The Playboy Rant

Rick's very good friend Keith sent him a subscription to Playboy as a Christmas gift.  The first issue arrived on Friday.  I was not pleased.  Buying Playboy for someone is kind of like buying them a puppy.  It's a lifestyle choice that one should only make for themselves.  I'm no prude but I've always felt that Playboy's attempt at legitimizing the objectification of women by couching it within bona fide interviews and articles makes it much more insidious than a magazine like Hustler, which is at least authentic about what it is and the message it's promoting. 

It just so happened that Friday was also poetry night at A-One with a theme of bitter love poetry.  I didn't have anything new to read and the feelings that the magazine evoked seemed like good motivation for a poem. 

I call it my Playboy Rant.

Stepping from the shower and standing before the evil mirror
I see an old woman standing there
A dismal array of sags and bags and bulges everywhere

Just yesterday I saw her as a well aged woman
whose smile radiated passion and love,
worn but sensuous, with plenty of life left to live and give

But now that the scantily clad lass in her provacative pose
with the Playboy title emblazoned overhead
has taken up the table top real estate where my card to him once set

"You're fabulous it declared - as a friend, lover, partner" I'd added
an effort to keep the romance and passion alive
but my effort feels feeble and fallacious peeking out from

beneath her sumptuos breasts that even I want to embrace
and that figure in the mirror has gone from vintage to
downright grotesque

causing a visceral repulsion that I can't help but think
would be shared by anyone whose memory holds both images
Who knew that perfection could be so depressing

or that a collection of interesting interviews
adulterated with the latest selection of
nubile salacious and seductive females

who in all their beauty are still unable to attain
the flawless perfection that every man feels is his equal
and with a little lengenthing of the torso here

some airbrushing to remove a blemish there
ostensibly intended to offer pleasure and gratification
has the opposite effect on me, evoking

pain and bitterness and overwhelming feelings of inferiority.
even with full knowledge that I'm falling prey
to our male dominated society's plan for me.


How's that for bitter?  : )