'nother...

I drank just one drink with Madam Elegance again, a few nights ago.
There she was, in lacy stockings and high heels, sipping wine at the bar.
Her dress, tastefully long,
with a slit up only one side, going halfway up that thigh.
Her hair, all done up in curls.
She floats through politic conversations,
generous with her time, but probably not for you or I,
Captivated, engaged, clever and demure,
cultured, just a little streetwise and never obscure.
Dancing, she never misses a step, and
"No thanks, I've had enough to drink."
She's never really too much of anything.
Her grace is so much that it blows the cover
on this meat market operation we call a club.
Next to her, every man is a troll
and every woman, an easy hag.
Watching the man at her table veil his lust
and the woman at her table veil her disgust,
I embodied both parties, fully sexual, fully violent, when I just said
"Fuck Her."
"Fuck who?" said the man, slightly older, next to me at the bar.
I pointed to Madam Elegance, "Her, over far."
"Why?" said the man.
I said, "I think I'd like to see every occasionally ogrish gent
and every tactfully low brow lady in the place
smash her with barstools,
crush that empty smile off her face.
Mop her through beer pools
and dump her in ashtrays.
The shame and loathing of us, the roaring, covorting crowd would be satiated.
Not by her flesh,
nor by her blood,
nor even by her bone,
but by ripping off Madam Elegance's delicate little affectations,
and finally seeing her naked, howling soul."
The man sighed, a bit disappointed.
"Boy, you got a lot of bad thoughts swimming round in that head"
I said, "Who needs your morals, old man? Haven't you heard? God is dead!"
"Listen," said the man, "I'd be lying to say I know you, I must confess,
but I can tell by your cut and the way that you dress,
that you try to be classy,
which means that you hate to be outclassed.
And since the competition is Madam Elegance, it's just something
You'll have to get passed."
I was stunned and shut up immediately.
He went on, saying
"Her image in your brain is an effigy you burn
to tell yourself that you don't care too much about appearances."
I had nothing more I could say.
So I left the joint and remembered what you said the other day,
about how much easier life gets
"When you imagine people not in their underwear,
but as cavemen, with all of the hair
they fight and shave.
Naked, pregnant, chewing marrow,
before we had all these costumes to perform dignity.
Before there was a straight, before there was a narrow."
You, you sing along when you don't know the words
you'll be damned if your shrillest voice isn't heard over a crowd
your mess of hair looks like the wind and the birds
you don't care what you're wearing, as long as you feel proud.
Not so blaring, you bring down the house,
just loud enough to bring every halfwit elephant's attention
to the wisecracking mouse.
You'd never be caught dead in a place like that.
And by the time my feet step up to the door,
I can all ready hear you, screaming and gory as the day you were born,
Every day is a reason to be too much of something,
and tonight, you were too rich with time,
so you've been wrapping yourself in too many stories,
the radio on, the crunch of the newspaper
as you put it down to open the door.
And you're wearing glasses because your eyes hurt from all those stories.
You've never been afraid to be too much.
And Madam Elegance is at the meat market,
waiting for someone who won't bore her.