dear mick jagger,

you know that song you sing, "you can't always get what you want"?  i think you're right first of all. 

but, do we ever get what we need and what we want at the same time? 

i'm going to a reception today, and i'll probably drink some wine.  there's no footloose man at my feet--but i think i'm doin' allright.  i don't need to fill prescriptions, i don't do cherry red.  i don't know many people named jimmy, but they wouldn't look at me and say "dead."

i hope there aren't any bleeding men near me--if there are i didn't mean it, i don't know about it, and i surely don't practice deception purposefully.  my hands aren't bloodstained but i do bite my fingernails and have a few gobis from hanging out with el capitan the other day. 

i try all times, and i find i get what i need.  for sure.  but maybe we each get one time when there's both?  well, i was just thinking. you don't have to reply right away.  i just like that song you and keith wrote, and saw some wisdom in it.  but i think it would be nice to have want and need walk together, just once.  i don't expect you to be the authority on want and need, but you did write a song about it so i figured i'd ask you. 

maybe i'm just bleeding into my own glass, footloose at my own feet, and deceived by my own self.  maybe you're right anyway.  i guess i'll just go out and try some more--i'll let you know if want and need are hanging out together somewhere. 

don't do too many drugs.

love,

mindy

**Guest post by Mindy Wiper.

To Salvador Dali

I could stop and stare for hours,
twisting into focus
lines from your brush. 
Lines that run down the page 
without slingshot support.
Lines that fade into each other,
bring out double meanings,
release what the concrete hides.


Hovering over the page,
I forget being me.
Wonder what it's like
to have drawers unfold your sides.
I create too, sometimes.
Imagination flowing out,
lazing words over the edges of notebook pages.
Words that slip out of reality, 
floating like your paintings.


So I ask you,
Is it better to start with the pomegranate 
and explode through the bayonet?
Or does she always come first?
She is the one at the end of all the sodomy.
Bread, pianos, virgins, skulls--
It all leads back to her,
I can see it in her eyes.

When she has eyes.

                           -JM 2001

Photograph Courtesy of the Library of Congress New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection.