Saturday 2 June 2012

Why Didn't Achilles Simply Wear Boots?


I dreamt the first two lines. This is a first for me.
The rest was written in a morning.

So here we are: the Blank Verse Strip-O-Grams –
We bare our bodies as we bare our souls.
Available for parties, weddings, both
The kinds of mitzvahs, nights for stags and hens;
And also meditations on the pangs of love
(Dispris’d or otherwise); reflections on
This rare condition we call Life.
    Come! See the glittered tassles spinning, twirling
’Round endings feminine as dainty feet.
As each revealing garment shameless falls,
So fall facades of mythic similes:
The wanton allegories lost on those
To whom the Greeks are best known for kebabs.
But, like Patroclus, we are undeterred,
And also vaguely homoerotic.
    Come! Watch us smear the whipp’d cream of our hearts
Along enticing lengths of turgid meter,
And taste the saline woes that pump and grind
Through these artistic, tortured veins.
You’ve never had a feeling – not like ours,
For we are made of feelings, we consume
Emotions, breathe sensations, drink in sighs,
Then, squid-like, squirt them on the page.
    Pray mock us not! We are but fragile feathers –
Make not burlesque from this, our introspection!
Or if you do, just know that we will feed
Upon your scorn, because we know that scorn
Will make us stronger, better people, yeah?
    For this, our show, we ask but little fee:
Your humbled recognisance of our pain
Is thanks enough.  Or better still, show us
How we’ve affected all of you inside,
And give a little something of yourself
As you all pass the bucket by the door.