I visited Versailles a few years ago expecting it to be glamorous and beautiful. By the third or fourth gold-and-crystal adorned room, I was actually repulsed by the gaudiness and decadence of it all... One thing I could relate to, however, was the commissioning of an artist to paint portraits of me.
I don't think there is anything more flattering than to be the subject of someone else's art, especially when you don't have to pay them to create it. One of my favorite memories from high school was the time a straight guy I liked wrote a song about me and put it on a CD he produced. (Long story short: he couldn't tell from my secret admirer valentine that I was a boy.)
Paul would be unbelievably embarrassed that I'm sharing this with you, so don't spill the beans. Oh, and his new group really is pretty good and lots of fun to see perform in a bar atmosphere...you should check them out if you get the chance.
Bob also wrote a few poems for/about/whatever me, which is the real motive for this post: to share one with you...
the stupid poem
this is, by far, the stupidest poem I've ever written
it's so clichéd, and it reeks of effort
the metaphors are mixed
& the emotions are fixed
& the rhyme scheme leaves nothing to be desired.
all I did was try to write a poem about you
with a stanza about your laughter
and a quip of two about your smile
with a beautiful opening line that drew the reader in
and got their attention.
but: the meter got redundant
and my thesaurus has only so many synonyms
for words like love & perfection and adorable
and treasure
the words got all jumbled up in my head
before I had a chance to write them down
and every memory sent me into a day dream
so I got distracted and couldn't think of a good closing
and it never seemed quite right to end w/ ellipsis dots...
...
...
