People said, “Hey. Cute face.” They said,
“Hey man, you have a pretty face.”
And, “That’s a really beautiful face
you have on the front of your head.
I bet you hear that all the time, though.”
Fact is, I did. I also heard, “Hey guy.
That’s a great big hairy red beard
you have on the lower part of the front
of your head, and your nose like a bird
poised on top of a bush, and your two gray
eyes—I don’t even know what to say,”
shouted from the window of a passing cab
from time to time when I was young.
At the clubs I heard, “What a face.
Could I lick the whole thing, like a plate?
Would it be okay if I hugged your head?”
Now that I’m older it happens less
and the tone is often moribund:
“Friend, you have a good face there.
Would you like to be my friend?”
They inspect the shape of my head
in silence now—keep to themselves
how they feel. They say, “Nice feet,”
but I can tell that they’re just being nice.
Monday, April 14, 2008 at 4:14 am
I’m noticing a pattern to your poetry. This one, like “The Butterfly Fish,” begins with a (fairly) innocuous statement and takes it to absurd lengths. It snowballs down a slippery slope of absurdity, forgoing the formality of coherence. Then, without warning, your poem jerks the reader back with the sudden reintroduction of social mores and sense.
I’m not sure what this means for you.
Perhaps it may mean that you need to throw a metaphorical change-up every once in a while so that insomniac randoms don’t emerge from your WordPress page with a false sense of superiority.
But perhaps that spark may be all that individual needs to be inspired.
and perhaps that familiar formula may cause aforementioned random to get up off his ass and take some initiative in his life.
and perhaps his new vantage point away from the computer desk may awaken a newfound awareness of the world around him.
and perhaps he might stand up in a moment of euphoric epiphany and exclaim, “man, those are stereoisomers, broseph!”
and perhaps he may emerge from his sanctuary of interweb solitude long enough to discover a cure for cancer, an end to world hunger, or some other stereotypical dream.
and perhaps all this individual needed to actualize his hypothetical potential was a simple encouraging push in the right direction.
No. That’s stupid. Stereoisomers can’t fix world hunger.
Monday, April 14, 2008 at 8:44 am
Wow!