Rant Without Reason

This getting old shit
is a bitch,
and I've been doing it for a while now.
I've heard people say that people get wiser as they age.
Well, I seem to have just gotten older,
grouchier, tireder, and dumber.
Not that I haven't learned some things along the way,
like how to jimmie open a car door in under fifteen seconds
and cook a five course meal in less than half an hour,
but the older I get, the more I forget,
and the only piece of useful information
that I still have easy access to
is "Always marry someone much older than you"
because having young spouse
just makes you older, faster.
Sometimes I look at my husband
and just wonder, "What the fuck am I doing,
married to that young body, that smooth, unlined face,
that boyish grin?"
Then, I look in the mirror,
study my wrinkles, my age spots,
my loose, sagging, old face,
and I have no answers.

And fucking hot flashes
Who the hell came up with those things???
I KNOW that god is a man
because no woman would ever have created menopause.
As though I didn't have enough indecision in my life already,
Now my body can't even make up its mind anymore.
I tell you, getting old
is a bitch.

And then, not only do I worry
about how I look and whether I am
gonna spend this particular minute
sweating or shivering,
now I have to dwell on
my insides as well.
Goddamnit, I hate doctors
and I hate pills (unless they get you high
which, of course, I am too old to do anymore)
and I hate needles,
especially ones wielded by imprecise little IV therapists
who can't distinguish between freckles and veins.
I could do a much better job myself, hit that baby fist time,
but, for some reason, members of the medical profession
just will not recognize junkie experience as being
valid in the medical field.
So I i have to endure while they poke and prod and feel about
in MY flesh.

Ya know, if I didn't have so friggin much left to do,
I think I would just say, "Fuck it" this time,
just let nature take her course and save myself
the trouble of the next 20 years or so
of this getting old shit.

But I can't.

Life has a way of hanging on to me,
and I just seem to keep collecting reasons
to hang on to it.

One day the garage will be clean,
but not today.

---

Like a Two-Dollar Whore

It's five after midnight
and I'm trying to write something grand
something profound
something
some
thing
any
thing
the fiftieth hold got a hold on me
and this turn-coat organ
drinks my sleep
passing wonders
(was it the speed? the junk?)
fowl words
ducks landing on a frozen pond
cold blue fingers against the underside
scrabble and scratch
but can't break through
(maybe it was just the fucking air)
robed in white,
tomorrow holds a knife
and waits to feed
but tonight, tonight
ten after midnight
and the internal black hole
grows still
sucking sleep
sucking ducks
sucking like a two dollar whore
in an alley off Rampart.
The Buk perches on the nightstand
and tells me,
"some nights you don't sleep..."
He knows about black holes
and frozen ponds
and "being in the dark
going nowhere."
Hell, he even knows about
"the last night of the earth"
I want to ask him about tomorrow
but my arm is not long enough
and he ends up on the floor
and sleeps again.
twenty after midnight
(could it be Karmic retribution?)
and tomorrow dons little paper shoes
and licks its lips.

Sometimes I almost wish I believed in god.

---

 
Love Storms - 30 page poetry chapbook

email W. Laura Alleman for more info

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     Hi. My name is W. Laura Alleman. No one, remembers what the W. is for and only my chidren, who are various and sundry, ranging in age from 21 to 4, of whom, thank god, only four entered this world through my vaginal canal and of whom, thank god, only four still share this rambling monstrosity we call a house, call me Laura. Almost everyone else knows me as "Phant", "Phantie", "Phantom", Phantomheart", or "Oh my god, there she is again." I am old as dirt (47), although I think by the time dirt is that old it has mostly been recycled into worm poo, so I guess I am holding my own faily well, because I haven't completely turned to shit, yet...at least, I don't think so. My husband, however, might argue that point...Oh, yes, I do have some of those husband thingys, one current, several previous, and I also have a big gray tomcat who likes to rub on my legs after he goes out whoring around the neighborhood.
     I began my long and illustrious university career in Louisiana in 1971 where I majored in Psychedelia, continued my education in California, where I studied Street Bands and Washtub Base Techniques, returning to Lousiana to collect the various assortment of three letter tags that I can hang at the end of my name when the mood strikes me, and the stack of framed documents that collects dust on the top of my hutch. After trying on several different careers, from greasy spoon waitress to oilfield truck driver, I settled into the teaching profession where I spent fifteen years filling my students' heads with literary bullshit and social activism, and from which profession I am currently taking an unspecified leave of absence to decide what I want to be when I grow up. And that brings us here, to The Hold, where I am going to attempt to drive both our devoted readers and our eminent editor completely insane with my flagrant and often incoherent ebullitions and my penchant for erratic and remonstrative ramblings.