I have some inspiring news to share, midlife companions. Midlife paunch and a finicky g.i. system prompted my re-commitment to personal fitness several years ago, but I've stuck with my improved midlife fitness regimen and far healthier nutritional habits because of the many additional benefits I've experienced. My allergies have dramatically improved, energy levels are up and chronic back pain ...
Downsize
Speed
Foot off the gas, Feather the brake, Rock in my gut. (Source: "Speed Trap I", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) This comes early in a three-part poem called "Speed Traps". Driving too fast. Again. Pardoned. Thank you, officer! This poem cycle is actually about driving a car, not a motorcycle. It's been many moons since I rode motorcycles. But I still dream, daydream, relive roads/rides. Update: ...
Clipping
Precision, I suppose, is the want of digits, though I’ve paired my nails with guillotines for the better part of four decades. Habit guides my thumb and forefinger in the dark as I follow the soft fingerprinted mounds. Who says poetry about clipping one's nails is slightly off? Starting now, I usher the rudiments of personal hygiene from the margins to the mainstream... Onward! ...
Subcutaneous
The dead heaviest I’d ever, ever been. Paunchy two fifteen. Pounds, not o’clock. Belly fat, jowel fat, Brain fat, will fat. Distorted, plumped, Stalled, and stumped. How did it happen? When did it happen? What, where and how From here? From now! (Source: "Moribundignant", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) ...
12 Steps
Linguistic liposuction. Words are my opium, my Holy Grail, my Dulcinea del Toboso. Stop hoarding. Start purging. End binge. Launch fast. Replace forty pounds with forty poems. Paunch for poetry. One year. Go... (Source: "12 Steps: A Minifesto", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) Linguistic liposuction?!?! Believe it. You needed appreciate it, but you must believe it. This ...
Choice
Lard clings to my jelly belly and assimus maximus, but melts away elsewhere. Bullshit! It doesn’t melt. That’s poet talk, and yesterday’s wine is tomorrow’s vinegar. Melts becomes drips becomes oozes becomes slippery. “Pare away pretty poetry,” I beg my puffed up parody in the mirror. “Stand up straight. Drop the mask. Shed the costumery. Lose the skin of the lion…” If ...