a hybrid poem
Piercing painful reminder from the sun, “Close those blinds or be blinded!”
Give me some shadow so I can see. Light is not always benevolent; it exposes horrors we want to unsee. They linger on the retina like ghosts, fading ever so slowly.
A dead elephant, rotting,
tusks sawed off at roots.
Abdominally bloated babies
starving while adults
turn their minds
to conquering.
Abominations of bleeding martyrs
nailed to crosses upside down;
desiccated corpses stacked
like firewood before cooking
a macabre feast.
We are reminded of hell on earth, plainly visible to those who crack eyelids open just a few millimeters…slam them shut again! Damn it! I was digesting blood-rare sirloin! Don’t show me the abattoirs!
Merciless is the oxymoronic light unveiling horrible beauty at every turn of the screw in the pit of the stomach, while pendulum of blinding shining sharpness swings closer…closer…closer…
I expose my throat to
the tattooed barber, who smiles
and makes small talk, slathers face
with foam, then wraps it in
very hot damp towel, covering,
blinding my eyes while
she strops the razor.
Does she think:
“One of these days
I’ll really do it, I’ll go
all Sweeney Todd on
this silly bastard who
always undertips me…”?
I always remember to overtip
exquisitely skillful Shay who now
unwraps my hot face, letting
in visions of her lovely
visage, ever so gently
angles the razor just right
to slice off whiskers, gliding
harmlessly over jugular,
carotid. Dries my face, playfully
splashes stinging aftershave…
And one more time I walk out of the Bearded Man barbershop with my aged baby face feeling the cool breeze, smooth as the tongue of a salesman.
Why do I so enjoy the frisson of keen blade shaving not slicing my throat or face?
Why badmouth light when so often it reveals striking, awesome nudity making heart to throb, taking away breath, tempting longing touch?
Wouldn’t want Shay shaving me in darkness. Light is not to blame for what it shows or what we choose to see, chews to sea. Sharks don’t chew; they rip off chunks and swallow in red clouds, no matter what the prey, orca or seal or human…such horribly beautiful paintings on the depths of deaths. They are endangered! Save the sharks, prehistoric shadows sliding through oceans…
…so now I’m hungry again.
Keeps on happening, I notice,
no matter the prayer or
salesman’s unctuous grace
praising God’s bountiful gifts
to growling stomachs.
Delicious food goes in;
disgusting crap comes out, the
way of nature inscrutable
as any mystic’s prophesy. We chew,
we masticate, we masturbate
our taste buds. What a piece
of work we are! Feeding on
death like any other creature…
Have not yet figured out the conclusion, minor or major, of these word notes. Would like to rise above, shout “Entropy’s got nothing on me!” but I know better and so do you. Keep on growing flowers in the crap; you will need a map to help you find the vegetables.
Decades ago I walked to case management meetings, through the halls of Danvers State Hospital, near where the witches were hung. Sometimes humans were appended to walls like bizarre fungi. That is another story…
~ Wry Welwood
20th of January 2022.
Written in response to Scrittura’s Wednesday Prose Poetry prompt: a hybrid endeavor.
Attention: J.D. Harms.
Thanks to Charlie Cole.
Author’s note:
The Bearded Man barbershop is on Central Avenue in Dover, NH. Check it out!
Get a shot of whisky and a shave. I’ve only ever seen biologically male customers, but I’d hazard a guess they wouldn’t turn down a biological woman.