Before the Barber

A bewitching etching adorns the glass door.
My entry effaces the barber’s snooze.
Ineffable delight radiates from his mind.
He wraps my neck and shoulders
with a violet silk shawl.
Tethering my thoughts,
I sit at ease.
“Your scalp is parched in the heat of thought.
Beware of barrenness.”
His scissors reap fast.
I want trimming, not cropping.
But I am muted
by the incessant flow of his words.
“Men are unnatural in the natural world,”
he utters it like a philosopher.
His tongue moves like a train.
Each topic disappears behind the new one swiftly.
“People walk back to the Paleolithic Age.
Fanatics are let loose.
Who can teach them human values?”
Snip, snip, snip…
He doesn’t cut my hair the way I wish.
My head looks reduced
(from a pumpkin to a pomegranate).
He focuses more on his talk.
“Some wives are like sticks of dynamite,”
he chuckles.
“A lecherous woman tends to be perfidious.”
He owns a showroom of experiences.
“Never wear a rose already worn by someone.”
I can decipher his metaphorical language.
“Hemmed in by the tradition,
some teachers nip the new trends of their pupils.
Idiots!
Fashion is never stagnant.”
He is an untaught scholar.
“Time redraws the patterns of love,”
he says surveying my head.
“Only the Homosapiens lose their serenity,
creating complexity.”
He cleans my nape with a baby blue brush.
The verbal rain ceases.
But his words will grow in my marsupium.