There must be more to suffering
than grey Monday. Knife wounds.
Or when parents can’t help kids
with homework. This toothpaste
tastes grainy but biography helps
me forget sex appeal and the great,
golden “I.” Brush the tongue and
the roof of the mouth too. A 1,000
ways to do a 1,000 things and mine
is to feed the skull’s furious engine
with illusion. I should floss more,
but it is difficult to obtain a legacy
large as the Big Sea or the depth
of Mark Twain. Gillette gel is cool
to the cheek but the heat in my head
is growing with no signs of beatnik
nonsense bending into the single
that outsells the body electric.
So the engine must be going
through a shadow long as night.
Yes. The heat is growing, glowing
and exploding. How many cried
there’s some shit man was never
meant to tamper with. The jawline
sprouts a ruby bead. Identity
is a blade and requires repetition
to reach perfection. Need a break
and a better razor or I’ll wear myself
slick. Everything falls, but blooms
again next year, beholden to no fear.
Tomorrow, the mirror will still be here.
| Copyright © 2020 by Cory Adamson Cory Adamson has been published in Medusa’s Kitchen, A Day’s Encounter, Pyrokinection, and Lincoln University’s Arts and Letters journal. He resides in Jefferson City, Missouri. |
Cory, my character “Goines” thinks he recognizes in this poem’s narrator a kindred spirit of consciousness and self-debate.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any more poems you might share with us?
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful imagery! Every few lines and another pause for a moment to think and visualize. I believe I'll see shaving and looking into my mirror at myself differently from now on.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Michael, the inspiration and self-examination resulting from our mundane, daily scraping away of our basic animal-hood is fascinating. The reader feels he is right there looking in the glass with you. Wonder if it's the same for women, say when doing make-up. Encore! Encore!
ReplyDeleteThe progress of the observations and thoughts of this poem remind me of Sam Harris’s book Free Will, in which he points out (from neurological research via fMRI – functional magnetic resonance imaging) how we don’t become aware of where our minds are going until a few hundred milliseconds after they have arrived, a finding that seems to suggest that free will is an illusion.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Cory, the “tentativeness” of the poem’s narrator’s musings seems to express Harris’s own reaction to what his awareness presents to him. A lot of what happens in my “Goines On” vignettes is the same way, but with “poetic shaping” similar to what is going on here in your poem.
Cory! Your poem fairly sings, not just with fearless juxtapositions but with the ringing repetitions of the sounds you use to describe them.
ReplyDelete"...mine is to feed the skull’s furious engine
ReplyDeletewith illusion. I should floss more,"
Perhaps Morris can find my poem about Dental Hygiene. Remember?
You know, Cory, the poem would have been shorter if you had used an electric toothbrush. (Drum crash!)
February 29, 2016: The importance of clean thoughts and good oral hygiene
Delete