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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

I’m Just Being Honest (prompt: Cruelty)


Look at the fat
dripping like fleshy syrup
off that gross stack
of pancakes
he calls a torso.

He had the nerve
to put a tattoo
on those arms?
Like trying to draw
the Mona Lisa
on a drinking straw.

And when
he gets his guitar out
and tries to sing,
he thinks adding vibrato
to his warbling voice
will make it soulful.
It doesn’t.

His nose
has the width of his old man’s
and the length of his mom’s,
and I won’t even mention
the wart on the left side.

Don’t be fooled.
He might sound
authoritative,
but if you
question him hard enough
he’ll cower
and back down,
assuming that he’s wrong.

Worst of all,
he writes this pseudo-poetry,
wrapping his fear and insecurity
into trite monologues
and foists them upon
an unsuspecting internet.

I’m not trying to sound cruel,
I’m just being honest
and trying to anticipate
the criticisms that are
inevitably headed my way.

So,
now that I’ve exposed
my weak spots,
I trust you won’t use them
again me,

for to do so
would be cruel
indeed.

11 comments:

  1. If you see yourself as you are, you're stronger than anyone else who could actually try to use anything against you.

    Take care and keep smiling. :-)

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  2. For anybody to use any of this against the author would make them the meenie-meenie of the whole Internet -- if not the world.

    Craving pancakes now... :)

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  3. Beyond cruel, in my opinion.

    I could say that we are our own harshest critics...
    I could say that we must embrace our flaws...

    ...but regardless of adages, I could say that the information contained here only strengthens your poetics... cos who the hell wants a perfect poet?

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  4. It's those honest looks at ourselves that are the hardest, but accepting who we are certainly makes us stronger...and, I would imagine, happier.

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  5. pancakes good, cruelty bad.

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  6. this is my first visit here, and i found the poem to be funny. i knew every step of the way there was an element of both cruelty and honesty, but maybe i'm cruel to myself in a similarly harsh way. there's something about putting an honest and well-crafted look at ourselves out there and reaping a subsequent or simultaneous burst of creativity, ideally anyway. this unappealing view of ourselves is a cultural phenomena in which we are taught to dislike ourselves. recognizing the crap we take on in this weird world is essential to progression, i suspect. great poem.

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  7. Fat on fleshy syrup he calls torso- wow. This is genius cruelty! I like your shift at the end to reveal it's you... but you're an awesome poet!!

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  8. Honesty - the best response to cruely. There is humour here amidst the vivid description and self-appraisal. Nicely done!

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  9. You say that those things you listed are your weakspots. but I suppose I must be blind to them. What I see when I read your work is a wry comic/genius who observes the world with a certain canniness and then turns around and shows that he isn't afraid to address those things which need to be said.

    But (she added) he does so with a dose of subtle humor, which is only one of the reasons why she admires his work.

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  10. I just arrived via your interview with Sherry Blue Sky over at Poets United. I found a strong connection to your words and your journey. Honesty by pen...

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