I AM EDDIE MURPHY
Girl, I heard that you got a place
Where you tell jokes, ala Eddie Murphy, 1985
But how do you do that
I am Eddie Murphy
I heard
That you do wine tastings with Eddie Murphy
In the vineyards of Italia
And I am confused
I am not there
I am Eddie Murphy
I am snorting cocaine off of tanned Italian backsides
While ten young men
Suck my gigantic dick
For two hundred hours
Do you eat a fine steak dinner with Eddie Murphy
But I am still hungry
And it is 4 am on the West side
I am going home to my majestic marble linoleum
I tell the jokes here
And if you want to
Come into my house
Introduce yourself first
Don’t just go walking in
And telling the people you know them
Or you are the one they have been waiting for
They aren’t waiting for anything
I make royalties on my sort of thing
I give them what they need
We are brethren
We are together
This is not about you
You write a punchline
Go up in front of the crowd
Say, I am the thing that makes you turn
But honey
It is a lie when you do it
You are the person outside the house
I am the one
Gracious enough
To let you in
____________________________________________________________________
DOROTHEA LASKY is the author of ROME (W.W. Norton/ Liveright) and Thunderbird, Black Life and AWE, all from Wave Books. She currently is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and lives in Brooklyn.
____________________________________________________________________
Read more by Dorothea Lasky:
Poem in The Paris Review
Poem in The New Yorker
Poem in Poetry