APPLE BLUES

Look at me: bald, fat as an apple.

Here I am, bald, fat as an apple.

But don’t value goods just by their wrapper.

Old as your father, that’s what you said.

“You’re old’s my father,” is what you said.

But that’s no bother, not decrepit yet.

May look like a wolf, pitted and ugly.

Big bad old wolf, grizzled and ugly.

Feed me love enough, tame as a puppy.

Look at me: bald, fat as an apple.

Look at me, bald just like an apple.

Don’t value the goods just by their wrapper.

You think I’m a shit, I make your garden grow.

I may be a shit, but I make your garden grow.

When you need a prick, let me be your rose.

If you break your compass, I am true north.

You lose direction, here I am, true north.

And when you end your wanders I’m fire in your hearth.

If I’m silent, don’t have much to say.

I’m kind of silent, not a lot to say.

Just like my violence, words left yesterday.

Look at me. Bald. Fat as an apple.

Yes, Honey, bald, fat like an apple.

Shouldn’t price goods just by their wrapper.

(Lean me against your marrow

like a giant midget jumbo shrimp.

Hold my poor minute

against all infinity

like any other parasol you’d prop against a hurricane.

A gossamer-armored middleaged scholar in swimming trunks,

let my steady frailty

hold the frailty of your own,

let my cardboard walls withstand the world’s assault.)

Horny old bastard, last grape on the vine.

Horny old bastard, the end of the line.

Wrinkled and blasted grape a-makes the sweetest wine.

 --Duane Vorhees