The Thug Slug

This autumn finds me working on articles, grant applications and gallery applications. Despite this flurry of literary activity, I managed to carve out a small fragment of time to work on text and illustrations for my book, You Look Great! Making Invisible Disease Visible.  This most recently completed drawing, however, makes a feature of certain connective tissue disorders more svelte than scary.  The skin sign that this picture alludes to is a condition known as striae, or stretch marks.  These are stylized on the subject’s thighs in my drawing, transformed in to something like a decorative tattoo.
This illustration was an amalgam of two completely unrelated observations from nature.  The first one was a model that I drew from a life drawing class many years ago in, of all places, The People’s Republic of China.  The figure’s top half is transformed in to the head of a large black slug, the type which I saw on a trip to the mountains of Norway.  I named the picture “The Thug Slug,” after a comment from a friend when he saw my original picture of the enormous black slug I saw in Norway.  I am not certain if he was referring to the slug’s impressive size, or to the fact that it was an invasive species, but I liked the sound of the phrase “thug slug,” so it stuck.
The phrase “thug slug,” brought to mind a sound that I often here in the Southeastern United States.  It is a southern accent that makes a short “u” elongated and sounding almost Germanic, as if it should have an umlaut over it.  With this in mind, I wrote a rhyme which works exquisitely well if recited in this accent.  I think that I have exhausted the possibilities for words that rhyme with “slug.”
Thug Slug
Thug slug wants to give you a hug hug
and give the skin on your thighs a tug tug
so that they look chaffed upon a rug rug
or the tracks beneath a train that goes chug chug
Thug slug wants to crawl across your mug mug
like a slimy squirmy little bug bug
that squirts goo up your nose to make a plug plug
stuck up so tight and snug snug
that you can only loosen it up with a drug drug
You can make fun of me and act smug smug
But I’ll just laugh it off with a shrug shrug