It doesn’t get any better than this:
Peter Lorre with terrible things to do
Out cold on the floor,
Bogart hovering over him rubbing his fist,
And I wonder if he was always as tough as this
Even when he was a little kid.
After the dust-up Bogie attires himself
In his confidential-looking
White tuxedo---as usual
A cigarette dangling from his lips
As he sidles up to the piano bar
And proceeds to unbutton
Lauren Bacall’s polka dot blouse
With his fixed and heavy-lidded unblinking
Dark as twice-dipped teabag eyes
Deep as war---and she feels this happening
One button at a time
Because she’s nineteen, has fresh ideas
And can be quite amusing at times.
Example number one, she asks him
If he knows how to whistle.
Then spends the next hour
Waiting impatiently for him
To come sniffing around like a dog
Beside himself with something pungent in the air,
And when he finally knocks on her door
Example number two: she melts in his arms
Like a pat of butter on a hot potato.
O how pure our minds were
In the first half of the 20 th century,
Thanks to the censors. Cameraman, pan away
From your impossible target on the bed,
Skin rubbing against skin in seismic rhythm
And jump-cut instead to the moral pornography
Of a volcano blowing its lid---or better still
An express train roaring into a tunnel
While fireworks explode overhead.
You know me, Jack---how my mind works,
Its impenetrable innocence.
When a middle age man and a teenage girl
Eat off the same plate---here’s my advice:
Add lots of butter and serve piping hot.
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