The Love Song of Bret Easton Ellis

Turner Morgan

Let us go then, you and I, 
When the night is spread across the sky
Like some guy who did way too much coke 
And passed out in the bathroom.
Let us drive, down certain half-deserted streets, 
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in drunken passed-out hotels
And LA restaurants with oysters on their shells:
Streets that follow like a speedfreak's argument
Of sinister intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go, 
talking about some fag Italian sculptor.

The yellow smog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The pot smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in the Valley,
Let fall on its back the soot that falls from crackhouses,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft July night,
Curled once around the bungalow, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the poisonous smog that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back against the way expensive window-panes,
There will be time, there will be time
To put together your face before the people you must meet,
There will be time to murder and drink champagne,
And time enough for all the works and days of hands 
That lift and drop haute cuisine on your plate;
time for you, more time for me,
And time yet for a razor's sharp divisions,
and for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before we eat a hangover breakfast.

In the room the women come and go, 
talking about some fag Italian sculptor.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder "Do I dare" and "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and offend the stair
Full of people with gel melting in my hair-
[They will say "How he looks so very pale!"]
My Armani coat, my Ellis collar firmly below chin,
My Bugatti rich and modest, asserted by the fat knot at the top-
[They will say: "But how uneven his pocket square!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the two guys fucking in the bathroom?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will revise...
Especially with coke packed in between my eyes.

For I have known them all already, known them all--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life in espresso spoons;
I know the guy dying with a dying call
Beneath the music from another room.
And how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase.
and when I am really, really drunk, sprawling on a pin, 
When the coke's got me pinned and wriggling on the wall, 
Then how should I begin
To spit out the butts somebody put out in my tequila sunrise?
     And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair
They missed when waxing!]
Is it Obsession from a dress 
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap around a shawl.
     And how should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

*     *     *     *     *

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And sucked the smoke that rises from the mouths
Of lonely men in West Hollywood, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged shorts
spiraling around at the bottom of the pool.

*     *     *     *     *

And the afternoon, the evening, sleep so peacefully!
Smoothed by somebody's fingers,
Asleep... tired... or it malingers,
Stretched out here between us on the waterbed.
Should I, after the Dress to Get Fucked Party,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have puked and passed out, puked and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [hair a fucking mess] brought in upon a 
platter,
I am no prophet-- and here's no big deal;
I have seen the fire of my lust flicker,
And I have seen the bitch at the coat check hold my coat and 
snicker,
And in short, I was totally paranoid.

And would it have been worth it, after all, 
After college, serial murder, and L.A.,
Among the corpses, among talk of death today,
Would it have been worthwhile,
To have bitten the matter off with a smile,
To have squeezed half a gram into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I'm that dude from the Bible, come back from the dead,
Come down off the drugs to tell you, tell you all."
If one, settling a pillow by her head, 
     Should say: "Clay, that is, like, so totally wrong,
     Like, totally, totally wrong."

And would it have been worth it, after all, 
Would it have been worthwhile,
After the sunsets and the graveyards and the bum-sprinkled 
streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail,
     along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is too totally hard to say what I mean!
But as if the coke threw my nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worthwhile
If one, settling from eating or puking on the wall,
And turning towards the window should say:
     "Like, totally totally wrong,
     Clay, that is so totally wrong."

*     *     *     *     *

No, I'm not that guy out of Shakespeare, and I shouldn't be:
I'm some hanger-on, one that will do
To swell a belly, start a line or two,
Advise the prince, no doubt a stupid fool,
Submissive, glad to be of use,
Quiet, careful, and with a really really good dealer,
Owning snuff-flicks, into self-abuse,
At times, indeed, almost weirder, realer-
Almost, at times, a total fucking idiot.

I grow old... I grow old... 
And I realize that everyone here thinks that I look like shit.

Shall I comb my hair forward?  Do I dare to eat the bitch?
I shall wear something simple, like Perry Ellis, and walk upon the 
beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing when I've had way too much Ex.

I didn't think that they would sing for me.

I watched them mainlining heroin, smoking pot,
Impassively, as they destroyed themselves, I sought
To save one.  I was successful... not.

I have tried to pull you out of the pit
where you were on drugs, caked in shit,
and I failed, I failed: the title "hero" doesn't fit.