Hemingway's Beard

Hemingway’s Beard
by Joel Mabus © 2015

You wake up one morning – and it’s just as you feared
You go to the mirror – and everything’s weird
There on your chin you see Hemingway’s beard
Damned old Hemingway’s beard
White as the Kilimanjaro’s snows
Up both of your cheeks and under your nose
You say in your best taciturn prose:
Damned old Hemingway’s beard

Now up late one night it’s no big surprise
Scrubbing your face to see Vonnegut’s eyes
Baggy and rheumy, more tired than wise
Damned old Vonnegut’s eyes
Too long at the task, too long at the page
Too weary to once again rattle the cage
You’ve done what it takes; now here is your wage:
Damned old Vonnegut’s eyes

Ah, when you were young you would look in the glass
See Brautigan’s mane and Kerouac’s brass
Now it’s Steinbeck’s old hair, and Ginsberg’s old ****
And grave apparitions arise from the past

Facing you now so deep in the mirror
A reflection of time, a pale souvenir
White as a ghost – from ear to ear
Damned old Hemingway’s beard
Bold pioneer, once vogue and now dead
With books in the library studied, not read
Haunting your vision and troubling your head
Damned old Hemingway’s beard

Don’t reach for a pill, grab a razor instead
And damn old Hemingway’s beard