Pardon my polemics.
I have witnessed the power
of a tortuous striptease
Having lived in old, old countries
embroiled lands that shifting peoples
fought over for their own bit of space
In many of these countries the span
between your ankles and knees
was considered enticing, overly exciting
And in others women floated like specters
in silken smoke from head to toe
Still I think it no more haunting
than the New World girl
tugging down her miniskirt so her
upper thigh doesn’t show
It is just that there the control
was cast over more honestly
explicitly
hateful thoughts driven to their
logical conclusions
And I find everywhere
the same issues skirted
in the name of taste
hems only ever conceded
inch by inch
I have harnessed the power
of a sultry striptease
In a patch-by-patch unveiling
I too have aimed to please
I admit to have coveted secrets to
maintain a mystique
shutting myself in the shrouds
of confessionals, face behind gauze,
and ducking under parapets for a pause,
peeks sneaked from behind peepholes
But then I have also locked myself in
closets blind and impenetrable
--sometimes phobic sometimes not--
and there were many times I flitted unabashed
body bared to all elements
through the gaps in lurid fishnet diamonds
and two-piece string suits,
wanting forces bounced around free
on the ups and downs of others’ glances
(everyone on the street
or sometimes just the one)
I guess I have always been one
to play around on the axes
of private and public spin both
Choosing when to take my chances
And I have always drawn taboos
most personal as though lines in chalk
Thrown rocks and hopped
And all I've asked is that none crowd this game
with their own plots on my plots
and that sometimes the sidewalk scrawl
be left to wash clean off
to begin again the next morning
If you fear I lead you down total anarchies, remember,
even I have learned to see art in a true striptease
Polemical? I don't know. Many-faceted and complex? certainly. I have a feeling that the more I read this, the more I wil see in it.