Ballad of the Electric Beard Trimmer

This is the original draft of the poem, done in a punchy, dramatic slam poetry style. The final draft will not stay in this genre. This version is playful, but… blunt? Not really insightful about a point of view. The poem ends with an admonition of "care instead of clumsy". I wish the draft actually did that. This one feels all over the place.

Misleading instructions for the electric beard trimmer

Meant for use with stone whiskers, in hopes of mountain-building.

Build something else, that might regrow.

Build cawing bird with feathers trailed, or pile of leaves cracking underfoot. Aloe uneven jaw.

Trim better. Spray herbicide. Learn horticulture. Become a florist. Plant the beard in dirt. No one will recognize the trimmed face.

Scratch dirty screen until light shines again.

Scatter cereal all over kitchen when  toes

collide with cabinet. Buy milk with pocket change. Follow coupon on the dotted line. Don’t say anything when the cashier offers a choice of bags. Hum in reply.

Sculpt trimmer into a spoon.

For a longer beard, consider lawnmower. Grate a block of cheese.

For a shorter beard, sharpen one thousand pencils. Whittle wood into smoother shape. Collect curled shavings. Stack a snowman from wood chips. Give the snowman a beard. Trim that beard.

Build a mountain. Follow the stone whiskers down drainpipe.

Steady breathing.

And still, care instead of clumsy.

Don’t clog the drain. Charge before use.

I like blackout poetry as a brainstorming tool, and I've used it before. Erasing can confirm imagery that stands out to me, small details. I can think of a song by reverting it to a poem. The poem becomes a scrapbook, cuts out and glues back together onto a new page. I like this word here, that syntax of a sentence there, the pun in the far corner. Then I can turn back to my own draft and try to do that myself.

Erasure of John Mayer's "Your Body Is A Wonderland" while shaving

discovering 

Your skin

One pair

Your body is 

hair falls in your face

when

your head hit the bed

my hand

You 

break

bound to

my hands

body

Damn, baby

You frustrate me

it hurts

body i wonder

I'll never speak again

I'll use my hands

The last, most complete draft takes inspiration from some of Stephen Sondheim's musical theatre songs: multi-line rhymes like Company's "Ladies Who Lunch" and “Side by Side”, or Sweeney Todd’s “A Little Priest” (especially appropriate with a beard trimmer); and iterative structure like Sunday in the Park with George's "Finishing The Hat". Sondheim used these techniques in many songs and is an illustrative example, but this craft draft is not especially about Sondheim or inspired by Assassins, despite the name. “Serious poets make very bad lyric writers,” indeed. Funny enough that this talk also mentions a practical use of a rhyming dictionary. In addition to each of those musicals' albums, I also listened to some of the birthday concerts, which are less helpful for storytelling but useful for getting to listen to a lot of different Sondheim at a time.

In this last version, the poem is also from a unique character perspective: the inanimate object itself. It has an emotion, wistful resentment. What happens when a beard trimmer doesn't know what to do anymore? This makes it a good fit for musical theatre, which as a format relies on emotional character soliloquy in song form. But I did not choose a verse-refrain structure that I might have if I chose to write a song from the start. Keeping it a poem allows some flexibility. I dislike rhyming as a convention, rhyming because you think you have to instead of because it supports the poem. You can certainly tell that I like musical theatre from this type of revision, but I don't write musical theatre.

This draft takes imagery like falling and skin from the erasure. It is more focused than the original draft, more precise to the feeling.

The other lives this trimmer imagines they could have had are fanciful but not totally bizarre. Look for how many are also electric or have a fan-like physical structure like a trimmer’s blades, where the first draft was a little too abstract. I futzed a lot with the enjambment and stanzas here to make ideas and rhymes fit together. Except when I wanted to extend a rhyme. This draft was mostly finalized in July 2026 and actually finalized in September 2026.

I’ll keep you tidy but make a mess forwards.

And sides.

I’m not the type to press. Or hack.

I glide.

The little distance I glide.

You know, I could have been a guitar.

A car.

Laptop computer.

Motor scooter.

Blender. Stove. Freezer. Fridge.

TV. Tattoo gun with a smidge.

Sewing machine. Power plant.

Now

I am scant

but a trimmer.

Tossed in the back of a drawer

in the bathroom. Drowned in the sink.

Might as well be a lake.

A mountain of hair out of a molehill.

A mountain of leaves and a rake.

Clippings from paper and ink,

Turning brown to pink, curly to straight,

rough to smooth, only leaving clean and flak,

All give, no take.

All forwards. And sides. Not back.

Carding through and chopping a chore

Sorting mess from maw

wheat from chaff, always staying close,

humming muter along each ridge.

Along each scar.

Some I give. Some I hide.

Could have, would have, should have, 

instead, I glide.

Always staying close.

I’m not talkative, although I’ve tried.

Falling from face to shirt to pant

with a swipe too close, a mistake.

I'll fix it somehow.

Even still, I keep going.

Forwards. And sides.

Not back.

If you liked this craft draft, you might also like my short story in the style of Hunter S. Thompson or my other craft draft based on song lyrics.