Poetry / After Too Much Beer I Inspect Myself Naked in the Mirror
My torso is fatty, gristly muscle
and, like a bear, hair-covered,
suggesting a resistance to damage and cold.
I stare, trying to find the lean pectorals
of my youth, when at the gym I lowered
myself into a machine shaped like the mold
of a sci-fi or horror butterfly.
And before I showered,
my feet in a mud of talcum powder and sweat,
I inhaled the vaguely fungal, masculine
musk of underarms, crotches, aerosol cans. And what
is this? This semi-turgid cord of flesh?
Love muscle, sex salami, Johnson, or Mr. Wiggly
as Stacy (high school love and cherry-popper) called it.
It. The rocket I’ve ridden
through life—now sparking, now sputtering—free,
except when the time came to make a decision
to follow, chase, after each fresh challenge,
flying on my perversion
of a witch’s broomstick.
Thinking back, I’m appalled at
where I’ve been, where I’ve tricked
my legs, tree-trunk sturdy, to carry
me so many years. How I’ve asked of their
solid faith to lead me to waste
time and money on frivolous pleasure.
How I’ve hunted every airy
ache, or satiation of lust, with such refined taste
as to have lost all but the ghost of an appetite.
Perhaps I’m overstating my case just a bit.
Looking at the pale ankles
(around which my boxers are tangled)
I realize I’ve been spouting Romantic horseshit.
Face it, I tell myself, two eyes peering
into inverted twins, only the slow inevitable process.
And with no form of redress, get dressed again, go
back and rejoin the rest of the party
before they begin to wonder whether something’s wrong.
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This is a really interesting introspective piece. The only real critique I have for it is, you have already setup that you are speaking to yourself, so in the line “Face it, I tell myself, two eyes peering” you reference to your self, as if we didn’t already know who you were talking to. I think you could rephrase this to keep it in tone with the rest of the poem. Overall I think you accomplished great self speaking portrait.
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No one could say it better. I find myself thinking about guilty vanity directly after reading the title. We could all write a book on how to date, and our suggestions would work for everyone but ourselves. How many places have I been? I enjoy your fresh style, colorful words, and your truth. Thank You.
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