The original idea for this poem came from an exchange of views about the use of the word 'bum' in another of my poems called 'Misophonia'.  The discussion caused me to cut the word and find another way to say what I originally said.  And there it might have ended, but for the fact that, every day I go to the local pool and complete my metric mile of 60 lengths of the pool and in changing in the communal changing room, I realised that I get to see a lot of bums!  I was also reminded of Bismark's comment that, "I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring."  To be frank, most men (going on my experience of changing rooms) are not improved by nakedness; most of us do not have the ability to remove clothing and become 'Nude' rather than just starkly naked!

     The following poem might have been kickstarted by my use of a vulgar word, but then I wondered, after seeing the bottom of the man in the poem, how many times and in what ways I could use the synonyms for rear-end in a piece of short writing.

     As you will see from the poem, the writing became something more and perhaps less than that.  Or just different.  Anyway, the poem is a response to general nakedness rather than a specific piece of flesh, though the detail is actual!

     I debated about this poem being something for general consumption, rather than a personal piece of writing attempting to write within verbal limits, but eventually, after a number of edits I felt that this was something which could benefit from wider circulation.

     In my blog Cardiff to Catalonia (Cardifftocatalonia.blogspot.com) I speculated about how much time I have spent in swimming pools and came to the conclusion that 2 seconds out of every minute of my life, waking and sleeping, is spent swimming!  This is a significant chunk, and it is therefore not surprising that a number of my poems are related in some way to the pool and my progress through it.  That being said, I aways hope that I manage to point to something beyond the everyday quality of the subject matter.

     I am sure that, even with the revisions that I have already made to the poem when it was first written, this is one of those pieces of writing which will nag at me and encourage further edits!

I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring. Otto von Bismarck
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/otto_von_bismarck_149423

I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring. Otto von Bismarck
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/otto_von_bismarck_149423

Changing Room Scenery

His face was nondescript,

his body masked inside unstructured clothes,

a short and stocky man.

I’m not much good at guessing years -

but well beyond the boyish stage.

His baggy shorts came off

and all his clothes,

to show a belly just a bit too big,

about to overhang.  And,

set against the front, the back:

a bubble butt, absurdly pert,

coquettish, almost feminine,

with faded, lightish-blue tattoos

cut in on either cheek.

His finest feature saved for

changing room inconsequence!

For uninvolved, indifferent male eyes!

But, all men look, you know.

We’re none of us so confident

comparisons can be ignored

without defensive thoughts.

How many squat thrusts

have to be endured

to mould such buns? 

And why?  For whom?

A tattooed arse! 

The remnant of a reckless youth?

Bravado?  Invitation?  Threat?

For some,

the body’s a construction site

where the unsettled architect

must form, and form again the

seagulls’ wings of mound and dip,

of blood and muscle, sinew, sweat -

to show that fullness and concavity

can say so little, and so much.

 

The notes I made after my morning swim today were of even more than usual banality, with my thoughts concentrating on the fact that the refill in my collapsable pen seemed disinclined to stay in place!  
     I commented on the fact that the swim app on my phone, which is linked to my smart watch, has decided recently to let me know how far I have swum on a daily, aggregated basis.  I noted how lucky I was to have a whole lane to myself when the rest of the swimming pool was a writhing, pullulating mass of bodies: I felt like a member of the IOC making my unfettered way to the London Olympics able to ignore the surrounding stationary traffic!
     While writing this rubbish I was, as is my want, sitting in the full sunshine.  Nothing in this country so clearly shows that you are not native than sitting in the sun when not actually sunbathing by the beach - and even then it is customary to lurk under a parasol!
     Today, like lots of near yesterdays, it has been very hot and I (remembering my First Aid in English) was perspiring freely.  It was at this point that I drew my index finger's crooked sweep and flung the accumulated sweat (sorry, perspiration: horses sweat; men perspire; women glow) on to the ground.  I hasten to add that I was sitting outside (remember the sun?) and alone, so offended nobody.
     I did notice the pattern that the perspiration made and that was the start of rather more productive notes and the genesis of the following poem.

This short poem is an account of a fairly ordinary incident, and it starts in a fairly neutral descriptive way.  From the third line of the poem and the mention of constellations, it attempts to progress into something which links to concepts of time and space.  The last verse with the combination of words like gone, nothing left and suggest, give a fairly negative feel to the poem and perhaps points towards a final eschatological ending.

Heat

An index finger’s crooked sweep

across sweat-wetted forehead

scooping drops to fling some

crazy constellations on the hot cement.

Where, even as you try

to find familiarity in the

momentary, aleatory

(so much could be just like The Plough)

systems boil away

into indifferent space.

Even the supernovae

of something more

than shallow blots,

fail to survive

beyond a blink.

And then they’re gone.

With nothing left

to suggest

that they were
ever there.