So few of us have met face-to-face that I thought it might be fun to give out some descriptions. No photos; verse only. (Sorry, Art & Fiction folk.)

--CS

Picture Larry Fine
without the tonsured pate.
His frizz is much like mine
but less orbiculate.

If Brad Pitt were better aged,
and thin on top, and red veins raged
across his eyeballs, and the bags
that hung below them, scrotum-like,
were like the fat-filled, flaccid sags
around his middle; and the psych-
opathic anger, barely caged,
shone through a fringed white beard’s debris:
then you begin to picture me.


[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited June 21, 2006).]

Me

Tout court?
I'm short.

. . . And if J. Lo were even meatier,
a gringa, and dinero-needier;
if she wore trifocals and Dr. Scholls,
had bunions, spaced front teeth and several moles;
was older by a quarter century,
why, you would say she looked a lot like me!

Catherine Chandler

.

[This message has been edited by Mary Meriam (edited November 23, 2006).]

I am Madonna, lovely in my cones,
When small birds grumble I kabbalah them;
Ah, when I moan, I moan more ways than one:
The shapes a bawdy mystic can contain !
Of my choice virtues only rogues should speak,
Or gayish dancers who grew up on leeks,
(I’d have them sing in orgies, cheek to cheek).

How well my muscles flex ! I vogue aloud,
I showed you Sit, Roll Over, and Go Down,
I showed you touch, that undulant strap on;
You suckled meekly from my holy ground;
I was the sickle, you, poor you, my fate,
Embracing all of me for mortal stakes,
(And what prodigious children’s books I make).




[This message has been edited by wendy v (edited June 22, 2006).]

You guys are too funny!

I've been AWOL from my own thread, so I figured I'd better put something up . . .

Blind Date

My type he's not:
Not quite six foot,
And not quite fit,
Not handsome, quite,
(Too much Boy Scout),
Nor really cute
(The grin's too tight),
But still, all right--
Don't call the vet.

He's neither fat
Nor balding, yet.
He stands up straight;
That helps. He's sweet,
And wasn't late.
It's just a date,
It's Friday night,
He's here, we're out--
Girl's gotta eat.




[This message has been edited by Clay Stockton (edited June 30, 2006).]

I am not sure if many readers recognized this as a self-portrait when I posted it on TDE last year. Maybe "he was 50 when I met him" put some off the track - but this was about the age I began to acquire a little self-knowledge. This is more of a psychological rather than physical self-portrait.


Refined


Through extremes of drought and thunder, in the ochre land downunder,
he had spent a life in travel and avoiding family ties.
But despite his constant motion from the bush down to the ocean
and then back the other way, he still could not outrun his sighs.

As he said, he had his reasons to pursue those wandering seasons
through the scrub and open grasslands and the gibber plains from hell;
when his dearest friend and lover had betrayed him and another
man had taken to their bed he said " I need to take a spell".

But the spell had taken over, turning him into a rover
and depriving him of hope that he could ever settle down;
he was in its ghastly clutches and it drove him into hutches
where you wouldn't keep a dog and so he kept on moving round.

And on all the tracks he travelled, whether tarmac, dirt or gravelled,
he was always running into men, he said, who'd gone like him;
men turned bitter, gnarled and rugged, men who said they "can't be buggered"
taking any time to worry at the bone of "fitting in".

He was fifty when I met him, but at first I didn't get him,
and in fact I thought he might have been a weirdo or a thief.
But beyond his sad confusion, broken hopes and disillusion,
I could also see the substance of the soul that's born from grief.

Some might think it was a pity that he ever left the city
just to stumble through those deserts of his hopelessness and pain;
but perhaps his greatest blessing came with all those long distressing
journeys, lost and broke and lonely in the sun and dust and rain.


------------------


[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited June 22, 2006).]

Clay, I'll go for concision here:

SINGLE CAUCASIAN MALE

Brown hair, brown eyes, ten fingers and ten toes,
Full set of teeth, a long, Germanic nose.
He doesn't make the lovely ladies wet--
But hey, he's thirty, single, and a het!

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited June 22, 2006).]

Quincy, I can't hope to match your compression, but I do have to clarify that

My hair is brown with blondish streaks,
And hasn't touched a brush in weeks.

My eyes are blue, but have some black--
Stored in these bags I can't unpack.

From one too many foofaraws,
A molehill mars my mighty schnozz.

I guess that you could say I'm straight,
Except those nights I masturbate.

So ladies, come! Let's do some kissing!
(If y'all don't mind my two teeth missing.)


--CS

Excerpted from my contribution to an older thread here :

His face is the colour of pinot,
His handlebar whiskers outré;
He used to teach Plato and Zinot,
Now he mumbles in meter all dé.

He sits with his wine by the ocean
And thinks about wenches he’s known;
He walks with a bouncy mocean
And despises the portable phown.

He can bash out a tune on the keys
In a rough imitation of Monk;
He’s ravished by sky and by treys,
But the ladies now need to be dronk.


[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 22, 2006).]

I stared at me the other day; I confess
a rather stupid face. All expression; scarce
the slightest consciousness of anything but
the surface. Whereat a line began confronting
a blemish regarding my age. I egged-on
both, fingering, when at once I flinched to see
her looking on, admiringly - (sigh) the twit.

Barney Fife,
to the life.

I'm pale and speccy
cause I read,
and built for comfort
not for speed.

What a fatal mistake it was
to dye my hair so red.
I wanted to match my cat, you see,
but matched Bozo instead.

So now it's a quieter mousy brown
and clipped real short for summer.
My eyes are green, my skin is pale,
my bum's an awful bummer.

Mostly I'm a don't picture,
in tents to hide my flaws.
I'm the queen of middle-age spread,
the belle of menopause.

To be shorter than everyone else in the room
is my fate in most places, my kismet, my doom.
My nose is Italian. There's grey in my hair.
I've the linear shape of an haricot vert.
Short, skinny. In real life I quite disappear.
(Which is probably why I hang out around here.)

Age After Beauty

My meter is off and my rhymes are all wretched
My ideas all falter and are poorly sketched.
My stresses are tangled, but what can I do?
Smile and be glad I'm much younger than you.

Me in a Mirror

Green eyes searching for
the accepted model of beauty
Hair that never seems quite
right; it could look better
Features that are more agreeable
some times, than another
depending on the light
The standard amount of wrinkles
for someone my age; lips full,
nose OK by standards to be judged by.


I don't look here in vanity,
not anymore
I am a woman; not
needing reassurances
My inner beauty reflected
in my smile lines carved by joy,
for most of what I see.
Deep inside, I breathe
contentedly

You Talkin’ to Me?

A scruffy taxi driver,
on mean streets I’m a clown,
or raging bull, still roaring
with a fighter’s frown
and eyes of burning brown.

I’m the don of cosa nostra,
a genial goodfellow.
A nightmare at Cape Fear,
I am my mirror’s hero,
a double of De Niro.




------------------
Ralph

Brad's in the pits
and Russel don't crow
since each man admits
what all women know,

that though they command some
good looks and great fame,
yours truly's so handsome
I put them to shame.

I’m fine with my hair graying. At least it’s staying curly.
I don’t yet wear a cardigan in summer. And I don’t need to go to bed early.
No, they WON'T risk laserng my myopia. Yes, I’m ENTITLED to a mamograph - free.
And I’m ok with gravity doing as it does to eyelids, breasts and cheeks.
Then, yesterday, I found a dress I sewed when I was twentyfive,
of narrow world, obligation-free, career-intent, but long since then I've
raised my brood; that time-span doubled now, this thought gives me no rest:
When did one hip decide to move so !^%$* far out west?

Win a Date with LIGHTNING BUG!!

If you should with Bugsy appoint
a blind date to some swinging joint,
envision your plan's
to meet Dennis Franz,
then maybe he won't disappoint.

Me?

Six foot four with baby blues
(in tinted contacts and elevator shoes),

a mane of hair that's still not gray
(for who would wear a gray toupee?),

and bright teeth flashing through my lips
(thanks to caps and whitening strips),

I am the height of elegance
(for anyone who's blind or squints).

Roger,

Do you really want that much punctuation? I say scrap those parentheticals baby!

Jason

(I disagree).

I have to agree with Roger. Sorry, Jason.

(Well, maybe he could leave off the last one).

What fun!

Some say though my speech is surer
I look very much like George Will,
but I'm orders of magnitude poorer
and much less over-the-hill.


[This message has been edited by Tim Murphy (edited June 30, 2006).]

You've seen before and after shots
for hair loss, cellulite, and zits,
facelifts, diets, liver spots,
dye jobs, tooth jobs, brand new tits.

Picture After: blonde, size four.
Now picture me. I'm still Before.

Carol

Six foot one with a shiny dome
since the hair migrated to the chin;
almost as old as a Rolling Stone
but poorer and not as thin.

Camera Shy

In my photos, it appears
that I'm mostly neck and ears.
In real life, I know I've got 'em,
but I hardly ever spot 'em!

And why must licenses depict us
smilin' in a sort of rictus,
ripe for casketin' and hearsin'?
We're much livelier in person!

Julie Stoner

A mop-top 'do' to shade my brain
(I look a bit like Harrison)
and to my left, the trusty cane,
in case I have to (kind of) run;
my speech is slurred like from champagne.


[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited July 03, 2006).]

Motto
Never wear anything that's better looking than you are.

I once scrubbed up well for the stage,
but now I am looking my age.
If you call in the morning
you’d better give warning
or else you will suffer my rage.
My clothes are more modest than me.
I like them to let me feel free.
Though small, a fast walker
(and quite a fast talker),
I’ll appear for a moderate fee.

My wife's idea of heaven:
The Fonz at sixty seven.

Occasionally sexy, though my hair
is thin, on top, and broken spider-veins
tattoo my bulbous nose. My dark-eyed glare
has frightened strangers' children, which explains
the fact that I don't socialize, too much,
with parents. Not too heavy, though my gut
does stick out, some. My ass has fallen such
that it no longer calls to stags in rut.
I dress like James Arness, who played a creature
from outer space. My countenance reveals
a confluence of gene pools. My best feature,
however, is the light that face conceals.

Updated New Yorker Caption

No one knew you were a dog
Before those JPEGs on your blog.

Like Lurch without the tux
alot of doors I duck

Julie, that's very good.

Why not move on to describing people we see on the street?


He was never too rich or too slender
And had never been quite the right gender,
But gained the same stature
As Margaret Thatcher
By mixing himself in a blender.