Then the Japanese girls, all four, twisted and pulled on each other and themselves around and on top of each other and themselves. Arched in positions that begged for mercy. Smiling and giving glamorous bats of the eyes. Presenting their best imitation of human pretzels, amazing the crowd, and then closing the act with a pyramid of a fancy game of vertical twist. I was not impressed. I was filled with empathy. ( not sympathy-big difference)
I wonder if the show they perform nightly is enough to satisfy the dreams they held when they were much younger. When they dreamed of the fame and freedom of being a “Star” in America. Musicians that just cannot get another top ten hit. Strippers that dance for less than hundreds, when their old reasons for dancing for my children and to finish school has long become null. Waiters that have used that line of being famous one day, collectiing check after check weekly, and cashing that same check at the bar, drowning in their own aspirations nightly. The lounge singer for the 100th time modulating , New York, New York, then taking the last sip of his Amaretto Sour, folding up the piano, and reaching for a fistful of bills,some abes, mostly georges.
Do these people all feel the same when they are in the dark? Safe from being humbled by egos, and criticized by the constant lives of judgement and greed. When the moon lingers behind the clouds, for even his brightness intimidates the possiblilites. So hard is the shell, so vast is the future, so endless the spinning, so fruitless the reward.
Gone are the chances, asleep is the dream. Whispers of hope, fires a-flame.
Torches from distant shores, leave drumbeats of communication, echoing endlessly. Natives to native lands feel like tourists, and women fall from grace,only to rise up as angels on the other side. There are no lives ended on earth. (men or other) Only flesh and blood remain. The leftovers are the ones burdened to pass this puzzling earth on to wondering innocent minds .
We are the elders of this land. We are the protectors of this earth.
We are the elders of this land. Protectors of home, elders that roam.
Keepers of dreams, standing on this shore, all alone.
Alone?
We are never alone, in body, in life, in dreams.
