by Sean Murphy.
I mean if we’re talking miracles:
Having hair would, admittedly, be
low on the priority list, at least
with things like healthy hearts, minds,
and livers to consider. For starters.
Bank accounts too. And also,
I remember that even when I could
be called hirsute, once upon a time,
every day was a different type of disguised
blessing, some running competition with luck
or nature or the other hyenas, laughing
in schools or offices or happy hours, all of us
searching, vainly, for the gaze that saw everything
we hoped we reflected in mirrors or in our minds.
As such, to be Joe Strummer, circa Combat Rock,
or Al Pacino playing Serpico, or the reliably
helmet-headed Redford, as Sundance or in The Sting…
Oh, to be a sporting king; think the divine and headbanded
Borg, or the insouciantly Jewfrow’d McEnroe—but never
Connors with his sweaty spaghetti strands that couldn’t
compensate for a personality to rebuff a bodhisattva.
And if all bets are off (two fantasies for the price of one),
how about going big and being a brother? Think Sly
Stone’s ebony halo, or the hempen-dreaded Bob Marley,
or the tightly-coiled glory from any Blaxploitation outtake.
Hindsight ensures there’s little to envy about the ‘80s,
with all the hairspray to blow holes in the sky, or enough
gel to impede ocean-bound barges built from plastic and wax.
(But damn it if those mullets don’t endure, unlike the music or those who made it.)
I’ve nothing but pity for all the actors, news anchors, and partisans
whose hairdos are destinies decreed, grandfathers handing down
boulders to be rolled back up mountains of ticking time and vanity.
Maybe Isaac Hayes—Black Moses himself knew the bald truth,
defiantly blazing trails & redefining bounty through depilated indifference,
forsaking the futilityof fashion and reminding the pretty & petty:
Soul has no shelf life.