Friday, April 23, 2004
Meditation on Transience
This morning I got the news: the green-brown shirt is beyond repair. It was my favorite and luckiest shirt, the soft one that people always wanted to touch, the one that went with most of my clothes, that had a flattering cut and didn’t fade even though I’ve probably had it for five years. I even sliced one sleeve on broken glass one fateful night but it didn’t fray. But a (capped!) pen recently leaked in my pocket and this morning the drycleaner pronounced the fabric hopelessly stained. (On the plus side, it happened during a class and I got a lot of sympathy; the teacher who pointed it out to me when I stepped up to do a reading suggested something along the lines of sucking the ink out, but I didn’t think she actually wanted me to take her up on it.) I told the dry cleaner to throw the shirt away. Obviously, it had been meant for my 30s, not my 40s.
And 40 is what I effectively am today. Well, in two more days, but I won’t be posting then. Instead, while I have a moment to do so, I’ll revive a hoary old tradition from nigh on 365 days ago or so, when I last had a birthday and posted a poem. Lacking the imaginative spark to do anything different, here’s another one:
Take a moment here to linger
on extended middle finger
raise a draft commemorating the occasion of my birth
Fill the stadium with bourbon
I’ll have all of you in turbans
and ecstatic in a revelry that shakes the very earth
Tear my spandex off in shreds
braid my body hair in dreds
hoist my bootie on the table and I’ll show you how to dance
Make a mockery of age
understudy in a rage
I will burn the stage beneath you and put weasels in your pants
Eat a hundred hits of acid
always turgid, never flaccid
adamantium and kryptonite with teflon mylar skin
Making diamonds out of charcoal
ace the cup on any par hole
write myself a bluegrass opera for electric mandolin
I’m the pride of this great nation
I’m adjusted for inflation
I’m the answer to your prayers if you’re fool enough to pray
With another year behind me
I’m right here if you can find me
Time to fill the cup and drain it - birthday 40 is today!
