15 Minutes Of Fame Poem by Michael Stephen

I saw his pale Cheshire vulnerability,
his confused demeanor, a doughnut hole of masculinity.
Stoned out of my gourd on a bender of gender,
I'd been picked up by a skinny drag queen,
who also had a bad case of what ever.
I was trying to blow her brains out,
but the Quaalude's weren't helping.
Thank God the bar we'd been at
was a merciful stumble to this artist studio.
Demons are angels with no sense of fair play,
a bad marriage with your self,
a child that's gone missing
then shows back up as someone else you don't want to know
but like a bad investment your going to find out
when your life isn't where you left it.
This is the wildfire burning out of control
in the village that used to be your life.
All the God loving villagers that used to be me
now shame based politicians,
with nuts in their head instead of real balls.
I was in my own little toxic Happy Meal of drug psychosis
when I managed to focus and then by god even recognized Andy Warhall
who'd returned to his studio to find us in his bed
the consummate zen master he'd simple imagined we'd be there
smiling setting in a chair by the end of the bed curious, studious,
voyeuristic astute like an alien Ken Doll.
Andy was watching one of his movies
Lew Reed pumping do, do, do's of the New York club scene into my brain stem while Andy baby faced swayed in shamanistic dream,
or maybe it as me watching myself, making an unsalable Andy movie,
my own 15 minutes of fame in the spotlight
playing cowboy's and aliens under the covers.
I woke up on the cotton mouth peninsula
without the shawl I'd remembered Andy putting over me.
My 15 minutes of Warhall fame
had been 15 seconds of deep rem sleep
Some dreamers become Sun butterflies, other mystic night moths,
while others become just grist for the mill.
The digestion of spiritual evolution, Method actors
who believe in living their own dreams
private affair's with the over self,
the fuel of my own superstition
from the dark side of the heart's moon.
Warhall movies made inside the theater of private investigation
on the fringe of no man's land

Michael Stephen June 5,2012