Cadillac Cross

they were held up, two handfuls
of ripe fruit, an offering to the camera flash.

and you seemed only a child, forced
into the skin of a woman, the world
was watching you laugh, but no one would
ever know why.
the private conch you kept
offered for love or lust or heat,
now a deer in the headlights.
now cast out like round die
now handled until grimy
now silent
now hard.

I cannot imagine your
pain, how nothing is safe;
we made a pillar of you, a statue at a temple, rusted roadside attraction,
thousands of rubber bands in a ball, a house of crushed coffee cans,
the longest loudest brightest ball of flame
that side of the red carpet,
and then there was a sound
like a wet rag
falling limp and ****** onto the floor;

how will the decade treat your eyes?
will we find you in the forest
with a cadillac cross on your chest?
or bleeding in a hotel
with your publicists’ card twisted
between clean fingernails?
or scotch taped
with a tapestry backdrop
hostage with cameras wide-opened at your head?

the audience notes the strings of saliva that stretch
blindly from one full lip to the next
like the string of a bow pulled taut
and then lost in wild degradation,
broadcast.

how will the decade treat your eyes?
will there be bags where we do not want them?
packed with sag and soft nights,
will we find you in the forest
with a Cadillac cross
                    on your
                                                    chest?

you can't use, a diva who loses her voice,
you can't as she, is less than a diva can be,
why are you looking at these words in shock,
sing along
celebrated personage,
are people too, but
you would not know
standing toe to toe,
in a crowd outside,
a concert venue,
around and over you
the adoration flows,
each fan wants a touch,
post on Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter too, fulfills the need,

just know
they don't
let it show,
that divas,
have private,
lives like a cat,
that publicists and
public, use and scratch,
times nine,
it will be fine,
by design,
they will fade,
into the background,
frenetic energy,
Will dissipate,
they will always,
sing, with voices and
songs, written to feed
the times for one day
A diva's petals,
do fall off, gracefully?
gratefully?,
but they will always,
be the voice of freedom,
to dream. the rest...
is music history...

As our population grows our connection dwindles. Although the planet is evermore volumous, the human to human connection weakens. The media; the social, the printed, while simultaneously bringing updates throughout the world pulls apart basic day to day interactions. The king’s jester has left to become an internet marketer, taking with him the king’s title. The storyteller has become the publicists while leaving the stories to the kings. Power has become realized and is often quick and then lost. The gears have begun spinning and never again will be lost. For what it means to be human shall be hotly debated. For the king and his jester are no longer related. Time will lead to greater equality while simultaneously leading to greater poverty. There is no more dragon, for he has gone, and lost with him must return with dawn. We have reached night, but there will be day. Let us pray to the king, together, let’s pray.

You're a star.
Crafted and created by others.

Your publicist states, you must protect your image.
Controversy must be avoided.
We here to promote you.
So we need no trouble.

Your image is needed.
If success is to last forever.

Remember, you're a star.
We need no confrontation or scuffles.
This bring on the news.

Money dries up when your image is destroyed.
Carry yourself well.
Speak only after thinking.
Remember, you're a star.

We take the rugged of the rugged and mold them.
Even if trouble was once surrounded all around them.

Except, we need your assistance.
Cause without it.
You won't be nothing.

We deflect the negative away from you.
Have the fools of the press falling all over you.
Why?
Because that's what publicists do?

Remember, you're a star.
Which to itself, is a myth.

We,
We the perfect people.
Who can't admit our wrongs?
We so perfect that we can't admit it.
We're too perfect.
Well, according to us.

Like controversial celebrities and entertainers hiding behind publicists.
Intimidated to admit to things they done.
Or did.


We're the perfect folks.
To others, we a honest joke.

We know things we should apologize for.
Who too?
And exactly why?

We know the harm we done.
And to who?
But we're too perfect to accept facts of life.
And that we're not so perfect.

Burt Reynolds ****: 10 facts about the Cosmo
centrefold; It's 40 years since a **** Cosmopolitan
centerfold of actor Burt Reynolds broke a taboo
& launched a new era of women's magazine publishing;

"At last a male **** centrefold - the naked truth
about guess who!!" screamed a banner
on the front page. Cosmopolitan editor
Helen Gurley Brown saw it as a victory
for women whose "visual appetites" had been
ignored by male magazine editors & proprietors;

It also boosted Cosmopolitan's circulation
& turned Burt Reynolds into a 1970s *** icon.
So what was the story behind the photograph?

1. It began on a TV show. Burt Reynolds
was standing in for Johnny Carson as presenter
of the Tonight show on NBC, &
Helen Gurley Brown was his guest.
"He was handsome, humorous, wonderful body,
frisky," she told James Landers, author of a book
on the first 100 years of Cosmopolitan .
"During our conversation I asked him
if he would pose for us." He agreed.

2. It could have been Paul Newman.
Gurley Brown had approached him,
before putting the question to Reynolds,
but he had refused;

3. It made Burt Reynolds into a celeb.
The day after the magazine hit news-stands,
he was mobbed by women asking him to sign their copy.
Reynolds also noticed a change in the behavior
of theater audiences from "polite to boisterous".
"Standing ovations turned into burlesque show
hoots & catcalls. They cared more about my *****
than they did about the play," he wrote in his 1994
autobiography, My Life. Gurley Brown said:
"He had been a movie star, now he was a celebrity."

4. It made Cosmopolitan notorious.
"At the time, you know, men liked to look
at women naked. Well, nobody talked about it,
but women liked to look at men naked. I did,"
Gurley Brown told Landers, who noted
that the photograph pushed Cosmopolitan
across a threshold, in the public mind,
from a mainstream magazine "to a *** magazine".

5. It spawned Playgirl magazine.
Douglas Lambert, owner of the Playgirl Club,
decided to launch the magazine after seeing
what a "winner" the Burt Reynolds centrefold was.
"It came to me, that's what women want.
If a woman says she wants to see a man's smile,
his eyes, I say 'Don't lie to me,'" he was quoted as saying.

6. Reynolds chose the picture.
A number of shots were taken. The choice of which
would be published was left to the model.

7. The bearskin was a humorous touch.
"I think that's probably a joke," says New York-based
fashion portrait photographer Max Vadukul.
"This is a very macho statement, a real bloke,
full on, and totally confident,"
he says. He reckons Reynolds would have been
happy going further, & removing the artfully
placed arm from his lap;

8. You won't see this in 2018.
It would be a tough photograph to take in 2018,
Vadukul says, because of the "commodity factor"
- the actor's publicists would be concerned
about damage to his brand, among some members
of the public. "It's a very modern picture,
it would still be a very talkative picture.
Who would be the equivalent of this guy -
George Clooney? It's very far ahead of its time,
from that period when anything goes,
                     people swinging partners non-stop..."

9. The photographer was the celebrated
Francesco Scavullo. Scavullo shot most
Cosmopolitan covers over a 30-year period,
& was involved in controversy again
when he took photographs of a young
Brooke Shields that some considered
too ******. He died in 2004, on the day
he was due to photograph CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

10. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the next centrefold;
Cosmopolitan did not do these very often.
It took two years for the next to appear, &
Schwarzenegger made his appearance in 1977.
Another man to grace the center pages
was Scott Brown, now a Massachusetts senator,
but in June 1982 a law student who had entered
& won the magazine's America's Sexiest Man
contest. He posed for the cameras days before
his final exams.