For Lucy, who wears her slip in the sky
This was meant to be a light poem
for the pretty girl in her slip.
But her skin slipped me up,
got me going from
skin to skins,
flesh to silicone
dialogue to monologue,
to the chatter between
humans and their “personal devices.”
So, a pretty girl, showing her skin
was enough to do me in,
for this poem, anyway:
.
1.
Artistry and subtlety
thrived in the Age of Chivalry,
when most people considered modesty
most becoming to maidens.
Now, people dare to bare
their best and worst,
their “private parts”
even as their “private selves”
get hid
behind screens of flesh,
and silicone too.
.
One’s shyness, or gift of gab,
may be hid by gifs that grab
the viewer,
some that won’t let go
(and screams travel through
many substances).
.
Awake and weightless
on screen-illumined days or nights,
some people are sleepless
or feel helpless.
for there are many ways
that games of monologue and dialogue
are played,
even as people get played out,
through the skins of their choice.
.
2.
But skin is skin,
and whether through silicone skins
or human skin,
the “human touch” is made,
as Martin Buber wrote,
“All real living is meeting.”
.
Even in this age of the virtual,
life is frail and final.
Let’s opt for dialogue,
and not confuse it with monologue.
Let’s share, not bare
fangs at each other.
Bare flesh, yes,
but remembering that most any body
is alluring, at least sometimes, to someone.
.
What makes a body most unique,
is who, or what lives in it,
what Descartes called the “pilot of the ship,”
meaning the living person,
that most personal pronoun,
and most singular of nouns.
.
There’s no self v.other
“egocentric predicament” here,
just each person, unique,
with “privileged access” to themselves,
to their own subjectivity.
Each person’s will is infinite
and limited only when
it impedes the will of another,
(so wrote Gottlieb Ficthe in his Vocation of Man,
and Jean-Paul Sartre’s in his concept of existential choice.)
.
Each person remains
a definition unto themselves,
though others might
text or sext them,
or try to conjugate with their body.
or conjugate them as a verb,
meaning, cajole, co-join, co-habit with,
even try to conquer them.
.
Our lives are our default systems
we can’t “get over it,”
under it,
or away from it
very far,
before our bodies
pull us back to ourselves.
.
So, let’s revel in our subjectivity
and reveal it in dialogue,
not parade it out
in masquerade
monotone monologue.
.
What we assume in silicone
or flesh after death,
we do not know for sure.
But we are here now
as we are with what we have,
which has to suffice for now.
.
So, we should delight
not deal badly with each other,
even if we have to say,
I’ll be nice,
just this one time
just for now.
just this one life.
Skins of Silicone, Skin of Flesh, a poem by Paul Dolinsky. I do portraits in verse, erotic and non erotic. I have books and eBooks for sale on Amazon & Lulu . My main blog, eroticpoems.tumblr.com has a cover page description for all my Tumblr sites. Two sub-blogs are xxxeroticpoemsandmore.tumblr.com and arspoetica-photoserotica.tumblr.com (all of the above blogs are NSFW and over 18 year of age). I also maintain tumblngphilopoet.tumblr.com , a sub-blog, which has no age restrictions.
Studying for 14 hours a day for the past month has left me with bags under my eyes.
Yes, I am striking a mild pose but I HAVE BAGS UNDER MY EYES SO I’M ALLOWED.
