Last time
the beard was really in force and pure
Was on the
prophet on the mountain –
Ignoble
religious savages wear long beards today
The crazed
rabbis of
They wear
them for wrong reasons, believing misty mumbo-jumbo
When the
real meaning of beard is beard itself
Let the
beards grow: whole mountain horses on your chin
The fat
lakes from sips of beer drip
The wealthy
rounded ripe too-much-hair
The healthy
winter coat of old goat on the escarpments
Long beards,
wild beards, the full gathering face-full
The enormity
of the faces with beards
The warmth
and encompassing of these faces
How they
round us out, they make a solid human shape of abundance
I have never
met a man with a beard (not the god-mad kind)
Who was not
a likable man, who did not smile at the least thing
His hand on
my shoulder went never lightly
And neither
forcefully, there was not one single lie
in him –
I know this
of beards: more men should wear them
And the more
I think of good bearded fellas I’ve known
I mean the
fat-bearded unkempt camels, not the mirror trimming and five o’clocks
I mean the
lick-strands and crumb-hairs and jut-chins and Abe Lincolnesques
The burly
bear big fire-red or black opal pube-faced
The
coffee-colored hanging-garden-faced
The mild
dripping-poontang faced
And the
black-bear-who-walks-in-the-North-Woods-dripping
Honey-faced
and who smiles with white teeth and grace
With the
latest news, we have the grim beard
Stories from
the Taliban, strictest of Islamists, mad sectarians –
If the beard
is too short, they beat you, maybe they shoot you, maybe
they eat you
This is a
policy directly contradicted in the rules set down
Among men
with beards
Whose only
rule is that you cannot stroke another man’s beard
-Christopher
Ketcham