Leather Jacket Poem by Rev. Dr. A. Jacob Hassler

adopting a nom de plume
is kinda like buying a new leather jacket
it's stiff and mildly uncomfortable at first and you're
not exactly sure it even looks right on you
but you wear it everywhere you go, and pretty soon
the stiffness has given way to creases and it softly
moulds to your shoulders perfectly
it stains deep with cigarette ash and pints of stout
it assumes your horrible personality and surrenders its new smell
for your own distinctive stink
it becomes a clone of you;
your mannequin's cocoon
you feel naked while it hangs
useless in your closet and you can’t at all recall
how you got along without it draping off of you