Hotter than a knife through butter,
faster than a Kodak camera shutter
I could glance, but never utter, a word about his hips.
Is that a rock ‘n’ roll pre-requisite?
No hips, wide lips, and side burns
like the tusks of a woolly mammoth
Skinny jeans, acid fiends, and hair
hair softer than an angel’s wings.
What shampoo do you use, Jim?
My own locks dull, they look so grim
These “child-bearers,” ain’t what you’d call “slim,”
My sideburns don’t even begin, but
my jeans fit snug around my shins…
So can I still be rock ‘n’ roll?
Can I still be rock ‘n’ roll if I live past twenty-seven?
If pray prayers, converse with God,
get through the gates, and into heaven?
Am I still rock ‘n’ roll when all my bills are paid?
And when I’d rather stay in Friday,
than hustle skin and try get laid…
Am I still rock ‘n’ roll if I slay axe, but don’t snort coke?
If I darn the rips in all my jeans, and if I’m never really broke?
Am I still rock ‘n’ roll if I got born in eighty-nine?
Even if all the Greats I love, gigged well before my time
Hey, Jim! What if I marry, have kids, and buy a pet?
Will the pickett fence leave me knee deep in rock ‘n’ roll regret?
Then what if I just croak of some mundane, and natural cause
What if I don’t get carried out to adoring fans applause?
This catch, this funk, this knot I’m in is to find a way that’s genuine
A path that’s true, one carved for me, that I can walk eternally
Some meeting ground of dark and light,
that place where morning greets the night
So I might not burn quite like you did.
Me? I might just rust.
And lean on into old, peaceful age
till God takes me home as dust.
catherinesietkiewicz.com 