Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

She was the Girl with the Band……by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Love and Romance,Obsession,subtle erotica — Bob at 1:39 pm on Friday, July 25, 2014

by Robert M. Katzman © 7/25/14 

Early morning

Driving east into the rising sun

Steaming coffee fogging my window

While awakening my senses

I wipe my windshield with a rag

And I see her

An airy wooden house

Pastel windows evoke

San Francisco’s Painted ladies

“For Sale” sign planted in her lawn

Tall oaks stretching

Leafy branches sheltering her house

How can she leave here?

I’m driving fast

With no place to go

I want to know more

I want to know everything

Her many card tables of cast off possessions

They’re calling to me, saying

“Stop. Come look at us, one more time”

Or maybe it’s her

An older woman

Long white hair woven into a

Cushiony braid — rich and sensuous

Woven like Jewish Challah bread on Shabbat

I have to see her

The way she moves has grace

Moving like people have been watching her

For a long, long time

Slender

Tight jeans

Lines Radiating in an arc from her eyes

Delicate arroyos framing her wide mouth

She has smiled for decades

I get out of my car and move toward her

Her suspicious brown eyes watching me

I can tell she knows what men see

When they look at her

After so many years she assumes it

She is beautiful and she knows it

Even Time itself is enthralled with her

I look away

She may be seventy, or more

I am twenty-two

This seems irrelevant as I wander through her tables

Eight-Tracks of ancient heavy metal bands

Pictures of rock stars from fifty years before

Autographed to her and framed

Sleeping bags, back packs with foreign flag patches

Albums and albums and albums

By musicians dead, overdosed, killed

I am learning her history

Soundlessly

She was the girl with the band

Jack Daniels bottles atop torn rock concert programs

Stacks of long ago posters from New York to Japan

Gigs where she heard the screams

From the comfort of a dressing room

Exotic clouds of smoke rising

From whatever she was smoking

Clothing scattered

Available when desired

She didn’t need to see the show

She was the girl with the band

I asked what was her name

She knew I was pretending to shop

She knew all about men

She shook my hand and said,

“Young man, why should you care?

My stuff is for sale, not me”

But then she casually caressed my face

Knowing it would freeze me

Her tanned skin the patina of parchment

She was irresistibly touchable

And she knew it

She was the girl with the band

She moved away from me

Rearranging some boxes with indifference

Cars racing by

Nobody stopping

She turned and looked at me

“I have an old couch for sale.

Want to see it?”

She walked up her stairs

Knowing I was watching

White braid swaying with each step

Knowing I’d follow her

I saw the old couch

Was it the source of so many of her smiles?

I heard the door close with a hush

She placed her hand on my shoulder

Turned me ’round to face her

Kissed me softly and slowly

Began unbuttoning my shirt

“Been a good long while, young man

An’ I know that look on your face

Damn yard sale can wait

Time stopped

We didn’t

I was the guy…with the girl…with the band

********************************

Publishing News! 

Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart and Vol. Two: Fighting Words

Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one man’s life than a person may imagine.

Please visit my new website: https://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PayPaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.

Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:

Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.

Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998 (262)752-3333, 8AM–7PM

Books cost $29.95 each, plus shipping

For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95

(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95

I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.

My Fighting Words Publishing Co. four original books, published between 2004 and 2007 are now out-of-print. I still have some left and will periodically offer them for sale on my new website.

4 Comments »

Comment by David Griesemer

July 25, 2014 @ 7:36 pm

Stunningly beautiful and poignant. At the same time scintillating. Should be a song lyric. Why does Bob get to have so many poetic experiences? “I have to see her” – that’s why. “Cars racing by/Nobody stopping” – that’s me. Anyway, I would have been blinded by her glory. Bob sees the glory. Then he sees past it, into the heart. The whole package. What more can you ask of a character? Of a story?

Comment by Bob

July 25, 2014 @ 8:41 pm

You can ask for a better title, David. I wrote this one on the way to work this morning in my mind. Then several hours later I wrote it on Word and then posted it. I wanted the title to say too much, i guess, until Joy set me straight on this one. To her, it was: “Older Woman, Younger man” period. When she’s right, I listen. The title is so simple, and as I always attempt to accomplish, tells the whole story. Simple is better, and Joy saw that. Thanks for your kind words, as well, my friend.

Comment by Brad Dechter

July 26, 2014 @ 10:03 am

Please feel free to send her my way- right now I am hornier than a moose in mating season!
You got me this time Bob- I will use this tonight for 15 minutes or so if I don’t fall asleep mid-stroke- excluding you, including me. OK- maybe I’ll make her younger too-she’d be like 110 now…
B

Comment by Bob

July 26, 2014 @ 9:44 pm

I have seen this woman in different places at different times, all across America. They exist. Sensual creatures filled with humor and light, passion and impatience. “What are you waiting for?” their eyes demand. “How much time do we have to waste?” The person in my poem is a both real and a composite. She is many women and I knew her, once upon a time.

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