‘Go forth and multiply' it's rumoured God said.
It's a pity nobody told the hairs on my head.
Or maybe they were told, and just were not listening
Now I'm stuck with a bonce' that's permanently glistening.
It shines with the lustre of white patent-leather.
I could be used as a lighthouse during inclement weather.
My comb is now redundant, all my follicles retired,
Shampoo's superfluous and no Brylcreem's required.
My scalp's a smooth surface for the sun's rays to smother,
My centre parting stretches from one ear to the other.
My forehead now finishes at the nape of me neck,
I wanted movie-star looks - but I didn't mean Shrek.
I'm freezing in winter, but sweat so in summer,
I could be full-time employment for your average plumber.
What girl would ever want me as her bridegroom?
With a head like two ears on a pale-pink balloon.
I'm so desperate for growth on my scalp's barren skin
I'm now envious of the hair on the wart on gran's chin.
Is it God's little joke, this lack of cranial-crop?
To give me hair in all orifices, but none up on top.
For years my 'barnet' has disappeared down the plughole
Now I swear those same hairs have reappeared in my lug-hole.
Hairs in your ears, I mean, why have we got 'em?
In my list of requirements, they're right at the bottom.
Mine are ugly and wiry, at their wax-coated peak
If you were to set one alight, it would burn for a week.
And what is the point of having hairs up your nose?
One or two is all right, but I've got septum-hedgerows.
I can grow hair with ease, between toe nail and chin,
But north of my eyebrows I've got nothing but skin.
I'd been off work with stress, you just don't feel too great
Having less hair than a cue-ball, when you're just 48.
Then I met a young tradesman, with even less hair on his dome,
So great was his loss, even his eyebrows had left home.
And I watched him at work, this young carpet-fitter,
He was hair-free, but carefree, not angry or bitter.
He was my equal in years, but my superior in mind,
Nature's snatch-of his-thatch had not his personality defined.
In truth his extreme baldness, he seemed to embrace
On the back of his bald head was tattooed a face.
I asked how he stayed happy with a thatch so reduced.
He said his baldness was his ally - it was chemically Induced.
He said that the loss of each hair on his head
Was the visible evidence, another rogue cell was dead.
And if baldness was the price he had to pay for survival
He said he paid it with pleasure, to halt the reaper's arrival.
Then cheerfully whistling, he carried on with his job.
Humbled, I crumbled, and gave out a sob.
Only the laying of carpet, could bring this man to his knees
I'd been broken by baldness, but he wouldn't kneel to disease.
They were really surprised, when I got to work the next day
'Thought you were off with depression till the end of May?*
I said: 'I was, but I met a man with a face on his head.
The face never spoke, it was just everything it said.
They thought I was mad, some sort of mental- defective
I wasn't mad, just glad, I'd found a thing called perspective.
That evening I knelt, on my new carpet’s soft pile
And prayed he'd be acquitted, in life's ultimate trial.
On my knees, just as he was, I said a short prayer
For that man, that showed this man, the unimportance of hair.
G. Cope, London EH.
Published in Daily Mail Oct 2016
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