Maybe if I grow half a fringe
then I will no longer be on the fringe
but I like to be on the fringe
because from the fringe
you can see the whole view
Hovering on the fringe
of this scene, that scene,
you can watch the boys and girls, their fringes
flopping loose to their eyebrows
or quiffed
or jagged
or slanted
or spiked
or spliced
or tinted
or slicked back out of existence, exposing
their pale brains
and it’s just hair, just hair, but hair is the penultimate
sexual display. Music
is the ultimate.
If your music’s on the fringe
and you go to the fringe
festival, with your fringe
festival pass, and you drift around the fringes
of the cliques and scenes, with your fringe
just so, styled with the perfect
amount of wax
or quiffed
or jagged
or slanted
or spiked
or spliced
or tinted
or slicked back out of existence,
and you act like a fringe
artist, smashing and burning
or crumpling and sobbing
or standing aloof and cool—
then what? Will you always be
on the fringe? How effective
can you be, from the fringe?
How much influence
can you have? How much good
can you do? How much sex
— I mean love — can you
get? Give?
Maybe if I grow half a fringe
then I will no longer be on the fringe
but I like to be on the fringe
because from the fringe
you can see the whole view
(First published in that most awesome zine, Badger’s Dozen)