29/03/2024
A "Jolene" poem by Closet Skeleton author Stephen Roger Powers!
I am not above hitching a ride on this morning’s news about Beyoncé’s Beyoncification of “Jolene” to promote myself and my poem about “Jolene” in Hail My Attention Kindly. 😎
You can get Hail My Attention Kindly, by the way, from Salmon Poetry www.salmonpoetry.com. (It will take a little longer for the almighty Amazon to provide it.)
Globe Headline:
DOLLY CATCHES HUBBY CHEATING!
Mistress rips off Parton’s wig in ugly brawl
What’s the harm in telling tabloids
I’m the man who loved Jolene?
Here’s my price for the old pictures
I found at some dead redhead’s estate sale?
The first one, Jolene in her curlers,
waving to put the camera away.
The vanity lightbulbs behind her
blur Jolene’s avocado face cream.
The second, a museum in London,
Jolene jet-lagged and droopy eyed
next to the Rosetta Stone.
The third, Jolene in Covent Garden,
her auburn hair limp in August’s humidity
because she forgot a power converter
and blew out her hairdryer.
The fourth, Jolene here in London,
fifth, Jolene there in London,
sixth, Jolene in summer rain,
looking Dickensian in Southwark, her hair
all over the place, like the night I met her
in a dizzy dance parade down an alley
where a ten-piece Cuban band played
their saxophones and trombones in a storm.
Jolene and London Bridge falling down.
The eighth, Jolene crossing Abbey Road.
That’s me in the shell-rimmed glasses
where Paul Cole stood by the police van.
The ninth, in case no one believes any of this,
me handcuffed to a bed, the neon Sleazy-Eazy Motel sign
lit up red through sheer curtains.
