By Robin Sharpe
KALAYAAN PUBLICATIONS 1992

P I P S

POLITICALLY INCORRECT POEMS & SONGS

With a little help from my friends:

Jack Valiant for editorial inspiration
and also Murray Acton & David Forster

Politically Incorrect Poems & Songs

written by Robin Sharpe
© 1992 by Robin Sharpe

originally published by
KALAYAAN PUBLICATIONS
#2-2604 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver,
British Columbia,
Canada
V6K 1P7

Cover design by the author

Back Cover photo by Don. J. Profili

COUNTERING CORRECTNESS

I try to say what I think, and also what I think should be said. It is very difficult. The medium and context always mould and contain thoughts and offer tempting diversions. Poems allow me to say things which might be impossible otherwise in a world where parties and interest groups tend to monopolize public expression.

It was a politician, one of the few I've respected, who first enlightened me about the question of correctness. Colin Cameron was an ex coal miner who represented Nanaimo in Parliament for the CCF and later the NDP. He was impressive in voice and bearing, a sturdy gruff-faced, barrel-chested man with wavy white hair pushed back. I met him as a teenager campaigning for him in the 1952 provincial election in Victoria where he was running following a federal defeat. At a meeting in the old CCF hall on Douglas Street, he was questioned from the floor about the wisdom of an unpopular position he'd taken on a matter before Parliament. I never knew the issue or what he had said, but I do remember his reply. He agreed his position hadn't helped the party and might have hurt him personally, and that he was not even certain himself about its correctness. But, he went on. "if I, as a Member of Parliament publicly state what I have said, then any other Canadian is more at liberty to say the same thing, or anything equally different."

In this era of one-sided political propaganda, where answers are apparently known, I believe there is something to be said for saying some things -- a little word butchery that may help broaden other's range of expression.

Correctness has always been around, infecting idealistic youth and oppressing them and others. A large part of the world has recently been liberated from a perverted Marxist correctness. The current political correctness claims some noble goals for itself, gender/ race/ sexual orientation equality. But does it actually serve these ends? Correctness assumes a wrong and a right. It is bureaucratic in that it's based on compliance (to some standard) rather than creativity or positive attributes (in excess of some standard). The widespread devotion to correctness is a sign of intellectual decay.

Thinking about equality, it is maybe more than ironic, perhaps curious, that more than a decade of vocal, persistent, and legislative striving for equality has coincided with the greatest growth in inequality seen in over sixty years. We've been so concerned about gender/race/sexual orientation equality that we've almost forgotten about fundamental economic equality. This may be rather convenient for those who play out their grand soap opera in the business pages. The poor are getting poorer and more numerous, and the rich, a hell of a lot richer. Few seem to care if we can marginally close the gap between men and women, or whites and visible minorities, and hence claim 'progress'. The wrongs of sexism and racism are becoming red herrings; Political Correctness is a most effective divide and conquer technique for the economic elite, and is generously supported by their spokesmedia. I can't wait to be oppressed by rich lesbians of colour! In the meantime we are guiltily entertained by a parade of 'victims'.

More worrisome yet is that the struggle of the P.C.s is tending to become institutionalized. Organizations with worthy intents and often useful functions are proliferating. Many receive government funding which taints their legitimacy. All organizations, especially those requiring outside funding have, despite claims to the contrary, an interest in the status quo. Problem solving systems thrive on failure.

The P.C. movement may find it accomplishes no more than what seventy years of marxist-leninist indoctrination did in the U.S.S.R. It is certainly ironic that just as the former Soviets are adopting some of the worst aspects of our economic system, we are adopting some of the worst aspects of their discredited political system.

We are in danger of entering into a protracted, self-generated confrontation, a domestic Cold War of sorts. Government funding with spinoffs for its bureaucrats may be used to manage and perpetuate the confrontation. Opportunities are there, in education for example. Do we want antisexist/ antiracist/ antihomophobic proselytizing placed alongside antidrug/ antitobacco/ antidrinking and driving propaganda? Much of this kids have good reason to question even if they're never exposed to sophisticated counter arguments. Any tactic which tends towards permanent confrontation should at some appropriate point be abandoned because that cannot be what we want as a long term situation.

For gays (as we've agreed to be labelled) militancy, essential at times, becomes counterproductive at others. And I have not been active when I should have been. The passage of more laws outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation becomes as meaningless as hunting geriatric Nazi war criminals in the 1990 s. Perceived pettiness; Bill 101 in Quebec for example, breeds backlash. Demands for the legal recognition of same sex liaisons will do the same. The problem for gay communities is not to eliminate the still significant vestiges of legal discrimination, but to gain acceptance as real men and women.

The general irrelevancy of sexual orientation should be the goal and the demise of the Gay movement. Who cares? We might consider what the American feminist playwright, Kate Bronstien said (Quoted in the Globe & Mail, August 22, 1992) "I would love for my work to be totally meaninless." Liberation is only a transitional goal. Beyond that, perhaps we should strive for something like the pre-repression situations I have glimpsed in small town Philippines, where gays are open but are not labelled and are sexually integrated into the larger community. I don't want my figurative or my biological grandchildren marching in any Gay Pride parades. I want acceptance, a live and let live situation, which may not be without some give and take. I don't want tolerance based on some recourse that I or my friends might take. I want society, not The System on my side.

We should counter correctness because it is an attempt to impose a constitution on our personal and social lives (Canadians take note). It is another inhibiting self discipline which interferes with the free association we need, to know each other as fellow humans. It teaches us to deal with people as representatives of categories, not as individuals, or as 'abuser' and 'victim' in some judicial/bureaucratic setting.

We should counter correctness because like the white man it speaks with a forked tongue, perpetuating lies and contaminating the basic truths it tries to bed with.

We should counter correctness because it damages the cause of equality.

We should especially counter correctness where it tends towards moral violence.

People should be able to do and say as they want as far as possible, and to do it with the fullest understanding of their options. Children should be taught to swear and masturbate at an early age so that they may meaningfully choose not to, if they so wish. Most, probably wouldn't, but think of the acquired innocence of those who did. That's my kind of correctness.

CONTENTS

Boyhood Dreams
California
The Apprentice
On the Wall
All The Lonely People
P.W.K.
The Canadian
Who?
Almost as Lonely as God
Straight and Stoned
Singles and Smugglies
Moderation
Concerning Cocaine
Dangerous Thoughts
Where Are Your Wheels?
Share the Bus
Antiantiracism
Moses and Hitler
Victims
Frogs must Breed .... or Die
Warality Two
Four Boys Pissing
God's Plan
Homophobic Youth
East End Culture
Octopussy East
Young White Males
Lone Slam Dancer
Not Unnaturally
White Boys
Lonely White Girl
Sweet Sixteen
Sex Object Nine
Sex Object Ten
Woman of Colour
Propornition
Good Old Danish
I See Sadie
Blood's a Bloody Bother
The Joy of Pain Two
Luxury Offends Me
We Don't Need
Poets' Corner
Glib and Pale
Questions
Doddles
Corrupting a Child
The Cross
Emilio's Tale
Dendrophilia

BOYHOOD DREAMS

I wanted to be a designer/ engineer/ architect
I saw the past in terms of monuments
I wanted to create bigger better ones
messages to the future proclaiming my genius

.... That's what progress was all about

CALIFORNIA

I wanted to see England and Egypt
and Manhattan's temple dwarfing spires
but more the Bridges by the Bay
the Golden Gate
The state with palms for tidy avenues
Gasoline promotion posters
etched images in my mind
California scenes and scenery
the Monterrey coast and redwood glens
In nineteen thirty eight we moved
to where California was the other place
we might have gone
I tried to love my inferior land
but lusting after advertised goods
not sold in Canada
I became a believer
in things I could not have

THE APPRENTICE

I realized as I tried to pry
the ornate varnished moulding
from the wide stairway
of the old Shaughnessy mansion
that the carpenters apprentice
was plainly not well trained
My mind had already designed
the place the moulding would go
in our new plans
and I had no more than
two inches of its length to spare
The apprentice had used far too many nails
and hadn't taken the pain
to check the end's diagonal grain
and split it
and cured his problem
with several smaller nails
countersunk and plugged with putty
And it
over eighty years later becomes my problem
and being perhaps no more careful than him
I allow the last foot to splinter
I pull the nails through
leaving the old stained plugs intact
and mend the splintery wood with glue and binding tape
to make it as good as old
The carpenters apprentice
did he become a journeyman?
or bleed upon the Great War's killing fields?
might he have been kin or ken
of my grandparent's generation here?
Or some kid who quit when
the men laboured him about his labour?
"Fuck you assholes
I'll use as many nails as I like
I wanna be part of history
My history"
Did he clean his fingernails?
Did he like incorrect jokes?
Was he good looking?
Would fags and chicks agree?
But whatever whatever whatever
he shares something with me

ON THE WALL

White, white!
I'll have you know
it's only right
white as snow
Off white?
Off white's a blight
pollution to the sight
Why any so and so
who's so trite
to off her white
I'll blow
her head off and fight
to show her the light
decoratively right
and correctly so
Bright pure white's
the way to go

ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE

All the lonely people
living inside themselves
don't know how lonely others are
All the lonely people
not giving of themselves
not knowing how
or how lonely others are
Seeing another known
stepping from the curb
as WAIT winks to WALK
nodding
but not saying a word
pretending to some busy-ness
they must be tending
All the lonely people
pretending that they're not
and not knowing
how lonely others are

P.W.K.

How boring life would be
if life were fair
....but nice
no strife
no favoured underdog
or conventionality
or unwanted pain
But life's certainly not fair
from any ideological direction
But having friends who care
and are there
when you need affection
is a gain
Life is being there
love suffering and strife
....and dying is part of the action

THE CANADIAN

A truck rumbles by
squashing grey snow towards the curb
A minute later three cars in convoy pass
and then a lonely bus comes the other way
He stamps his numbing feet
and thinks of Florida
waiting for the WALK sign
He didn't know it would be so long
he should have put his rubbers on
He doesn't think to disobey the WAIT
He doesn't know to push the button
He's just another Canadian
awaiting his fate

WHO?

Being what you want to be
may be rather hard to do
but how much harder is it to be
the who not what you want to be
the you that's personality
And just suppose that somehow
you chance to be
who you wanted to
would you be the who
you be right now?

ALMOST AS LONELY AS GOD

You have your own visions
and must make decisions
And travel a path never trod
It won't be a short way
but it'll be your way
And you'll run a lot less than you plod
And your heart will reveal
that sometimes you feel
Almost as lonely as God
You'll be kept waiting
it will be frustrating
And nobody will applaud
You try to be true
to what's really you
And maybe you're a little bit odd
But part of the appeal
that makes things real
Is you're almost as lonely as God

STRAIGHT AND STONED

Your straight self and your stoned self
should be friends
should be friends
It can't just be something that depends
that depends
They should trust each other
and love one another
and pay each other dividends
dividends
Your straight self and your stoned self
should consult
should consult
with mutual respect the result
the result
Your get different points of view
and both of them are you
and neither should ever be at fault
be at fault
Your straight self and your stoned self
should agree
should agree
that both yourselves are actually the "me"
the "me"
and together that you form
something better than the norm
than you are individually
individually

SINGLES AND SMUGGLIES

Singles for the school kids
who can't afford 'em by the pack
Smugglies for the junkies
who can make their money back
Praises for the Paki
who runs the corner store
Hosannas for the Mohawks
who smuggle in more
A finger for the franchises
7-Eleven morality
Fuckyous to the feds
and all they're telling me
Singles for us chippers
our habits to control
Smugglies for pensioners
and those living on the dole

MODERATION

The alcoholic should strive
for an equilibrium
that keeps him alive
and need it be said
inebriated
but stop when he's the man
he wants to be
when booze is freedom
not slavery

CONCERNING COCAINE

Cocaine cocaine cocaine cocaine
COCAINE
What's the matter with people
ain't they got no brains?
Why do they have to bang it
fucking up their veins?
Why can't they just be satisfied
smoking crack cocaine?

DANGEROUS THOUGHTS

Adolescent boy
or old enough to think such things
dreams of frolicking
with laughing teasing girls his age
and cornering one alone at last
with mystery in her eyes
they touch each other
Rising incarnate behind unseen
the devouring bitch goddess queen
stretches out her immense labia
erect and quivering
her eager slimy clitoris probes
her orifice distends becoming cavernous
ravenous ringed with fangs
ready to clasp
boy's mind and body
in their poisonous grasp
But the bitch goddess
leaves
leaving one to wonder
perhaps she prefers the boy
to entrap himself
with his innocent fantasy

WHERE ARE YOUR WHEELS?

Back in the fifties
there were no computers
white boys had cars
and Italians rode scooters
Kids didn't drop out
they just couldn't wait
to get a good job
at the union rate

[Chorus]

Working class white boy
where are your wheels?
Are you a generation late
for automobiles?

Were the good jobs exported
with all them trade deals?
Working class white boy
how does it feel?

Back in the sixties
before cellular phones
white boys smoked grass
and explored the unknowns

Kids got themselves clobbered
there were lies to believe in
but they wanted to know why
not just to get even

Chorus

Back in the seventies
ME was the big person
White boys worked hard
but things started to worsen

Kids got really involved
resolved and uptight
and pushed people to trade
freedom for rights

Chorus

Then in the eighties
we jogged for our health
worshipped free markets
but didn't find wealth

Kids learnt the rules
internalized the sins
of the New Morality
where the victim wins

Chorus

Now in the nineties
we eat natchos and sushi
and white boys just talking
have to be choosey

And try buying a house
on the new working class wage
fondling a computer
in this Information Age

Chorus

SHARE THE BUS

Working class white boys
native born sons
dark turbanned merchants
speaking alien tongues
aboriginal losers
urban Indians
great grandsons of coolies
who've come up the rungs
SHARE THE BUS
With old Jewish ladies
who've just cashed their cheques
blond Mennonite schoolgirls
ignorant of sex
immaculate Japanese
junior execs
and foreigners from
the State of Quebec
I love my race\ my features\ my kind
I try but I can't really be colourblind

ANTIANTIRACISM

If racism's seen as evil
it will survive and thrive
empowered by moral damnation
embellished with prophets and martyrs
incarnated into a mystical force
to be crusaded against
with half truths and noble lies
enlisting the resources of the state
sustaining bureaucratic industries
with vested interests in failure
Wars not won need more
more to be done and spent
to demonstrate intent
multi-million media messages
proof of corporate social concern
tax deductable in turn
to emphasize the issue
fuelling it
keeping it alive to
to survive as Evil
But as something stupid and absurd
ridiculous
racism will die
with no heroics class or audience
until being tolerant no more
we just don't care
Who is that funny looking man with the funny face?
simply unaware of race
And some people are god damned fucking assholes
and you don't have to hold your tongue
because the fucking asshole ain't like you

MOSES AND HITLER

Moses was a prophet
Moses was a Jew of God's Holy Nation
God spoke to Moses
Moses spoke to Pharaoh
and led the chosen people into the wilderness
towards a promised lebensraum
unfortunately occupied by others
Prompted by God
Moses led his nation on holy holocausts
utterly destroying whole populations
not forgetting the little ones
Ask any Medianite
who only survive in history books and bibles
You do believe the Bible
Deuteronomously?
Moses spoke with God
and gave us His Commandments
and his own prediudices
racism
and moral violence
We live his legacy
you and me
and of course Them
the non-we
Who was this guy Jesus anyway?
HA!
Can you believe Jesus
Do you believe in Jesus?
Do you believe in forgiveness?
For Moses and Hitler too?

VICTIMS

Victims must cure themselves
and no longer be
victims of the therapists
and newspeak theory
victims of the media's
cute humanity
victims of society's
pump primed morality
Victims must cure themselves
and be
masters of their lives
and petty destiny
not feed the tyranny
the revenge therapy
of the Victimocracy
persecuting the likes
if not you then me
Victims must cure themselves
and decide
I am a person
I have pride
I am a person
I have will
I can choose
to love or kill
I am a person
that person's me
I have a vision
of what to be

FROGS MUST BREED .... OR DIE

Frogs must breed ... or die
fucking to survive
like the rest of us
It's not hard to figure why
those froggies cannot thrive
by inviting some toads by
to engage in linguilingus
Frogs must breed their kind
there ain't no other cure
like for all of us
If they don't they'll find
there's fewer an' fewer
of the purlaine pure
maybe extinguished
Frogs must breed ... or die
fucking to survive
like everybody

WARALITY TWO

If seven Croats and seven Serbs
boys around sixteen
were given the alternatives
and had to choose between
sucking on each others' dicks
or duelling M-16s
It would depend upon their culture
if you know just what I mean

FOUR BOYS PISSING

Four boys pissing
extinguish the eternal flame
that commemorates
an unknown soldier slain
in some war
where they all died in vain
Four boys pissing
who'd also do the same
Men killing men
Now that's the game!

GOD'S PLAN

Young boys are just so sexy
innocent and All
A dozen men are tempted
for each who heeds the call
The fact has long perplexed me
why it's really so
that men are so attracted
even though they know
that Young boys
are a no no no
Many boys are homeless
and survive by lies and crime
Many boys are fucked up
tortured in their minds
Many boys need touching
hands on their body
Many boys need loving
an adult's loyalty
Many boys need nurture
they cannot find out There
Many boys need guidance
Many just need care
Many men are lonely
severed from destiny
unsure a future's there
for any progeny
Many men have wisdom
they'd delight to share
Many men need meaning
Many need to care
God made boys so sexy
delightful to eye and mind
so that when boys need sustenance
they've a better chance to find
a man to bind to their prosperity
God made men so tempted
for nurture not for sin
and demands the highest standards
in words and acts from men
especially when His Plan
is cemented with semen

HOMOPHOBIC YOUTH

Homophobic youth
isn't it the truth
that if I kiss
your fuzz topped lips
or pat your narrow bum
and you don't resist
you will become
a queer like me?
Oh dear! lets see
Oh sweet homophobic youth
if I could queer you with a kiss
stolen in some stone assisted bliss
I should and would be remiss
to spurn your lips
or anatomy below your hips
your willingness the proof
sweet homophobic youth
Your fears and my fantasy
a fun filled shared reality
But homophobic youth
you want to be a man
you're not sure that you can
with all your fears and phobias
hopes for hetero utopias
Wait! don't be aloof
sweet homophobic youth
I've got a plan
you may just like green eggs and ham

EAST END CULTURE

East end culture
skid road glitz
I'll tell you man
it's the shits
You can have East Van
and its Carnegie
and Oppenheimer
wine or Sterno
(dating me)
temperance
I dunno
it's skitz
East End mystified
my how they've tried
media and street workers
confide their wisdom
to the westside world
appropriately surprised
and nimbyized
Government grants
advance the verse and rhyme
of those accursed
by family drugs or crime
or race
Face it
pathos and bacchanal
it's time
to burn the Firehall down
the theatre's outside
absurdly so

OCTOPUSSY EAST

Gather 'round all ye abused
oppressed and victimized
There's an open door
at our bookstore
if you're left-green osterized
We're for alternative culture
supporting the Commercial Drive scene
We pioneer the feminist frontier
where liberation's turnin' mean
We're your new establishment
Aren't you keen?
In our bookstore we're circumspect
and more customer dear
We reject anything suspect
so do not fear getting confused
intellectually abused
by selecting works of ideologically
incorrect jerks
like...Me

YOUNG WHITE MALES

Young white males
young white males
young white males
sweating
moshing
gentle violence
plunging into the moshing crowd as water
a few skanking strides on stage
a white cakewalk
a dive into the recepting crowd
of young white males
Young white males
their energy the envy
of would be commissars of causes
all the anti-isms that divide the people
Young white males
sweating and slamming
getting goodly bumped and bruised
and wanting more
Young white males
initiating themselves
becoming young white men
The band is humbly honoured
and the Xaxlipguitarist smiles

LONE SLAM DANCER

The lone slam dancer
has the facts
and interacts
and bumps against the walls and bodies
of reality
The lone slam dancer
feels the beat
adds his heat
to the pit before the stage
where no one plays
The lone slam dancer
calls the tune
skanks for the moon
his rhythm has no melody
he's existing universally

NOT UNNATURALLY

Actually we're not
formally taught
not to do it
We just don't do it
naturally
You see?
WE JUST DON'T DO IT NATURALLY
It's not the thought
of getting caught
that's stopping us
from doing it
We just don't do it
naturally
Do we?
WE JUST DON'T DO IT NATURALLY
A no no is a not
one that binds you too
and approaching puberty
who reminds you
what can be bought
with your liberty
So you just don't do it
naturally
Like me.
WE JUST DON'T DO IT NATURALLY

WHITE BOYS

(apologies to HAIR)

White boys for breakfast
White boys for lunch
White boys for dinner
Munch munch munch
Their flesh is so tender
The texture's a delight
Their bones are delicious
And the sauce is just right
White boys in the morning
White boys afternoon
White boys in the evening
They come again soon

LONELY WHITE GIRL

I'm just a lonely white girl
from the outskirts
Mama's dresses and high heeled shoes
What can I say?
A suburb out in Surrey
where my parents worry
two transit zones away
from the Denman Station
I'm just a lonely white girl
from the outskirts
exploring the outskirts of my mind
(I don't know what I'll find)
Looking for a good time
looking for company
looking for a black man
who'll be good to me

SWEET SIXTEEN

My boy friend just turned twenty
he's grown in every way
We have the greatest conversations
he has lots to say
He's building up a hunky bod
his backgammon's the best yet
I love him every dearly
but with one regret
For though he's better than he's ever been
he ain't no longer Sweet Sixteen

SEX OBJECT NINE

A healthy lusty passion
for the boy in the bar you take home
grows more complex
We have names and are real
We have anecdotes and histories
and suffer minor traumas
Love tresspasses beyond the groin
caring
and somewhere along the perverse paths
and trials of time
the incest tabu takes over
and he is your son

SEX OBJECT TEN

Macho boy tough and streetwise
you don't take no shit
I bet your cock is just my size
So let's get on with it
I like your insolent attitude
I'm temporarily struck
and if my money helps your mood
come home with me and fuck

WOMAN OF COLOUR

I've got the hots for a woman of colour
the smell of her twat gets me hard
but I'm just a sort of weak-willed white feller
so I'll fantasize and send her a card
with some old fashioned red roses
and pics of me in nude poses
and my sincerest P. C. regards

PROPORNITION

To be or not to be?
or is it a question of how much?
Without any pornography or such
there'd be some preety nerdy kids out there
confused because they're growing hair
and not knowing what or where
and scared to even touch
Now thinking of kids's mental health
we should be placing porn on the bottom shelf
within the toddler's reach
generating more dollar wealth
and save us having to teach
But then
you wouldn't want them bored with S & M
before they've reached the age of ten
or scored
Let's do it right!
In this age of market driven forces
and business minded courses
one has to insist
that our best resources
are economists
And their jists are all the same:
Interfering with the market is to blame
Now the demand curve of children
for kiddieporn for kids
interacts with pedophiles'
and their assorted ids
And surveys are essential
for pornography's potential
to best its bottom line and keep it off the skids"
So far fine
However
I can see
that a large bureacracy
employing mainly me and my friends
could best oversee the dividends
of ending the problems of pornography

GOOD OLD DANISH

Let's raise a stink
let's raise a storm
here's to good old Danish
kiddieporn
collectors' items now
and quite well worn
Lars was just eleven
and Christopher was eight
but Max was over twelve
and could ejaculate
Oh life was rich
and less forlorn
with that good old Danish
of kiddieporn
collectors' items now
and quite well worn
The boys are posing coyly
looking cute and sweet
and certainly more willing
than those out on the street
Us luckless queers
oh how we mourn
those golden years
of kiddieporn
collector's items now
and quite well worn
Now Lars is over thirty
and Cristopher's overweight
and Max is into marriage
and being super straight

I SEE SADIE

Women put me down
move in on my job
crumple up my centrefolds
make me out a slob
But when I go home
I'm not alone
Daddy O Video
close the blind
open my fly and rewind
I see Sadie spanked again...
Rewind
I see Sadie spanked again...
Rewind
I see Sadie spanked again...

BLOOD'S A BLOODY BOTHER

The buckles are so cumbersome
on some torture toys
Electrodes are dangerous
and whips make too much noise
It's so hard to subject yourself
to the torture of your choice
And the blood's a bloody bother
you have to sponge it or it stains
but there ain't much
I can do as such
tied up in these chains
Good tops are getting hard to find
'specially 'mong the younger boys
Most are rather skitterish
about caterin' to my joys
I have to shout instructions
I might just lose my voice
And the blood's a bloody bother
you have to sponge it or it stains
but there ain't much
I can do as such
tied up in these chains

THE JOY OF PAIN TWO

Whip me till I whimper
and carefully time your strokes
to match my body's writhing
and don't make silly jokes
....They just spoil my fun
Get me loudly howling
and bleeding a little bit
Whip me till I'm a puppy
and can't take more of it
....and make sure that I come

LUXURY OFFENDS ME

Luxury offends me
tho I am decadent
I satisfy my vices
with money frug'ly spent
Wealth's an ugly burden
that turns people into pricks
Taxes are far too low
for the very rich
Luxury offends me
I never go first class
five star service
grates my ass

WE DON'T NEED

We don't need
a system of greed
to feed house and entertain us all
Or parties Green
overly keen
to wean us from plastic and recycle
Economies should produce
things for ordinary use
and not confuse wealth with the commonwealth
We solve the mess
by using less
the test's to live simple

POETS' CORNER

Poetry's
verbal holography
conceived instantly
but unwrit
it flits
like a lost photo opportunity

* * *

A would be poet was overawed
he knew his work was badly flawed
for he was guilty of the crime
of writing verses all in rhyme

* * *

Humility's a calculating pose
pretending to be
some unseen desert blooming rose
ergo obscene
a rationalized location
where my ego's been

* * *

Pretty paths petal strewn
have led more than one poet to ruin

* * *

Mr. Crad Kilodney
did not pay his dues
Consequently
his submissions were refused unread
so said Sol Soleki
rejecting the writer
not the muse

* * *

Poets die at twenty five
most youths around nineteen
and rare the man that's still alive
who through our prisons been

GLIB AND PALE

(March 24, '92)
Valerie Alia was assaulted by a verb
spoken in breezy camaraderie
Peeling onion layers had thinned her skin
the word became discriminatin'
No empathy you see
Alia retaliated like a nerd
reacting with swift discourtesy
from knowing covert agendas
She understood the unintended
No triviality you see
(May 10,'92)
Acholi Apiyo Oloya Ugandan
Alas he refused the bladder skin of wine
and found he was the black behind
an amorphously reduced being
colour coded eons away from the Huxtables
But he found his pride washing windows in Kingston
and eating porridge
(June 27,'92)
Little Terrence Corcoran
popped his little cork again
with a manifesto for
the sovereign global consumer
"Consumers of the world unite"
lose a little change you might
Prices are the only test
of the national interest

QUESTIONS

How many Canadian college instructors
were Soviet political commissars
in their previous incarnations?

* * *

How many thighs of Canadian teenagers
properly butchered and aged
would it take to make up
the protein deficiency
of child rug weavers in Afghanistan?

* * *

Did Eskimo domed snow homes
precede Roman stone domes?

DODDLES

Computers are like paper
making more things for us to do
Information multiplies
they're keeping track of you
But unlike paper the computer
can't be used to wipe your pooper

* * *

There is no market for the truth
(I wouldn't lie to you)
Truth's against the trends
and serves no useful ends
and leads to trouble too

* * *

See no evil
Hear no evil
Speak no evil
and learn to breathe
through your rectum

* * *

Righteous Sam
the born-again man
he is and he am
but he ain't Sam

* * *

Armageddon's coming
there's no more waitin'
You gotta get religion
and start in hatin'

* * *

Justice for the unborn
Justice for the born again
Kill them both

* * *

Catholic is my appetite
catholic is my name
Living's my religion
loving is my game

* * *

Are you strung-out on coke?
perpetually broke?
disillusioned and flirting with cancer
You've tried Narcanon
and all their harpin' on
I'll tell you Booze
is the only answer!

* * *

The rebels of old
were exceedingly old
and stormed the gates of the state
but now it's more funta
be part of a junta
and have everything on your plate

* * *

Without the dedication and sacrifice
of untold thousands of idealistic young people
we would have never seen the triumph of the Nazis

* * *

The things you don't want to think about
are probably the things you should

* * *

When time for tolerance is ripe
use a nicer stereotype

* * *

Your friends in later life
are the girls you didn't fuck
and the boys you did

* * *

If you're going to get fucked...
it's better in the ass than in the head

* * *

Cocksuckers don't get AIDS
but assholes do

CORRUPTING A CHILD

The boy was selling those awful three dollar chocolate bars made for charitable promotions at 41 st and West boulevard in Kerrisdale as I waited at the bus stop. After a few glances and half a minute he came over and gave me his pitch for the worthy cause. I was quite impressed by his sense of contemporary business values and encouraged him with 'intelligent' questions. When the kid figured he'd about closed the deal I told him that the bars just tasted too awful. He admitted he didn't like them much himself. And three dollars each? Well, he told me again that twenty percent, or sixty cents, went to the Whatzit Foundation. I could afford it but I still didn't want the chocolate bar, so I suggested instead that I give him one dollar and that he could keep one hundred percent of it for himself. His thanks were genuine and he smiled at me sweetly as he pocketed the looney. I watched him babble animatedly with passing agemates, nodding in my direction until my bus arrived minutes later.

It's quite alright to take money from a stranger.

THE CROSS

A vignette from the
Palanginan Barrio Fiesta,
lba, Zambales March 1987

The child steps into the room holding a crucifix forward,
facing himself, staring reverently at the carved figure on it.
As he slowly walks, the fingers of his other hand lovingly
explore its contours. He stops, smiles with his mouth while
his eyes, fixed upon those of his Savior, seem to grow in
size. He leans forward, kisses the figure on the crucifix
lingering a moment before he looks up to the ceiling, or
Heaven, and SMILES, smiles radiantly, his whole face taking
part. Now he cheerfully wanders off cradling the Cross like
a baby. A few minutes later he returns, the crucifix is held
Rambo style and we are slaughtered indiscriminately.

EMILIO'S TALE

If I ever get my hands on that sneaky underhanded brat I'll cut off his precious little balls and break every bone in his fourteen year old body.

Like me an' Angela, we'd been going steady for almost a year, what a doll, an' we were gonna get hitched next week. The boys in the gang had already lined up the Paradisio Ballroom for a real fancy bash after. It took me ages to get her to agree, her family was against it, they don't like the business I'm in but they'd've got over it with all the money I make.

Then that little prick Rico set me up but good. He comes down to the corner and tells me the whole family's gone out to the cemetery for a picnic, except him an'Angela who's supposed to have the flu or something. You know, the helpful little brother arranging things for his sister - like we'd never got to do anything except at the movies.

An' then when I get over to her place the lying little bastard tells me Angela has gone to see her Iola about a "dress" and won't be back for an hour. And he brings me a couple of cold beers, pulls out this bold komik, shows it to me an' starts playing with himself. Well I got pretty horny after a while and he sorta rubbed himself against me - not that I really get off on boys or anything. An' just when I had him, and was ready to poke his cute wiggling ass, his whole barkada bursts into the room laughing and shouting, "Bakia, bakia," an' before I could do anything her Iola and lolo were there, so I had to pull up my pants and split. I can still hear the little fuckers laughing.

Like as I say, if I ever get my hands on that sneaky little brat....

DENDROPHILIA

I don't know how many of us there are out there but I have faith I'm not alone. Like, I like trees. I love people too but I love trees more. And when I say I love trees, I don't mean that conservation shit about preserving virgin forests, I mean I love trees. Have you ever fondled the smooth sensuous trunk of a naked arbutus? Or ruffled the springy, peeling bark of a young birch? Or stood enthralled before the broad bole of a majestic field conquering oak and had your manhood beckoned to life by the sensual assault of it all?

I despise young, cheap, common alder, though towards senility a few develop great character. Sycamores are much too muscle bound, flowering plums are simply too trivial and ponderosa pines are a shade too wholesome for me. As models more than mates, I like the showy, always adolescent dogwood that flaunts it blossoms twice a year. Or the tamarac or larch that blazes with the seasons from spring's chartreuse to green then gold and winter's deathly black but whose mysteries lie in its flaky purplish bark and lichen draped branches. And the ugly duckling fir of no purile appeal that gnarled by south east storms attains in maturity a dignity that exceeds any pensioners pride.

My first love was an eastern ash outside my window whose twigs lept curving off curved branches leaping from arched limbs, a virile pattern for a lad to contemplate from his comfy bed in winter though not much to look at enrobed in summer's leafy decency.

My greatest love, one that convulses my loins frequently is a graceful lean limbed beech with soft, delicately detailed bark. Unfortunately the city installed some childrens' swings nearby a year ago and I often have to satisfy myself with a moss and fern draped maple deeper in the park. But then us dendrophiles are a pretty fickle and promiscuous bunch anyway.

Although I have biological human parents I've always felt my real mother was a giant cedar that reigned over our hayfield. The fluted buttresses of her trunk swung down becoming roots, creating mossy hollows where I found comfort as a small child, and much later in the deep soft moss I incestuously lost my dendro virginity.

My dendrous father was a huge weeping willow at the back of the house that thrived on the effluent of our septic tank. His trunk had always leaned so that even when I was little I could scamper up to the first fork and along one of his four main limbs to another fork. But being a careless and disrespectful son I slipped and fell off my father, punished with a broken collarbone. I was told, ordered to stay away from him. For many months I did but I would look up at his four great ascending limbs and imagine the delights of the arboreal world each led to, only one of which I had partly explored.

I was twelve before my boyish pride and my own lengthening limbs enabled me to conquer, or more aptly attain, the fourth and highest of these leaf curtained realms. It was my first remembered fullfillment of a dream. And once I'd made it limb against limb that first time, I hammered in a few big nails for holds and turned my laboured triumph into a two second routine, From the very top I finally saw as an entity, a space shot, my childhood world mapped below; house, woods, field and stream, and in the distance my mother cedar taller still.

My father challenged, punished and rewarded me, my mother, bless her unliberated soul, gave me security and understanding. My vallow father died when I was fifteen. I awoke one morning after a night of heavy wind and rain to find him slumped against the woodshed, his shallow roots wrenched from the soil in an immense ragged disc. My other father worked for hours with a chainsaw delivering the coup de grace to save what remained of the shed. I did not watch. I spent the day alone consoled by my friends in the still dripping, weeping forest. But later I could not ignore my filial woodchopping chore and dismembered him for piecemeal cremation in our furnace.

When you think about it, us dendrophiles have it pretty good considering that almost everybody else is a faunasexual and mostly into members of the same species at that. Nobody organizes campaigns against us or worries about the innocence of trees. I've only been busted once, a sweet young elm, but I was able to lie and got off with urinatiing in a public place. It sure beats the hell out of being an exhibitionist or a pedophile.