Harvey Goldner
A Wild Rose Romance

Her hair speaks Orange Crush.  Anna Marmalade
hits Golden Gardens hard.  This high hurricane
from lower Alabama drenches the parade

of Seattle ladies, pallid and poky.  “She’s insane,”
the women whisper, sharpening their kitchen knives.
But the boys line up.  Once a hopeful choochoo train

of Nigerian Norwegians, their frat lives
suddenly feel flimsy, flat--in short, a sham.
Then Molly Fang, a Hong Kong hawk, arrives

in her jade-green Jag, to snatch up Anna Jam
and jet with her to Broadway for some beer.
There, they sip Bud, swap spit, and buy a gram

of bud from Bud the pretty busboy.  They now appear
back in the Jag, where they suck bong smoke, grope, then dash
to Molly’s palace by the lake in Windermere.

Naked, glowing in Windermere moonlight, they splash
in Molly’s fishpond--flush, rich with goldfish and muck.
Anna shouts: “The greatest aphrodisiac is cash!”

Moon-mad, she and Molly rub flesh and lick and suck
lips and nipples.  They smear cool mud all over each
other’s hot body.  Now only their eyes shine--moonstruck.

“You’ve taught me mad mud-love,” says Molly.  “Let me teach
you the art of Greek sponges, hot water, perfumed shampoo.”
In shower steam, in pulsing water, in the dim peach-

light of the wet pink room, embracing, the two
lovers stand, both pissing.  Muddy water mixed with piss
swirls at their feet.  Molly spies a tiny red and blue tattoo

on one of Anna’s white thighs, and drops to her knees to kiss
and bite it.  Tasting blood, Molly quivers, ecstatic.  Anna jumps
back and screams: “You Chinese vampire viper bitch, eat this!”

Squeezing a bottle of pink shampoo, Anna pumps
gobs of the gooey fluid onto Molly’s face, tits, and hair.
Anna slips, falling.  They wrestle on the floor.  Their rumps

roll over and over.  Then they stop.  They stand and stare
at each other, smiling.  Both so clean now--a red
rose and a black rose trembling in the rain.  Their

bellies barely touch.  Molly whispers: “Time for bed,
if you dare.  Perhaps I will kill you, Miss Blue Eyes.”
“Yes, yes,” Anna hisses, “I’m so fucking ready to be bled.”

In perfect darkness, the naked lovers slowly rise,
climbing a corkscrew staircase, up to Molly’s nest.
Anna, expecting ARABIAN NIGHTS, begins to fantasize:

plush carpets, purple curtains, a silver chest
stuffed with gold brocade, a crystal chandelier ablaze,
a circular bed big as a hog pen, the very best

French champagne on ice in a golden bowl, silver trays
laden with fried chicken, yams, collard greens and ham hocks.
They enter the room.  It’s pathetic.  Anna surveys

the place--confused, frowning; Molly cackles and padlocks
the door.  A dim red bulb dangles from the ceiling.
Near a naked mattress on the floor--a long pine box.

Anna flops, tits up, on the narrow bed, feeling
like a lost child.  “I’m so weak, so thirsty,” whispers Anna.
Meanwhile, Molly hops around the mattress, squealing

like a hog in heat, and from the box retrieves a bandanna--
blue silk, star-spangled--two dusty bottles of Chinese
beer, which she opens with her teeth, and a banana.

“Sit up, Anna.  No need to be a corpse, just yet.  Take these.”
While Anna chews the yellow fruit and sips the brew,
Miss Fang, bandanna wrapped around her head, is on her knees

praying to a carving of a cobra, a voodoo
doll she’s picked up in Miami on vacation.  She springs
to her feet and glides through the red gloom, a bamboo

broom stick tucked between damp thighs.  Then she flings
the stick at the dim red bulb.  It shatters.  A flash
of white light.  Anna shudders.  Suddenly everything’s

gobbled up by darkness.  “Anna, my goddess, my golden gash,
are you ready to receive an alligator?”
Anna hears swamp birds screeching, hum of bees, the splash

of something horrible hitting water--the mutilator
who creeps in dreams and shadows.  She smells decay:
stench of dead fish, orchids, drunk frat boy, rapist, satyr.

Molly’s fingers, twin rivers of roses, begin to play
with Anna’s long toes, swirl up her legs, and flow
across her belly, breasts, neck, face; then they

flip Anna’s body over.  Fingernails, little thorns, go
pricking gently everywhere--shoulders, spine, ass, thighs.
Then Molly’s mouth attacks.  Anna’s breathing deep and slow.

Molly stops.  Anna turns to reach for her.  Anna tries
to find her, but Molly’s hiding in the dark.  Anna calls
for her, but Molly’s quiet.  Anna’s fear intensifies.

She’s so alone.  Her mind breaks.  She weeps.  Molly falls
on top of Anna like a boa constrictor.  With her thumbs
in the honey pot, her tongue in the jam jar, Molly crawls

inside of Anna, turns her inside out.  Free, Anna comes
and moans, and her moans go on and on.  “O you!
I love you, Molly, marry me,” Anna coos, and then succumbs

to sleep.  Next day, Molly Fang, attorney-at-law, flew
to the court house, filed a few pre-trial motions, spent
half an hour at the gym perfecting her abs, had a two

martini lunch with her real estate broker, sent
emails all over creation announcing the wedding,
sold some stock, updated her last will and testament,

bought a ring for Anna (huge ruby), made plans for shedding
her law practice, phoned Charlie her twin brother in L.A.
and by 3 PM was driving through the Arboretum, heading

for Anna and Windermere.  Meanwhile, Anna’d found her way
to the kitchen and was sipping brandy with the maid.
Molly handed Anna the ruby ring and a huge bouquet

of wild red roses.  She proposed.  Anna accepted.  The maid stayed,
and they had three-way sex right there on the kitchen floor.
In sunshine flowed wine and barbeque smoke, in shade

flowed weed, coke, smack, et cetera.  The fiery bride wore
an extravagant Gilbert Adrian, a Greta Garbo gown.
Her long red hair flamed as she danced beside the shore.

In a snakeskin jacket by Bill Blass and baggy pants, brown
silk, Molly floated above the spastic crowd, her proud head
rising higher as the summer sun sank down.

At twilight, Charlie fired off rockets.  Old Winifred,
high priestess of the Cult of Latter-day Witches, called
out from the end of the dock: “Let the fucking music be dead!”

The lovers joined her, said their vows.  Obviously enthralled
the crowd fell silent.  Then Molly Fang and Anna Jam
tore off each other’s clothing and, bare-assed, cannonballed

from the dock.  On their backs, holding hands, they swam--
bare legs rhythmically churning--towards the rising moon.
Lawn speakers blared Aerosmith cuts until some goddamn

neighbor called the police, who arrived and--too soon!--
shut the wedding orgy down.  Anna wept and drank a beer.
Up at dawn, Molly made a decision.  That afternoon

she sold her estate on the lake at Windermere
and bought a bungalow above a beach on Vashon
Island, where the honeymoon continued.  She and Anna’d appear

in short-shorts, and pick up treasures or pretty trash on
the beach; then take them--for a threesome or a foursome--to bed.
It seemed like such innocent fun--a simple cash on

the futon type of deal.  But late one night Molly said:
“I perceive that we are turning into pigs.  We degenerate!”
And Anna added: “If the mud gets deeper, we’ll be dead

ducks.  We must do something drastic.  But what?  Create?”
“Yes, we’ll kick it up an octave, from Venus to Neptune,”
Molly said.  “To aquire a new life we MUST sublimate.”

Their new life began.  They smashed bongs and bottles.  Soon,
all was study, practice, meditation, and green tea--
gallons and gallons of strong green tea.  Morning, noon,

and night they worked and peed.  Anna drew and painted.  She
became a master of the dream, the surreal.  Her art
started selling in Pioneer Square.  Molly’s specialty

was composing for, and playing, the cello.  Her pieces were part
Bach, part blue-grass, part Kung Fu.  At Benaroya Hall
her first concert stunned the critics (she played topless).  “Such heart!

Such a weaving of traditions!  Such exquisite tits!  I call
her a wonder!”  wrote one dog.  The transmutation of pig swill
into nectar was an inspiration to us all.

While there’s no doubt our lovers reached a higher thrill--
composing, playing, painting, or writing their memoirs--
it must be said, at certain lunar phases, they can still

be moved to smooch and grope in sleazy Broadway bars,
by Love that drives the sun and other stars.

return to SHAMPOO 24