Within, Without

I wrote this poem on Saturday as part of a challenge from Laura Shovan. If I wrote & read a poem about posing nude for art classes, she'd read her "Great Wall of Vagina" poem. If you weren't there, you missed the fun. The Poem is still pretty raw...

Within, Without

Not such rough stuff,
making a living
in the buff,standing, free
for all to see—
so much of me,
all of me.

For twenty minutes
at a time, I’m free
to live inside my mind,
to explore within
while without
all eyes are wandering
about
me, as if I were pure
landscape.

Until I get that dreaded itch
I need to scratch,
but what a bitch
because moving
is the one option
I don’t have.

So I dive inside
myself, again,
deeper still,
super zen,
until all I feel
is the silence
that blankets me
from within.

Soon enough,
a bell will ring,
or buzz or chirp
some tinny tune;
to let me know
my body
is now mine, again.

For just a few
& then I must
hustle back
to my post
to either find
my old position
or strike out
on a new pose.

What shall I do?
Perhaps a simple
contrapposto
will suffice,
something seated
would be nice,
or better yet,
let me just lie
down. Let
me rest,
and you can practice
foreshortening
while my ass is
getting numb
from the cheap,
old carpeting
on this wobbly platform.

I’ll do whatever,
just don’t ask
me to perform
some acrobatic,
bendy asana
to please your
hungry hands
full of coal, or brush,
or ink.

I hope I don’t stink.

So here, I bare
myself to you,
alien to shame,
able to stay true,
even willing
to occasionally torture
myself for truth,
for art, for beauty,
for goodness sake—
without me you’d all
be painting fruit!