Run
from a nightmare you told me about that makes you work, work to work if not to
be understood and only to be loved for loving.
Last
night was a good one that was one gooder than the one that you thought was your
best and dressed you were lost in angora.
Look
back and see that the mind that you are was the mind that could be only in
delusion and contorted to find solution.
The
streets of LA are mean and nasty and your nasty mean landlord and your banker
and the priest you fooled are bound to get nastier.
Nastier
could be an understatement since the guy from the Shakespeare gig looks like a
fool on film forever more.
I
tripped and we tripped and in tripping along to the next shot or the next lost
cause and it was all lost causes and you shrunk back.
We
never shrunk back until all the causes we fought for were soaked up in bad days
and bad projects and the B-movies you fell to.
Falling
was what it was all about it was and always is about falling and falling with a
style that looked like a planned tumble.
Planned
to twist a certain way to wear a certain dress to walk a certain talk and get a
few to see it your way just once.
They
all saw it your way and it was all the way Bela saw it that made it work and he
believed you and that made everything work.
It
all was a vision that Bela made true for a few weeks, a few days and the
minutes dragged and then Bela dragged and slowed.
Slowing
is dying and that's what you believed and the slowness killed the movie and
killed the star and Bela was dead long too soon.
Sooner
for dying and soon as if to die was to not remember that shows were going on
and on and would go on and stop was not is.
Not
even a stop that was law or was money or was talent or was any good sense of
when to stop it all was not stop just try.
Eddie
you're trying and trying is not doing but the California air is a death nail for
you so breath slow most eager son of fortune.
It
was a fever that got you and got her and him and they all caught it like
pneumonia only more deadly and more of nothing to live for.
But
caught they were and caught they remained until a skip on the record and jump
to the next sound, screech, squeek, scream.
The
plans fell like dominoes and they fell before they were beautiful and it was
one then two then a dozen then Nine came alone.
Plan
9 was horror and science and none of it well done only done quickly and with
friends and innocents and it lasted too long.
It
lasted too long and is now famous and you are now lasting not before you were
forgotten and that before you were immortalized.
The
fame you won won its own and not yours it won for itself and it was a bad win
and you are lucky to be dead to avoid the shame.
You
tried as hard as Welles and "Citizen Kane" betrayed you and it was a
sucker punch from left field in the groin that caught true.
I
saw the worst mind of my generation splayed open and dashed against flimsy
reels of black and white crucifixion two stories high.
It
was never meant to be and "Plan 9" was a bad run and maybe if Bela had
lived it would have worked better and maybe the money too.
It
all died just too soon and the dawn rose too quick and your skirts were too
short and the women loved you but misunderstood.
You
thought it was right and it was for them but the girls never got you when the
girls were worth getting the getting was far gone.
The
new girls came too soon and they walked through those films like it was nothing
to be naked and dirty and awful not art not really.
It
was film and it was film and film was your breath and your blood and the freaks
understood and the naked unwashed were willing.
The
girls worth having never understood and the ones who understood aren't worth
having and all of them are the same, just memory.
If
I was to touch your shoulder in kindness would you cry too much I hear you cry
so often when no one watches too close too near.
No
one is ever near you are a distant time in penciled mustache and high heels
untouchable and beautiful all fury and nothing.
If
nothing then all and the only one left not afraid and unconvinced that the film
would still come and the picture still live.
Bela
was coming back soon and no grave could hold Dracula for long he was eternal
and he will come one morning like a dark dawn slowly.
Then
the picture will live and the picture will be true to a vision you tucked away
at the funeral by his side the only last friend.
It
was something wasn't it something that thing that you did that spark in their
lives of this old man and this crew all outcasts.
Not
outcasts any more and it makes the old man feel good and gives him the reason
to walk out the front door to wave and to smile.
Bela
lived for you Eddie and wanted to live longer even though the drugs said
otherwise and the pain called the drugs.
You
called and told him it was alright that he was worth everything he and the pain
happens and the drugs happen but it’s all real.
And
that's what it was Eddie and that phone call you just took was not unexpected
but the daylight is repelled right around you.
This
is darker than the old monster flicks you sat through and saw come to life with
an idol for a friend but the scene fades now.
He's
OK now Eddie and you won't outlast this pain but you'll live a little longer
and try a little harder and laugh a little, laugh.
We
all laugh at your masterpiece and we all still wonder what you were thinking
and if you knew what it was and how it would come off.
And
I wonder if you know if you are Glen or are you Glenda and would it matter and
who made the film and who screwed it up.
A
junkie you were just different and proud and the junkie you saved was old and
it was a lost cause but lost causes were your thing.
And
lost all along was a cause to be had and a cause worth having and a girl worth
having were never yours to have and watch out, Eddie.
Bela
won't stay dead long and the time may come that that California air doesn't
give in and the drug of life will give out; gone.
Bela
dance with Eddie he has a beautiful new chiffon and the ruby slippers he stole
from Dorothy on the back lot of Oz.
Step
one and step two and step 9 with beautiful Glenda and keep alert for the right
hook from Glen and his strong arm in a soft shrug.
