Weight Poem by Kevin Patrick

Take the measuring tape
around my waist

or alternatively
put a gun against my face

Its the same thing...
just
more discreet

As my torturous tailor measures...
four nights of burgers plus fries
half a pound of poultry
in the finest batter from Aberdeen

two sumo wrestlers
(minus the wrestling)
and a five stone barbell
employed for shot putting.



Fortunately
My stomach is
not yet perched
to be the rim of the world
that Coloumbus had measured
before he set out on the Santa Maria

Its just a plush plump periodic table
of chocolate and biscuits, and
the occasional soda that
endeavour to make up
my uniform mass
into noble gases.

In light as the feathers
that make a six mile pillow
and weigh as the pages
in the encyclopaedia Britannica


But when I measure myself
its not in the overcoat of Decembers skies

the accretion of bog water,
condensation levee in an air conditioner

causing the crushing humidity
to derail your lips for fine conversation

and leave us on impulse
with temptations pipes leaking

As if we are flirting
with eyes semaphores waving


No,
I measure myself
to possibilities of dreams
and weigh my balance
to beauty called kindness