Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

in process
growing old and fat

62 and 6 foot 2

some special symmetry
this numerology

stretching out
this frame of me

blending edges concealing
adipose poundage

(Young girls die
for breasts like mine)

While some men eat to live,
I live to eat.

I?Äôve tired
of too much exercise.
I?Äôm bored with dieting.
I?Äôm 62-years-old
for God?Äôs sake!

Haven?Äôt I earned the right
to enjoy myself?

Yes, I?Äôll die
better for having loved eating

than for hosting a somber party crashed
by obnoxious cancer cells,

and which is more fun

(stanza break)
(coletti ?Äì rendering ?Äì contin.)

a calorie-counting
weight lifting runner
filled with theory and fact
and self-righteous virtue

or a beer-guzzling,
sausage-eating
wine-nuanced
haute cuisine and
pizza-loving
funny boy?

Which one would
you want for a lifelong friend?

So perhaps I won?Äôt live forever
or even to be a hundred and thirteen

but, hey
neither will I,
like Jackie Onassis
ever regret having wasted my time
?Äúon all those extra sit-ups?Äù

Better another Guinness,
a full-bodied old vine zin,
a perfectly thin blackened
brick oven pizza crust,
a fat-marbled angus
juicy with varietal flavors,
gelato so dense that
its fruit
under pressure
turns to diamonds

(but french fries
may only be sampled with prudence
since my gall bladder refuses
to welcome them comfortably home)

Published in Kickass Review ?Äì Vol. VI, no. 5 – 2006

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