04 Apr Re: Destiny and Beards
There are many neighbourhoods in San Francisco. Each like a different sibling. Close or distant, they all have their very own personalities. Some brooding and dangerous, others flippant and fun. The Mission has an interesting blend of personality. One facet is the hipster. A steam engine of gentrification; hipsters love specification, vigilance over trend and hair. In this poem, I’ve been pretty specific myself, homing in on the idea of just how much a beard means to a man. Does that make me a hipster? Do I have a Beard? Yes. H0w do we define Hipster? Are we all Hipsters? Do we all have beards…?
Re: Destiny and Beards
A little lady once told me:
All your memory’s in your hair.
You’ll do well to be to beware.
So grow it long, it won’t be long
before you’re old and wise and hairy.
Now I’m old and wise and hairy,
the little lady is far away.
But there’s a tingle in my skin;
in every pore, an itchy fairy.
The fairies all speak at once:
“Snip it off! Snip it off!”
My light old bones creak along
to make a sort of rusty song.
So now I kneel, all leg and hair
In my dirty underwear
over a shard of mirrored vase
Looking down to my beardy face.
The mirror is a tool of trust.
I’ll show you this, I’ll show you. Thus
it guides your face and fills your form.
I don’t want this, I want freeform.
I think I’ve thought this thought before,
and now it’s back (or is it fore?)
Like a piece of fluff latched to your shoe
Not always in sight, but always tethered to you.
The blade I’ve sharpened a thousand times
hovers over my bushy jawline.
And then I hack
until the skin is smooth and fine.
I feel my head. I can feel my face
I grab the skin and grab embrace.
Two tears slide down my dewy duct.
One swift and one slower, giving chase.
I can tell you of a thousand things.
Where wind comes from, where time begins.
How hot the earth is at its core.
Why it’s heating evermore.
Currents, airflow, albedo.
tectonic lava, ozone holes.
I know I know! I know I know!
I still know all the things I knew.
I thought my love for knowledge fair
was hand in hand with beard and hair.
But now they sit in a clustered clump.
My hairy thoughts, a lumpy lump.
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