Skeletor.

When I was very, very, very young, my father used to try to make me laugh by pretending to be Skeletor from The Masters of the Universe. The film with poor old oiled-up Dolph Lundgren came out the same year I was born, and it must have made an impression on my Dad, at least. This poem about shaving one’s face explores some of the feelings of having a – in my case – needlessly masculine rite of passage into puberty.

Shaving Cream for Skeletor.

When I was a child, smooth-faced and carefree,
My father used to smear his face with shaving cream.
“Next time, He-Man!” he’d shout,
But unlike Skeletor, he fled, never to trouble Castle Grayskull again.

The sword he left me was blunt, and soft,
More use for cleaving imaginary orcs than splitting hairs.
So when the first wispy curlings of bum-fluff appeared on my lip,
My uncle, my mother’s brother, showed me the ways of razor and soap.

“Always down, never up”, he told me,
His pale Ginger complexion as sensitive as mine.
Not knowing that a time would come,
When I’d shave twice a day, down, then up, then extra close around the mouth.

“Just use soap, it’s cheap as chips” was his frugal advice,
His scorn for shaving gel a working-class invective.
I smile wryly as I look at my “Sensitive, Unscented” product,
And desperately delve into my flesh, scraping, always scraping.