthin, more felon than Mellon, spent millions for two stadia no one wanted no one voted for: Pittsburgh died twice. The first time when the steel mills closed, the second when that emperor with no clothes took office. Murphy's a modern Nero for heaven sake, he's 'kilt us', and I hear at night, the statue of the late Mayor Caliguiri cries. A Few Requests Just once before I die I'd like to see you fall flat, pants down- and someone unmolested, ram a fencepost up your posturing ass. Just once before I die, I'd like to hear somebody say that Britney Spears looks like a genetic 'near-miss', with eyes so far apart and nose bridge wide enough to win a Klingon beauty show. Just once I'd like to watch a homely female newscaster on local television give the finger- have the cameraman come in real slow, while she says: 'Eat shit, Debra Norville.'---and for once, I'd like the pope to say he hates women cause they menstruate. Have holes where statues are solid plastic---and for once I'd like to hear the freakin truth about how all of us hate life and God and each other- because Death's whistling at the door -and none of us with the time we need to do the things that we don't have to. The Sign Why am I always the last to know anything. Must have a sign says 'Dumb Bitch' right on my back. On my back is how I do it, even when I don't know I'm doing it and that, sir is not a pen you're writing with, so stick it back in your pants. Sick Ladders Or How They Climb On Top Maybe I'm a heartless bitch- I probably am a heartless bitch, but I cannot abide using one's illness to make points. And if God ever gives me ALS or cancer, or what we used to call plain old senility which now has the cachet of au currant in it's miraculous incarnation into Alz hiemer's- or my favorite one- the next to nothing diagnosis that malingerer's paradise, Epstein-Barre--- I hope I have the grace to keep it to myself and earn my way, not coast along waving to my fans from some dumb sickbed, bloating everything I do to something more because I am so (sniffle, tremble- lights, camera, action)- fucking brave. Capulet And Montague Circa 2002 Suppose this: suppose that Romeo and Juliet, the famous, star-crossed duo hadn't ended on a high low note and all the times you've cried watching a tragic trick of fate take two and part them neatly with the grinning face of death, so that Juliet was forced to use the knife deep in that splendid, fourteen year old bosom- suppose instead that Romeo, once she'd sipped the poison and stretched out in the Capulet tomb, had decided then that maybe- well- just maybe they should give it time... I don't think Franco Zeffirelli could have sold it and I don't care how self-actualized he finally became, that Romeo, to this day would be a shit. All Dressed In White Seven bolts of silken satin waiting for a hand to make them ruffled- shaped to waist, the bodice deep the gown to wear to be a wife should have a train, a trail, a ladder, whistle, gun shaped like a dove just at the hip... a rear view mirror so she can see the place she's come from find her home again, the only direction she cannot go once bolts of silken cloth make her into a show piece. Life is not a cake and she is not its topper but flesh and thoughts beneath the pretty satin wrapper. Crazy Bastards Being screamed at by a female reckless driver, as I make my way slowly up the 70 degree oblique hill to my mother's house, the driver coming dead on for my headlights down the middle of the road, I realize that the noisiest in life are those already in the wrong. They must believe that volume carries righteousness; that if they just scream loud enough they'll tip the scales in their behalf, no one will have noticed they were talking on a cell phone, lost within their egos. Illusions Ever notice how the good old movies, the ones that used to make you cry leave you dry eyed- even a little angry that once you were so manipulated ? Some director, a guy on his own fifth marriage had the nerve to try and get under your skin. Squirted water in an actress' eyes when she herself neglected her own children- fucked dogs and slept only with women. On To Page 13 .............. Return To Contents This site sponsered by 
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