The Madonna Inn

Craig Constantine

I paste on a moustache

You rat out your hair.

Let’s cosplay!  Let’s Vogue!

I’m Sonny!  You’re Cher!

Pile into the pink Caddie,

Show a little thighplasty skin, 

We’re all going to the Madonna Inn.

You merchants of clickbait

You crypto-fluencers,

You armchair zillionaires

Who have all the answers.

You Christo-Kardashians

Clutching pearls at my sin,

You’re all going to the Madonna Inn.

The first time it’s tragic,

The second? A farce.

First the posh wedding

And then the divorce.

You start out in rom-com

And end up in porn,

We’re all going to the Madonna Inn.

Turn on the oceanic highway

Like a open-air Louvre,

With the whales all watching

From their respectful remove.

Bound for surreal Big Sur,

Baroque Hearst Castle,

The Rubenesque sands

Where elephant seals jostle.

Wait! – there’s that candy-colored knockoff

Blushing the mountain,

And now you’re checking into the Madonna Inn.

They’ve got your room

If you’ve got the fetish,

The Daisy Mae Room

If you’re feeling coquettish.

The Harvard Square Room

For your inner bluestocking,

The Cave Man Room

For paleo tiktokking.

Every kind of boudoir,

Plus King Tut’s own pissoir!

Even your pee gets a spin,

On the pink whirligig of the Madonna Inn. 

You’re Marie Antoinette,

I’m a ruined baronet.

You’re Rosie the Riveter,

I’m the Grand Inquisitor.

You’re Gaga, I’m Jagger,

We’re Bogie and Bacall,

Or just two more knuckledragger

Insta-Neanderthals.

What’s so big about Sur?

Why the buzz about Hearst?

What’s the great rock of Morro

Have on the pink feast

Of kitsch!  

Thanks to absentee God

Life’s all a façade,

Just ask old Potemkin,

Who haunts the twee lounge of the Madonna Inn.