Poems XIII

"And A Sermon"

Do you remember when we used to do this?
I get a two-day hangover now
It's day one.
We'd drink our bellyful
Until the sun
Came up and we'd go to bed 'til noon and do it all again.
The moon was our friend,
Work the enemy.
It didn't matter the day,
We had class, sure,
and some wimmin did and some didn't
The same sisters wore their Lululemon
To 9 o' clock Wednesday Spanish
and 7 am Friday slinkings back home.
I loved those girls.
Not in the sentimental way,
But what they stood for,
Youth and ribaldry.
Revelry at the Dionysian Catalina wine mixer,
While in the pursuit of an education- they'll amount to more than us,
The ones who had to worry
About cleanup and setup
and the moral cleanup of taking back
Everything said the night before.
I don't know what they see in us.
But they're beautiful, every one.
Sluts is a bad word they say,
and it has dreadful connotations
But should not everyone
Be allowed the freedom to choose love with a side of lust?
It's the judgment inherent in the word, but it reflects on the moral police
I see jealousy and a lack of understanding.
We set a standard
We don't really know who should follow it.
So we lob darts at the board of "whores"
and know obscenity when we see it.
But I see beauty and hair flowing in the wind, the way it should be.
That's just me
A sentimental young fool,
Full of hope for the new, the next, the "us" generation
Let the girls play, they're women, not girls,
We're boys and men, not patriarchs,
I see walks of the unashamed,
Though the headaches can hang our heads.
We all have a desire to own,
To lock up our booty, or claim it from someone else,
Someone who has left it to fallow on an island
Men and women alike want the security
So they fight against gaiety.
A treasure can never be yours.
It's metal and gemstone and has no feelings.
A person can be yours
But some will never be.
Those are the grails you drink from-
I'd rather have a carpenter's cup
Than a gaudy, flashy one.
Tramps exist, so do cads, and the blurred lines inhabited between
But it is him without stones that casts the first one
While the happy stay grounded in dreams.