Barber Shop

I’ve been to the barber

Beyond the cosmos where such thing exist

In white hanging light through Witch Hazel clouds

Where lidless cylinders hold scissors at ready.

And there is in the distance of mirrors within mirrors

And bruised and battered hardwood chairs,

Tiny tables with scattered tattered magazines

And comics for the kids

Who are lifted up screaming upon the strange saddle

That balances across the arms of the glistening porcelain chair.

The man is named Tony, they all are named Tony

Except for Blackie and oddly enough Clarence

And how is a Clarence in the tonsorial trade?

He flaps off a sheet with a shake and sweeps up the hair.

Or strops a straight razor on a strap beneath the arm.

He ties a tissue about the neck of the customer

He warms up a towel

He dusts off a shoulder

He sprinkles powder from the bristles of a feathery broom.

I’ve been to a barber

In some Biblical sense when men were still men

And Delilah’s were barred from the tools of the trade.

I witnessed the pig-snouted brushes drowning in cups

When not surfing the white caps across seas of chins.

I’ve passed by the poles of dying past history

Spinning encased in glass shells to signal the trade

Of multi-talented gents.

White stripe for the shaving and cutting of hair

Red stripe for bloodleaching, the surgery, dentistry there

And all of it gone to the prissiness of the salon.