SKIN POEMS

MPF 15 -- A LUNAR SKIN LOTION

I once used SPF 15,

but now I walk outside at dusk.

Light sensitive, I know that means

I need a dermatologist's

prescription for some MPF

to shield my skin against moonbeams.

A 15 should be high enough

if I don't saunter in the buff.

For years Ed Dewke's FlakeHQ.com provided information about psoriasis. I was its poet laureate from 2006 through 2010. Ed Dewke's intro, our interview, more than three dozen poems (including ekphrastics to paintings by Robert Chapla, Judy Molyneux, and Marco Rosales Shaw) are in the 50-page PDF clickable below. When Ed achieved a cure and went on to other endeavors, the flakehq website was discontinued. A friend archived it for a few years, but as of 2016 it seems to have disappeared. The 50-page PDF worked when I clicked 8/8/16.

Eucalyptus Envy, with a painting by Robert Chapla (Bolinas Eucalyptus), remains my favorite p-poem.

EUCALYPTUS ENVY

A eucalyptus

sheds its bark

the way we flakers

strip off skin.

It's no wonder

I feel akin

to this tree.

Had I its slender leaves,

I'd place them over me,

maybe quite gracefully

instead of hiding limbs

with slacks and sleeves.

If what grew under

my outer layer

were not inflamed

but palely fairer,

the way the eucalyptus is

when its thick skin disengages,

I'd flash a shin

now and then.