Louie (Alix)

Louie

Your lips, cracked in the dry heat, told me:
"there's always blood somewhere in the story
there has to be, to make it good"
rimmed with a wif of stale cocktail
and the slur of a late night.
"Tears sell", you said
as your white cheeks sagged
and your eyes fell from the weight of their visions
too many now;
they crowed out the light.
"Heartbreak", speaks experience, "is a money maker".
I wonder if that's what this is for
your friendless life and funeral
a tickertape eulogy
flowers at your spangled memorial
remembering the money you made
the billions of lives you didn't touch
the millions of lives you did.
In your wake no blood mars the beauty that you clung to
while you slipped into extinction
as a child clings to a rope
before being drawn permanently from the shore.
The women you didn't have to know
show no signs of crying.
My face runs red and wet
as if I survived the fight that you couldn't.
But the story, as you said with a wink,
has come to a climax.
I wonder if you ever really lived
beyond the "work" I know was slow poison
the machine of monetary gain
creeping with each success through your veins
finally making it to your heart
selling you out to death.
The final screen of your motion picture.
The blood has come into your story.
I watch from the cheap seats
as silicon pilgrims pay homage to your memory
knowing only your public story
while I'm left hoping there's another one to tell.