Almost Cut My Hair September o6, 2o15

I Know, I know a bit of time has gone by since a "new poem." And to be honest about it if Facebook hadn't ad done this "Facebook Memories" promotional I would never have found this poem I wrote back in 2o13. Hell, it was one of those "write quick and post" poems . . . I had forgotten it even existed. Although it need work, I decided it was worth the time. Not sure I'm all that finished with it.
But I think its now worth a read. 

Almost Cut My Hair

 

. . . my long hair bothers me . . .

a dirty red symbol of rebellion and—
dare I say it—youth.
Worn-out now, thinned to string now,
slowly evolving, dissolving into a winter,
a winter it will never recover from.
The spring no longer sings to me.

 

What’s left of it, my hair,

spends far too much time this morning
tickling my nose, and my ears and high diving
off the top of my head into my coffee cup . . .

 

I must be getting old, or older, or something.

Last thing to go?
The childish addiction for coolness.

 

These days I favor comfort over fashion,

sweat pants feel more at home
around my expanding waste than blue jeans.
Beards are out, too messy a thing,
a goatee remains but merely as a cover-up
for the saggy skin below my chin . . . chins.

 

No cause to march for anymore,

to fight and scream for . . . anymore.
Black Lives Matter! White Lives Matter!
It’s all just vacant noise to me ‘cause
matter just doesn’t matter anymore.

 

The news  . . .  weary, dreary tabloid vomit

mouthed by trained canaries,
melting one into another . . . short clips
of weeping widows and  angry fathers
and store bought politicians  
banging impotent fists against the podium . . .
for as long as the cameras continue to stare at them.

 

Everyone raging these days, everyone shouts

so loud that the world has gone deaf.
Fingers wagging in the stranger’s face
like a babysitter scolding an unruly dog,
“Bad, doggie! Don’t drag your ass           
across the carpet . . . Bad, BAD, doggie!”

 

Kent State

not even a bloody memory anymore.
The stains wiped clean . . . time . . .
such a diligent, thorough  housekeeper.

 

Where’s Janis, and Jimmy, and David C,

faint echoes now  whimpering
from  iPods and CDs
or whatever  the hell
they call those damn things.

 

My past . . . vague glimpses of acid trips

and drunkenness and cigarettes
and girls with flowers in their eyes . . .

Made it through another war

not much different than the other wars to come.

 

I’ll keep my hair long for as long

as it cares to stick around.
Maybe some years from now

 

I’ll notice it . . .

tickling my nose, my ears
and high diving off the top of my head
into my coffee cup . . .

 

And I’ll wonder why I never got it cut.

Woodie o9-o6-15