I Write The Body Poetic

I Write The Body Poetic



Deep within the quagmire of dirty underwear,
I lay drenched in a fallen latrine,
a fair-haired boy of thirty-three,
chipped-toothed, glassy-eyed, and unclean.

“No, no, NO! That’s not a poem for a Christmas card! What am I thinking?”

Wally crumpled up another sheet of paper and threw it across the room. He annoyingly rapped his pencil upon the table with one hand, as he slapped his forehead over and over again with the other. Then he crushed his pencil to the paper once more.

May the beauty and peace of the season
remain with you throughout the new year.
And don’t you ever give me a good reason
to come over there and kick your goddamn ass, dear.

“No,” he said shaking his head, “That's a bit too abrupt.”

He straightened his back and stretched with a groan of agony; he heard the dull thud of bones popping in his spine.

“I’ve been at this crap all night, and this is all I’ve got?” He threw his pencil across the room and heard the lead snap as it hit the beige-colored wall.

“Jesus, what time is it, anyway? 8:AM?” He looked out the window. The sky was clouded over and it looked like rain. The dark morning had lured him into thinking it was still night. Wally began to panic. “Man, I’ve gotta get this written or I’m gonna lose my job at Hallmark.” He pounded his head. “Think! Think! Think! How about a get-well card?”

Grabbing a black sharpie marker, he tried again.

Don’t be sad
Don’t be blue
Don’t let the fact that you’re nothing but a goddamn junkie with AIDs,
ever bother you.

“Holy-moley! Christ-on-a-crutch, what’s happening to me? Maybe I should try a birthday card.

We wanted to give you a birthday party,
but thought it might be too much
for an old geezer like you,
with nothing to do,
so, you’re not even invited!

“I’m dead. Work starts in less than an hour. What am I gonna do?”

Wally dropped his head to the table, smashing the paper to his face and causing the wet letters from the permanent marker to adhere to his miserable expression. When he lifted his head again there were words imprinted across his left cheek that could only be read in a mirror.

“I’ve lost my gift,” he whined. “My muse is gone!” He began to crumble in upon himself. “All is lost. All is lost . . . .”

In his anguish, he deliberately drew a large “L” on his forehead with the marker. A small mirror, embracing a scented candle upon a wooden ledge, hung alongside his desk. Wally curiously glanced at his face.

“Whoa . . . .”

He became intrigued with the tattoo-like lettering that crisscrossed his appearance, then, on a whim, he added a couple of words; then a sentence. As he gazed at his reflection, ideas came pouring out of his head. He wrote feverishly around his neck and collar bone; his cheeks held full stanzas of rapidly scribbled expression. The words came flowing from his pen as if they had a life all their own.

Ripping open his shirt, he fervently attacked his chest area. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

An hour later, bundled against the cold and rain in his trench coat, Wally entered the building at Hallmark. He plopped down into one of the many small cubicles that filled the room on the third floor and waited for the editor to come and collect his new greeting card verses.

Smiling to himself, Wally felt a certain ‘at ease’ in knowing that he had completed his assignment on time. He imagined himself being promoted very soon.

Mrs. Tallywacker, the head editor, approached his desk. Her hair was drawn back into a tight bun behind her head like always, causing the loose skin on her body to be firmly pulled up. Wally assumed that she was under the impression that this gave her a youthful look, when in reality, it only accented her hard rigid bone structure, making her appearance resemble that of a deranged librarian. She was beyond scary--she was evil incarnate, and Wally never missed a chance to kiss up to her.

“Mrs. Tallywacker! You’re looking quite lovely today. Have you done something different with your hair?”

She gazed at him like a pterodactyl. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Huh?”

“Your face--what’s that all over your face?”

“Oh, well, uh, they’re poems,” he said grinning from ear to ear.

“You’re a complete idiot, Wally. Go clean yourself up this instant!”

“But, Mrs. Tallywacker . . .”

“Don’t you ‘but’ me, mister. Where’s your damn assignment?”

“Well, that’s just it, isn't it, Mrs. Tallywacker. I am the assignment.” And with that, Wally opened his coat to display his naked body completely covered in verse and prose. “You won’t believe some of the great stuff I’ve written.” He lifted his manhood up for her to see. “Look at this one,” he said, full of enthusiasm, as he read the scrawling script.

Today you touched me
so deeply inside,
like our very first kiss
as a groom and a bride.

“Or how about this one for Valentines Day?” He turned around to display his lily-white butt cheeks covered in sentence after sentence of high quality Hallmark prose.

Just one kiss
is all that I ask.
So let me bend over
while you kiss my ass.

Mrs. Tallywacker staggered back unable to speak. She gasped for air like a fish on dry land. Moving away from Wally, she held her hands out in front of her as if she were attempting to ward off some unspeakable evil. She tried desperately to scream, but only a pitiful high-pitched whine came forth.

Wally looked at her in absolute astonishment. “What's wrong? If you don’t like those, Mrs. Tallywacker, I’ve got a bunch more. If you’d only care to take a look at my belly and legs, you’d see some excellent verse for next year’s Christmas cards.”

“Get . . . get out!”

“What?" Walley was in shock. "You can’t be serious. This is some topnotch material.”

“Fired." She had finally found the word she was looking for. "You’re fired!”

“Aw, come on. You can't be serious. This is good stuff!"

"I want you out of here before I call the police."

"The police? Whatever, Mrs. Tallywacker. There are plenty of greeting card companies out there that would jump at a chance to publish this material. I've made an incredible breakthrough and this is how you treat me? I'm inspired. I feel more alive than I've felt in years. The simplicity of it all--the sheer nakedness."

Wally spun around several times so everyone in the office could see him. "Everybody! Look! Look at me! Someday I’ll be famous. Just you wait and see. I write the body poetic. No longer will my words be wasted on little scraps of paper. From now on whatever I write, I write with my heart, my soul, my body."

And with that, Wally walked out of the office as naked as the day he was born. In large letters across his butt it read, "kiss my ass" like some deviant bumper sticker.

He slammed through the front doors and stepped out onto the sidewalk. It was pouring rain. He stopped and lifted his arms to the sky in greeting. He felt each drop of rain as it ran straight through him, stringing wonderful words together in his mind. He needed to write. His body was clean, and he was inspired. He decided to rush home and start the first chapter of that novel he'd been putting off writing for so many years.

He began at the left nipple.