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Clippings
summertime barbershop:
old-fashioned cane of candy,
nothing but strangers
here, and that lethal
way the leather-necks
are lathered and scraped
cries out, "this is
a dangerous place!"
no matter that Pop has pre-
called, to insure that
your head gets cropped
hedgerow-like, even though
you plead with some satisfaction,
"trim only to the collar,
and a half-inch above ear"
you know that the grass
of the lawns you pass
on the way home
will mock you,
a prelude to the taunts awaiting
Beetle-eyed in class clown-room
next day.
Ahh, the odor of clippings
some thirty odds later,
that lead you through push-
mowing lanes and hand-held trimmings
until your inside thumb blistered,
and fights with siblings over who
would do which despised task next
time ...
always a next time,
even here in spring, in the city
next time you smell the grass
freshly slain,
remember the freedom of today’s haircuts.
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Randy Lee Gross is poet, playwright and
writer of radio commercials. He has been published in Poet’s Page and Out
of the Mouths of Men, an audio/print anthology. His screenplay, The Beast With No
Brain, was a semifinalist in New York International Independent Film and Video
Festival, 1997 and Peripheral Visions, was a quarterfinalist in Fade In:
Magazine 1999-2000 screenplay competition. |