SHOESTORE WRITER

When I left the shoe store job
after a few months
I got my Saturdays back
And left with a line for the ladies I'd meet
I like your pumps, your stacks, your high heels
It would have been a sure thing
if only I could remember which was which
Because ladies in 1972 never expected
a guy to know the difference in women’s shoes.

I spent a lot of my shoe store pay
On hot dogs from the cart outside
And bought new record albums and played them
when I dreamed of dancing with hot ladies
in their sparkling shoes and sparking spike heels
And I spied on shoes in the Thom McAn up the block
There on Broadway in Newark
you never knew what you'd find
I never thought I saw too much of interest
Except for the big bum who asked me for change
and figured I had some since I wore a stupid tie
Then the ladies came in, some beauties, really,
in both ways you say that.
Like the Gypsy woman wearing
different color shoes on her feet,
And her gorgeous daughter who took our breath away.

Our shoe stretcher in the back was,
really, you know, a broom handle
No shoe numbers on our shoes
in the window, only on the boxes inside.
You want shoe numbers, go to Thom McAn.

I left my shoe store job to push myself to become a writer
I'd do the Famous Writers class
and support myself with freelance writing
Writing about the wild times I never had before
and become a famous writer myself.
Wandering aimlessly, writing down what comes to mind
I'd hone myself, I'd whet my pen,
I'd learn to write and then
Watch out, world. This mild-mannered writer
is seeking a wild-mannered time
Who knows, maybe some day I'll live in tony Greenwich,
or bohemian Greenwich would be more like it...

- By Anthony Buccino
Adapted from CANNED - Booted, bumped, down-sized, fired, forced out, hated, hired, jobless, laid off, let go, out of work, out-sourced, pink-slipped, terminated, sacked, unemployed
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino
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