CHALLENGED TO A DUAL 

            Joey:

I slept so late this evening

that I will be late for your premiere,

The curtain has surely risen by now

and the crowd has started to cheer -

For standing in the spotlight

is their hero in theatric splendor,

Who's psychedelic smile draws attention

and induces dramatic surrender.

When at last I arrive at our secret place

he's mingling with narcotic ease,

He infiltrates my private space

and infects me like a disease -

He begs me to spend the night with him

in his cold and lonely grave,

But he's not the one I'm looking for

because you are the one that I crave.

He can't understand my attraction to you

or why his advances must fail,

He tells me my idea of love for you

Is one that can never prevail -

He tells me sexuality is the blood

that flows within his veins,

He can't understand that the man that I want

is the man that he so disdains.

I tell him that you are my inspiration;

my reason for writing this song,

I tell him that you are beyond devastation;

that you could right all his wrongs -

But he just smiles in victory

as I recite my romantic oath,

As he looks into my eyes...gloats and replys:

"You'll have to love us both!"

At last he's revealed the darkest secret;

your unfettered compulsive duality,

I'm in love with a man cut right down the middle;

I'm in love with a split personality -

But the quintessential enigma of this

is paradoxical within it's demands,

And the only solution to this quizzical puzzle

is to suffer it's queer reprimands.

To have the man I shall indulge the beast...

I must endure this fierce tribulation,

I must sacrifce a part of myself

to this maniacally cruel stipulation -

And the trials will never cease

as I follow our contract through black and blue,

But it is worth all the aggravation

just to spend a moment in time with you...

© OCTOBER 29, 1995 By Menes

-FOR JOSEPH ALLAN PETRI-

WHO'S HONESTY RESTORED MY FAITH IN MEN,

WHO'S TENDER KISS AROUSED MY PASSION,

WHO'S VOICE INSPIRED MY MIND,