DieterM
06-02-2014, 10:22 AM
I don’t want to,
but one has to
when shaving,
so I stare at myself,
sigh, oh my—
how shoddily made,
all this!
Around blue eyes run
little valleys made by
Greek Julys
and Tunisian Augusts
and Moroccan Decembers,
traces of a time
when I spent money I didn’t have
on travels and booze—
hence the map of red rivers
crawling over the bridge
of my nose, signs
of Bombay Gin and
Stolychnaya and
rosé wine from the South of France.
Oh, there’s worse;
take these crater-like pores
around the apex, for instance,
take these two lines
starting downwards,
to the left and right of my mouth,
from too many laughs,
as if my life so far
had been a long,
a long long joke.
Skin sagging under
the chin, only slightly so,
but promising to sag
some more in the near future,
just you wait and see, dude,
there’s no backing away
from this, it says.
There are white tufts now
on the tanned chest, too,
and they are burlier,
strawier, and they hurt more
when I yank them out.
Shoulders and arms
still as bony as ever,
yet under the breast,
there’s a new fold
where the belly starts,
a fold that doesn’t disappear
when I unfold from
navel-gazing,
and the belly stretches
further than before,
telling me those years are gone,
are gone forever,
when I could live on
slices of bread with butter
and Nutella.
And there’s one thing
I need to know now,
it’s as urgent as a piss,
so I shout from the bathroom:
“How can you love me
when all you get is
this?”
“I love your wits”,
you answer without moving
from the sofa,
without looking,
“I love your sense of humour
and your poetry.”
My poultry?
Good Lord, man!
I don’t even do
chicks!
but one has to
when shaving,
so I stare at myself,
sigh, oh my—
how shoddily made,
all this!
Around blue eyes run
little valleys made by
Greek Julys
and Tunisian Augusts
and Moroccan Decembers,
traces of a time
when I spent money I didn’t have
on travels and booze—
hence the map of red rivers
crawling over the bridge
of my nose, signs
of Bombay Gin and
Stolychnaya and
rosé wine from the South of France.
Oh, there’s worse;
take these crater-like pores
around the apex, for instance,
take these two lines
starting downwards,
to the left and right of my mouth,
from too many laughs,
as if my life so far
had been a long,
a long long joke.
Skin sagging under
the chin, only slightly so,
but promising to sag
some more in the near future,
just you wait and see, dude,
there’s no backing away
from this, it says.
There are white tufts now
on the tanned chest, too,
and they are burlier,
strawier, and they hurt more
when I yank them out.
Shoulders and arms
still as bony as ever,
yet under the breast,
there’s a new fold
where the belly starts,
a fold that doesn’t disappear
when I unfold from
navel-gazing,
and the belly stretches
further than before,
telling me those years are gone,
are gone forever,
when I could live on
slices of bread with butter
and Nutella.
And there’s one thing
I need to know now,
it’s as urgent as a piss,
so I shout from the bathroom:
“How can you love me
when all you get is
this?”
“I love your wits”,
you answer without moving
from the sofa,
without looking,
“I love your sense of humour
and your poetry.”
My poultry?
Good Lord, man!
I don’t even do
chicks!