Louie Louie by Mark James Andrews

“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).