- Keith Banner
You Make Me Feel
This is my
afternoon constitutional now
I guess: walking down my
favorite
rundown
street
Lincolnshire
where lawns are yellow-green
wads of paper
and the cars in every
driveway give off
a feeling like
they're missing
something deep inside
sidewalks
like sciatica
made of
concrete and
little pieces of litter
and so walking
I remember andy
warhol saying something
about death
being
embarrassing
maybe because
of the houses?
they all look like
elizabeth taylor
in that famous photo from
studio 54
the one where she's real fat
and sitting between halston
and liza minnelli
with betty ford on the other side
of halston
and these houses were probably built
in that era of
sad disco chatting
on uncomfortable couches
in a place
where ugly people can only get in
if they're rich and famous, those
old glamorous faces trying to
be into it all
smiles like lost postcards
2-story houses
with double chins
and floral curtains
kind of like caftans
1978 or so
warhol was there too
in his fright wig
pale as a little pile of coke
never smiling
but taking it all in
like a ghost waiting
for people to
scream
he knew everything
didn't he? so smart
he could act dumb
and his art
kind of dumb too but in the most
vicious and brilliant way
some man-hater shot him
in his office and what? 19 years later
he died from an irregular heartbeat
in the hospital after
having his gallbladder taken out
just stupid
and then almost
done walking
it starts to rain
but it's sunny so it feels
like fake rain
movie rain
manufactured just for me and
my stupid movie
and I think
all of these people in all of these
sad old elizabeth-taylor houses
will die and leave all their shit behind
and when I get back
i look that quote up, the warhol one, you know,
to get it right
and it was this:
"dying is the most embarrassing
thing that can ever happen to you,
because someone’s
got to take care of
all your details."
