a poem by Paul Corman-Roberts

POETASAURUS

Look at my wrinkles
Look at how they fold
In on their own perceptions
And into other tropes

Seriously
Pass me a clove
& absinthe
& take a good close look
At my sour wine belly

It's the gurgling reincarnation
Of Whitman's Song of
Just About Goddamn Everything.
Rub it for luck.
I didn't say which kind.

Toast up a magnifying glass
To the bags beneath my eyes
They are confessions
Of affairs and plots
Chronicled only
In the Anasazi Book of the Dead.

Examine closely my nose hairs
Each one a thread from a story
That reaches deep beneath my skin
Into my cerebral cortex
Where it refuses
To stop growing threads

And don't forget my rotten teeth
With rings inside each one
Recounting the years
Of an appetite turned
From sweet to bitter

And of course
of course
my flaccid genitalia
should be analyzed
to determine where
exactly they went

Taken as a whole
This leathery hide
With its scars
& boils
& botched healings

Has been needing
some re-imagination
for some time
But time only gets faster

One year equals 2.5 percent
Of my life where it used
To be a quarter
And that is the wrinkle
That cuts deeper
Folds farther
Swells fatter
Plots harder
Burrows further
And somehow fails to leak away.

© by Paul Corman-Roberts
 
Gutter Eloquence Magazine ~ Issue #10 ~ July 2010    return to top