“Loowee Loowee”
red headed Bridget
was singing it that way
through her cigarette
at a basement house party
in the dangerous 8th grade
where our heads were exploding
with the bomb of electric guitar
“Dun-Dun-Dun….Dun-Dun
Dun-Dun-Dun…Dun-Dun”
of the Kingsmen with the slurring
wide-open words of the vocal
“What is he singing?
What was THAT word?”
everybody was asking
so I was heating up the springtime
for the kids in my neighborhood
with my scribblings of the “dirty words”
which were being copied in class
by everybody and passed around
back and forth, desk to desk
trying to make something happen
in our world, anything at all
and I was feeling my power with words
in my school where “U” was the flunk grade
which was always my grade in “Conduct”
at Holy Name of Jesus “grade school”
and at the party “Louie Louie” (no comma)
was on repeat for all of us juiced up
by the frantic line before the guitar solo
in the middle “Let’s give it to ‘em right now!”
so we had the 45 rpm “Single”
on repeat on the record player
the needle coming down over and over
because the words on the album version
were different being all cleaned up
and now I was dancing with Bridget
doing my geeky version of “The Pony”
and she was lip syncing the verses
and I was straining hard on her lips
because I wasn’t wearing my glasses
and Bridget was opening her mouth wider
her top teeth biting down on her bottom lip
her tongue appearing as pink as her lipstick
“Every night at 10 I lay her again
Fuck my girl all kind of ways”
and she sang it like that, like the guy’s words
and she was eye to eye with me swaying
on her high heels for me helpless, helpless
in some kind of daze, in a trance of lust
and I knew that if it wasn’t for writing up
my own take on “Loowee Loowee”
she wouldn’t be dancing with me
with her eyelids painted metallic green
in her hiked up skirt and nylons
when I was used to staring at her
in her uniform checkered school jumper
secretly looking up from the paperback
I was hiding and reading at my desk
“Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes”
and I knew she could perform miracles
raise me from the dead if she wanted.
Mark James Andrews lives and writes in Metro Detroit. He is the author of five chapbooks,At the Ice Cow Queen on Mack (Alien Buddha Press), So I Lit a Fire for The Last Thanksgiving
(Alien Buddha Press), Motor City is Burning & Other Rock & Roll Poems (Gimmick Press), Compendium 20/20 (Deadly Chaps) and Burning Trash (Pudding House Press), as well as a
poetry recording Brylcreem Sandwich (Bandcamp).
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