Wednesday 17 November 2010

Chris Port Blog #5: Marty Gull Song #1. The Ballad of Tippi Marsh

© Chris Port, 2010, martygull.co.uk
All rights reserved.

Every actress
gets that black dress
but the mattress
finds a stain.
Could she care less?
Let the stars bless.
All good starlets
hide a shame.

Tippi Marsh spent
all that talent
on a spotlight
on herself.
How it haunts her
in the twilight.
Twenty-five and
on the shelf.

Little Tippi
loved the circus
and she juggled
school and night.
Here a pole dance.
There a small chance.
Then she’s smuggled
out of sight.

Someone’s crying
in a bedsit.
We hear footsteps
up the stair.
Now she’s lying
in a torn dress
on a mattress,
urine-bare.

You remember
summer’s star role?
In Chicago
you had sass.
Now December
and the cars blow,
past the window,
yellow gas.

Take that black dress,
take that mattress,
block the cracks less
gas escape.
Turn the white taps
on your white face.
Let the stars bless
your escape.

When they found her
in that bedsit
she was naked
with no note.
Let me find her
in her childhood.
Let me find her
while there’s hope.

Let me find her
in her childhood.

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