David Rat

DAVID RAT is an Expatriate American Author and founding member of Rat At Rat R..a pioneering New York City rock and roll band...Married to award winning British poet Sara Tritt, the couple and son James currently reside in Nottingham,England

See David Rat at these sites as well:
ParoxysmPress
Facebook
David's Band

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HAPPY ENDING
Part 18
Greer...

The east village early 80's...
our 14 square blocks
of pure boho glory...
we sold our televisions for drug money
and sat on blurry stoops

seceding from the
United Hate of America...

fed by the hare krishna's
we smoked dope on the street
and bathed in tenement kitchens
filled with
garbage
and
glitter...

a few months off the bus
from pennsylvania farmlands,
I met her
at civilian warfare...
a gallery owned by
another oh so beautiful dead friend
named Dean Sarvard..

my price of freedom was
a graveyard for a rolodex...
and sometimes survival seems
like my only friend left alive...

She wasn't my type at all
tall blonde....
forlorn hazel eyes
legs like
a newborn colt...

we got high
and paraded around
the city together
arm in arm
like ragged tangled up ghosts...

lunch at cafe orlin
then a dinner party
on central park west
a cast of luminaries..
in attendance...

Lydia was there with Rollins
Sonic Youth, Swans,Live Skull etc.
Henry had somehow procured new
charlie manson recordings...
.

amid schmoozing
and bites of tortellini
a woman remarked

"you have such a lovely deep voice Greer"

when I walked in her apartment
it was like disney on purple mescaline
life-size horrific dolls
modeled after Herself,
Terri Toye, Divine and Candy Darling..
ripped apart stitched up
and strewn everywhere...
a ballerina hacked in half was
outdone only by

a doll on her deathbed,
littered with empty pill bottles.
staring at gold stars
painted on the ceiling...

ok so every idiot in the village
with a can of spray paint
was a "visual artist"

but Greer was for real
her work was truly visceral...
like surgery without anesthesia...
she had been part of Warhol's factory
and knew simply everyone...
she had shown at the Whitney
and worked for Jim Henson
actually applying yellow feathers
to the very first big bird costume...

..

a little cocaine
one soul wrenching
red wine kiss

and I was hopelessly
searching for something
eloquent to say...

"you must have been a really pretty little girl"
I stammered clumsily...

"um no...
I was a really confused
fucked up
little boy"
she (he) replied softly...

ok...now remember dear reader
I had only been in New York
a few months..

granted...

they were crazy
life changing months..
but where i came from
we didn't even have chinese food..

let alone
beautiful
post op
transsexual
art superstar
chicks....

So yeah
in the pit of my stomach
my head exploded
but outwardly
i kept my cool
remembering my idol
Lou Reed
had supposedly
married a transsexual...

i lit two marlboro lights
and we talked about it...

"Greg"
was the effeminate son
of a presbyterian minister
from Illinois...
bullied
beaten
and teased
relentlessly...

he retreated into a world of
solace and doll making..

at 21 years old
with financial help from
his father's church

Greg became Greer...

so I did what any
red blooded american farm boy
would do...

i kept seeing her...

aside from kissing and hand holding
we never had much of a
physical relationship
after that...

but I loved being with her...
we were decadent
we were glamorous
and we were
truly
truly
beautiful...

in 1996
after desperately trying
to starve herself to death...

my love finally overdosed

fading away from me...

under a deep blue ceiling
painted
with gold
coloured
stars...

Greer Lankton American Artist 1958-1996