Reputation Score Poem by Buddy Bee Anthony

As long as you're winning
you said, keep doing unto others
just don't let them know what
you're up to.
Trading in your heart and soul for a
solid gold altar
Using, cunning, charm,
flattery, and deceit.
Hang on with bloody fingertips
if you have to
dig in with your nails
and hold on tight with your heels
to your rung on their totem pole
keeping your charge from
falling down the air shaft of
a dulled reputation.
I must have been born
of some other sky
to another sign
Unable or unwilling to maneuver
over your high bar of destiny
through gauntlets of smoke
and steam
dry cleaned and pressed,
To a formidable reputation score.
Many other ships have sunk in your
dangerous, changeable waters.
so lightheartedly you celebrate on shore
as I drown.
You safe, in your
custom leather, shoes,
and plaid dirndl skirt dresses.
Setting off God pipe Bombs
to the
dumb, young, and innocent,
while winking sly, and coquettishly
at your students taking swimmin lessons.
in the eye of your hurricaine.
When I was very young.
I was but a toy
to mold and manage

Something to put away wet or dry when you were
finished playing with me.
But, I wasn't a toy.
You locked me away from your inner circle of
light. You paraded me around
holding your nose, dropping me off at
the seediest places,
I was your ticket to go on the wrong side of the tracks
in the underworld, I, was your conversation piece
for your bridge club.
A mere prop
a circus freak
come see the beast.
Taming of the wild man
always the benevolent handler..
After setting your traps.
When my luck would change
you'd shed me like snake skin
And with a roll of your loaded dice.
your dirty business washed clean
With stellar reputation score
and your Watts line to Bags Of God.

So lady luck runs in your favor.
Your God seems never to run out of
winning numbers.
You're an expert on attrition,
you wrote the book on survival
Careful not to
reveal anything about you
or your wayward passions.
The biggest secret you have is
your biggest curse.
the secret you keep
how you never
knew love. What it felt like.
A feeling which would require you
to live in the moment and suspend judgement.
You were conveniently gone
when the hand of mercy
came upon me.
Reappearing much later, like a savior
to witness
collateral damage,
and instead of reaping
the sorrow that had sewn.

With crocodile tears
you convinced
yourself
you did your best.
But selling this myth to yourself
is a stretch.
They only thing holding your pieces together
now is a thin blade of grass, which
has stretched and is now breaking.
An abandoned wreck
stalled on the bustling highway.
I am witness to the rust
gathering on
your glossy reputation.
The one you had spent a lifetime
cultivating.
The reputation you
kept intact when you moved to another Country
when your sister had stalled, hitting
breaking point bottom.
and she needed a true friend in her sister.
but you ran away,
clutching your priceless
reputation score.
You couldn't claim your dis-eased sister
who had fallen from grace
Sending her
back. bulk mail,
Return to sender.
You were too busy fleeing
the accident to compile an report.
Her doctors had told you
the possiblility of recovery is dim.
So, you believed
You could do little
but get in the way
and cause you, her, and everyone
more trouble
Spoon fed easy advice from
soothe saying experts, wrong minded
good intentioned people.
When will you listem to the beat of your heart?
Wasn't It your
birth right to love
A treasure of riches, much
more valuable than any glowing reputation.
I wonder how you're doing
now, that you're old, and alone
and you get your meals delivered
on a tray, by an orderly
Coistered away bitterly in the library,
languishing in their courtyard enclosure.
On permanent, geriatric vacation
, you've done it
Hooray, you've made it.
Your prestigious fiefdom,
intact but
much smaller.

I won't accept your calls
even from beyond the grave
You taught me well
how to run away.
Now you're warehoused
in quarantine, left to mingle with
and tell your tall tales
to coteries of crotchety,
scrunch faced,
decaying old men and women.
Who moan about chronic pain
and their meager allowances
complaining how they're waiting
on care packages from
guilt laden relations
But, you've maintained
and continue to cultivate your
splendiferous,
reputation.
I wonder how your stellar reputation score
is working out for you now?

Buddy Bee Anthony

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