You like the attention, baby.
You like to be put on view.
You like to be center stage, baby.
You like the spotlight on you.

You’re kinda kinky, baby.
You’re kind zany, too.
I wish that we could mingle.
I wish that we could screw

those limbs
into a
real live
motion picture.

I like those tassels to dangle.
I like those tassels to swing.
But I like it most of all, baby,
when you don’t wear a thing!

Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick

***

Today’s prompt came from NaPoWriMo—take a walk, make notes, and incorporate those notes into your poem. When we walk around the park in our neighborhood, we pass a house with fabulous landscaping, including the specimen tree Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick (Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’) in the front yard. The tree is actually kind of ugly when all leafed out in the summer, but is pretty in the spring when covered with catkins (the dangly tassel things), and is gorgeous in the winter when it is bare and its corkscrew branches are exposed (and there’s not much else to look at).

Sir Henry Lauder (1870-1950) was a Scottish singer/actor/entertainer, who was, at one time, the highest paid entertainer in the world (according to Wikipedia). He typically appeared in Scottish dress carrying a crooked walking stick, so when the time came to name this species of tree/bush, his name came to mind. Or so the story goes…

Sir Henry (Harry) Lauder (public domain)