He took a pound of flesh
And laid it on the counter.
Unwrapping for the world,
He displayed it, like a stripped down
Corpse in never fading spotlights.

He slung his weight on the door frame,
Along with his hat and coat,
A cowboy of the latest frontier -
A reticulation of limbs on limbs
In the towering shadow of masculinity.

And that pound of flesh,
It eventually flashed with decay.
He burst and oozed
Like slime from a slug
From the tip of the weapon.

He'd finished. And rolled,
Neatly containing the crucial ingredient,
A cone of ecstasy
That took him from sweetest pink
To dark, dirty brown.

Irvine Welsh, Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer, was born today in 1958.

Hugh Hefner, American magazine publisher, died on this day in 2018.