My Rock and Roll Valentine

When I first heard Ziggy
Stardust on my not so sweet
sixteenth I wanted to be glam .
Bowie, New York Dolls,
T. Rex, and Slade.
I wanted to wear silver
sequins and jet black
mascara and hear myself
on the radio playing
a platinum flying vee guitar
with diamond studded pegs.
Never mind the cold hard fact
that I couldn’t play for shit ,
you see ,I was skinny as a guitar
string and I could fuck up
a lyric with the best of them.

And when that pretty blonde
transferred into my 10th
grade math class , apple
cheeks pink with a tad too
much blush and wearing
an Elton John T-shirt, love
at first sight sealed my future.
Rock and roll was the ice
breaker and we could always
fall back on the music
when the pauses on the phone
got too pregnant but fear
of rejection miscarried romantic
notions and I never made a move ,
a coward convinced she was far
too lovely for the likes of me.

So we went to countless
concerts as , the dreaded,
friends .Suburban mall rats
taking the train to the City
zigzagging midtown Manhattan
from Grand Central to Madison
Square Garden and back with our
blue denim jackets reeking of
cigarettes and stale beer till going
to college coupled with the need
to make money frayed many
a friendship and we became
casualties as she spent more time
on pretty boy musicians whose
talent dwarfed my all talk no action
rock soap opera dreams.

The things missing in my life
got me jealous and angry
with hormones certainly
not helping so turning
to the punk ethic I got drunker
than a barrel full of monkeys,
tearing up my old concert shirts
along with our notes we passed in
class and I didn’t see her for decades
as I arguably grew up, more or less.
Fast forward forty years and though
bills are paid by a vocation
as far as can be from rock and roll,
music still , as always ,the passion
pulling tides of blood throughout
every nook and cranny of my body.

So much so that bingeing
on the old tunes triggered
a rather distressing mid life
crisis which brought me back
home to my Mecca of a mall
where I saw the girl of my dreams
smiling and spraying pricy perfume
at unsuspecting customers
walking the aisles at Macy’s.
She was always a natural
for the beauty business
and the years were quite kind
to her though those same years
stole my wanna be rockstar
hair and morphed my body
from guitar string to standup bass.

I approached with the smell
of roses and sandalwood
in the air ,mouthing the words
to conversations that might work.
Can you believe fucking
Keith Richards is still alive ?
My heart beating like Bonzo
but a rhythm I couldn’t keep
as my confidence bottomed out
knowing I had nothing of note
to show for all that time away
except maybe most of this poem
tucked in my vest pocket but it
played like a song you switch
the station on so there it stayed
as a lonely heart walked away.