I wrote the poem below 9 years ago now, I think. I decided to post it because it inspired the title of this post. And because, well, why not.

The Feeling Man

It is time to contemplate the self.
Or rather my self which I wish to make you accept as yourself.
Let us begin by looking at our youth.
There we are, stuffed and labeled,
masturbating consistently but ineffectively
since we do not yet function correctly.
And now we remember our therapist saying,
“VOMIT! VOMIT!”
after we had swallowed his office phone. And we remember
the comfort there was in knowing those voices
— many of them attached to real people, many of whom
were surely sicker than we —
were with us forever, or at least until
our next bowel movement. What could be more pleasant
than thus to be first sated with and then emptied of the presence
of our inferiors?

And now we turn to a less private allusion
which some of you will know and others will not.
Those who do will be satisfied, those
who do not may be satisfied by knowing that those who do
could not be satisfied without you.
The allusion is to
* * * * * * * **
* BERELLIO *
* * * * * * * **
Look it up.

And on our return we sense an end approaching.
At bottom, we realize, the poet is a kind of priest
who prays to himself.
Perhaps we are so moved when the poem expands on
our tragically constantly constipated ex-girlfriend
who wanted to be a poet
that we too wish to be a poet.
This is as it should be. Though initially we may not know it,
we soon come to understand that genuinely generating verse is easy
provided that, like most of us, one tends to be
as full of oneself as
if one were to ram one’s own dick up one’s own ass.

If you found that somewhat entertaining, you can find more of my poetry online here.