Poem-spam
I can't remember who hooked me up with this one. Was it you, runpunkrun...? (Yes! Yes it was!) Anyway:



You Must Have Been a Sensational Baby
by Harold Norse

1
I love your eyebrows, said one.
the distribution of your bodyhair
is sensational. what teeth, said two.
your mouth is like cocaine, said three.
your lips, said four, look like sexual organs.
they are, I said.
as I got older features thickened.
the body grew flabby. then
thin in the wrong places.
they all shut up or spoke about life.

2
a pair of muscular calves
drove me crazy today.
I studied their size, their shape,
their suntanned hairiness. I spoke
to the owner of them. are you
a dancer? I asked. oh no,
I was born with them, he said.
you must have been a sensational baby,
I said. he went back to his newspaper,
I went back to his calves.
he displayed them mercilessly.
he was absolutely heartless.
men stole secret looks at them.
women pretended he was a table.
they all had a pained expression.
he went on reading the Sports Page.
his thighs were even more cruel
thrust brutally from denim shorts.
the whole place trembled with lust.


I'm really desperately fond of the amused-but-also-honestly-serious sense of *disgust* here. The sense of beauty itself as being something which is, ultimately, brazen.

Then again, as I'm also fond of perpetrating the occasional 'merciless display' upon the world, perhaps my pleasure in this poem is predictable.

There is, of course, something ominous here, something dangerous -- an edge of 's/he knew s/he looked like that when s/he left the house,' but, well, I also have a sick sense of humor -- and a deep, abiding love for the DCU, in which the cruelty of perfection on display is used -- no, *really* -- for *justice*.

Or perhaps just for the kinks of various heroes. ;-)