[sral]

I grew a ‘tache for Movember, taking the time
to leave a mass at its centre with it shaved at the sides.
I used a razor my wife owned and carefully trimmed
as its blades imprecisely tore coarse hair from my skin.
I squared up the stygian stash in a hirsute homage I’d harvest
- a totalitarian tribute to my favourite comedy artists.
This one was for Charlie Chaplin and The Great Dictator’s daring
or Oliver Hardy of ‘Dick und Doof’ as they’d say in German.
Facial furniture’s not all they share, both had coronary strokes,
so I raise awareness with a razor where necessary in honour to them both.
The preposterous little postage stamp plaguing my philtrum
is but an opportunists ode to the great and the gifted.
It’s not a heil to the Hitler Youth’s regimented regime
so save your swastikas. Fresh-faced fascism was never my thing.
I steadied the scissors and snipped while sculpting my mouser
as many a million heads of hair lay at the foot of my shower.
In the struggle for power between the razors edge and mane I kept
a cut opened outward, leaving my pasty flesh stained with red.
I shaved the rest of it off, certain the two would have laughed
at the way bloodshed’s still associated with a toothbrush moustache.