She always knew that Oz was a one-time voyage

lasting until the red shoes dancing on and on

cracks the golden road, wears it to dirt dreams,

her tired legs collapsing into poppy fields,

pills, her voice singing on and on in the fall

until hoarse, silent and invisible.

–

She sings because she’s a mom.

She sings because she loves her children.

She sings because she adores the gay affection

of the Tin Pan Alley clubs that pay her

with fifteen tens in a white envelope.

–

Oz, now means living faded dreams in a small car,

fostering your children with your big house ex,

crashing with your ascending star older daughter,

the one with your voice, the great movie star legs

and that spells her name with a bold, wonderful Z—

living enough in her party to feel the gold dust

as you rub elbows with the famous that confuse you/her.

–

You live on your repartee, your “difficultness”,

the hunger in your soul that craves to be fed.

So, across the pond you fly to be fed by those

who know you only as a flicker of revival,

who can accommodate you in studio style,

until the pills, drink, the failures resurface

and they shun you in gentle niceties and quips.

–

Judy you were meant to travel better roads.

The Walk of Fame is not the total of your successes

but the shame of repeating your failures

until you are undone, for every star nova’s as it fades.

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