Body Art
my dad was just a kid
lying to join the Navy at 16
escaping the paper mill in NJ
just a kid sent to China
in the 1930s before revolution
seeing so much poverty he later
endorsed communism as improvement
just a kid who one night
probably drunk though he never said
put a large tattoo on each bicep
which he regretted the rest of his life
and so I grew up to a litany
on the idiocy of body art
and it's no wonder I find tattoos
distasteful to this day
which makes watching basketball
a challenging experience
when so many illustrated men
and illustrated women
are playing the game
and I keep envisioning how ugly
their body art will become
on old shriveled skin
why don't they just use decals
if their fragile egos need
a fashion statement?
but it's a fruitless question
just pointing out how much
the culture has changed
and how out of place I've become
without body art
and with an unfashionable propensity
to ride "the fiery chariot
of his contemplative thought"
even into the sunset
R.I.P.
my dad was just a kid
lying to join the Navy at 16
escaping the paper mill in NJ
just a kid sent to China
in the 1930s before revolution
seeing so much poverty he later
endorsed communism as improvement
just a kid who one night
probably drunk though he never said
put a large tattoo on each bicep
which he regretted the rest of his life
and so I grew up to a litany
on the idiocy of body art
and it's no wonder I find tattoos
distasteful to this day
which makes watching basketball
a challenging experience
when so many illustrated men
and illustrated women
are playing the game
and I keep envisioning how ugly
their body art will become
on old shriveled skin
why don't they just use decals
if their fragile egos need
a fashion statement?
but it's a fruitless question
just pointing out how much
the culture has changed
and how out of place I've become
without body art
and with an unfashionable propensity
to ride "the fiery chariot
of his contemplative thought"
even into the sunset
R.I.P.
