LET IT RAIN OVER ME

I don't go to strip clubs often, but I've been to one a few times over the years. Here are two poems inspired by experiences I've had while at a strip club...

LET IT RAIN OVER ME

by matt burns

It’s my fourth time being at this club

But I’ve never experienced anything like this

It’s probably about midnight

I have a really good buzz going

And I mustered up the confidence

To sit down

Right by the main stage

Bottle of Budweiser in hand

I take out my one, crinkly dollar bill

And hold it in my hand

I wave it around a bit

I still don’t know what the proper procedure is

Maybe the dancer will come over to me

But, if not, that’s cool, too

I don’t really care for her too much

Her body is nice

But her face looks a little plastic

She must have gotten old

Panicked

And had some surgery done

More men come down and sit around the main stage

I realize they’re all black

And I’m the only white dude

I know I’m out of place

But the booze makes me not care

More men

All black

And more men

All black

Sit and others surround the stage standing

I don’t even know where they came from

It was kind of dead a while ago

But all these black men came out of nowhere

Like they just pulled up in a caravan of nice cars

Rushed the place

And they look really clean and neat, very well-dressed

They have tons of money

They keep throwing down ones

Two songs in and the girl is fully naked

She does very good tricks on the stripper pole

There’s some sinister-sounding rap song blasting

Something about waking up in a new Bugatti

And then some other song about a Trophy Wife

A black man appears to my left

He steps forward

He takes out a stack of ones

He starts dealing them out on the stage like they’re cards

A waterfall of bills covers the stripper’s ass in green

The other men sitting around the stage throw more ones her way

Then other men come up from behind me

They throw a huge stack of ones high into the air

And the bills rain onto the stage

Another man steps forward and throws his stack of twenty

Then there’s a man who runs by and throws the ones like a grenade

It’s raining bills all over the place

Dollar bill confetti

I’m so impressed

It’s truly beautiful

It’s not depressing

You would think it would be depressing, these men throwing bills at a naked chick

But it’s not

I find it to be beautiful art

The music blasting

Powerful bass pounding

And pounding

Pa-pa

Pounding

And then with the nice buzz

Sitting under the rain of money

It’s an experience like none other

It was like some gang just rolled in for about ten minutes

Maybe they were from Boston

Or possibly Brockton

And they bombed the stage with a bunch of dollar bills

And then got the hell out of there

Like that was their thing they liked to do

Go to the club

Stay for one performance

Dump stacks of ones

And then bounce

If this was a gang

I want to be part of this gang

It is so cool

So much style

So beautiful

So

Sa-so

Impressive

If it’s drug money

I want to deal drugs

And be in a gang

And have a bunch of money

That I literally throw around

Like I have so much I don’t care

I want to be these beautiful, well-dressed black men

And create their beautiful visual art
It's the devil's art
But who said the devil's art couldn't be beautiful in its own way?

I want to be part of their ritual

Throwing this money like they just don’t care

Tonight I don’t want to be white
I want to be black and in their gang

THE STRIPPER CAN’T SAY WHERE SHE’S FROM

by matt burns

The stripper comes to talk to us

She makes us feel loved

I know that’s how she gets her tips

But I still feel good

Talking to her

It’s such a nice break

From a regular bar

Where YOU have to approach the girl

Strike up the conversation

You have to put in the effort

But, here, everything’s reversed

We explain that we were just at another bar

And we won trivia

So we decided to celebrate

And go to the strip club

She giggles

She asks which bar

We tell her

She says she knows it

She asks if we live near there

We tell her, yes, pretty close

I ask her if she lives near it

But she says she can’t tell us

At first I’m taken aback

But then I understand

I tell her I get it

“As far as we’re concerned

You live in La-la-land”

She winks and says yes

The stripper is nothing but a persona

An unreal woman part of an unreality

Providing a service

The stripper is not human

As far as we should be concerned

She’s just an amusement ride

They want no ties to this reality

They want to pretend they’re not there
They limit the eye contact

There’s a glaze over their eyes

A slight disconnect

Their body is present

But everything other than the body

Is somewhere else