Eugenics

 

So many times
we passed that place
knowing it was there
not really caring
          then

in young manhood
you draped your bones
on the pristine sheet
of the cagesided bed
and we hovered
in anguished disbelief

saw through a mist
a lifeline pierce
your transparent wrist
           and
the steady drop
transfixed us

this was reality.

Gently the doctor probed
your beloved frame
our foggy memories
for family history
and we waited release
from the dreadful error.

      Now every day
life sustaining injections
balance your present
consolidate your future. Now
every day we note
your altered need
vital dependence.

Daily we tread
a quicksand
in shades of fear and hope
    reading you
like a barometer.

My Daughter My Stranger

 

There was a time not long ago

    (only a year in fact)

When she hated everyone else's

poison wafting her way. She used

to say cigarettes are dangerous.

Even tried to persuade her friends. 

 

We always had a good understanding

me and my daughter. She has a

     talent for the flute

     and this summer I bought her

a piccolo. Her favourite record

 

was Cimeros's double-flute

     concerto. Her needle-adept fingers

sewed embroideries far finer than

     my young fingers ever did.

This year she's a senior. 

 

She's embroidered a joint

     its smoke spiralling up the

     leg of her faded jeans. Our

house rocks with Alice Cooper's

ghastly lyrics. Every evening now

 

she's out back in the park

     behind our house, here in this

middle-class hamlet. A crowd of

boys and girls. Music blares the

     autumn air. Matches flare the dark

 

to light the weeds. She's high.

     (she gets  high on crowds

          and popularity.)

 'Everyone thinks I'm a stoner'

she tells me laughing. 'It's

my clothes     my fuzzy hair

 

         and the way I  talk.' My

daughter has learned. She knows

how to disarm my wary thoughts. Now

my neighbour with the sniffing nose

     tells her neighbours that my daughter

 

is a bad influence on theirs. I

remember her own daughter. Her way

was tight-lipped with the girl

          and high-voiced.

She always said the reason her girl

 

ran wild was because the girl was

adopted. Never can trust strange genes. 

 

 

Disarmament

 

Did you know

that the Sea Cucumber

to deflect a pursuer

can regurgitate

its stomach?

 

And did you know that

female monkeys 

to appease belligerent

males turn backside up

in coy invitation?

 

In this way has nature

armed the otherwise

defenceless.

 

Did  you know

the Sea Cucumber

grows a new stomach

and survives. The

monkey raises the

 

fruit of her

propitiatory act.

And did you know

that when you

thunder through the

 

peace of my

existence I offer

myself to

placate the beast.

 

Nature has prepared us

to meet each other.

Did  you know

I am armed with love? 

 

 

Thy Brother's Keeper

 

They are everywhere, in impoverished

countries whose cities strain with mass

humanity and in countries of the wealthy

developed world where technology and

industry has created immense wealth yet

they roam the streets, eat in the streets

sleep on the streets, under highway bridges

and passes, fall in love, become violent 

with one another and bystanders alike

peddle and use drugs and die in the streets

the growing army of the homeless, named 

by polite society, the 'unhoused'. Transient

lives of gross humanity whom misfortune

has led astray and whom the settled and 

the fortunate regard with empathy until

they approach too intimately and suddenly

appear threatening, though some can be

since they suffer from mental illness and

who can predict when that psychosis will

spark into rage and claim a hapless victim?

They become the enemy of good order

their misfortunes failing to excite the

sympathy their conditions demand when

funding and good intentions fail to serve

their needs and relieve society of their

oppressive, guilt-inducing, angry presence.

 

 

Lightening Up

 

They burden the world with their tedious

presence and with a litany of faults so

numerous they are inexhaustible, far too

many to count and in their aggregate account

for the disdain in which they are held and 

always have been, for who among the world's

inhabitants wishes to live among people so

cunning and forever scheming that there can 

be no peace, no rest from concerns that the

world may soon succumb to the plots they

conceive and strive to achieve to the known

detriment of all others. Yet the most irritating

aspect of having them live alongside others 

is habitual whining of being discriminated 

against as though their manner doesn't invite

just that very thing. For they have no sense of

humour, none whatever, and among their

many other faults is their unforgiving sour

sense of entitlement that slights never come

their way, even when those they accuse of 

the age-old bugbear of anti-Semitism inform

them that the messages they take to be racist

are merely attempts at humour and they really

should you know, make an effort to lighten up.

 

The Wisdom of Emotion

Bear with me, I'm doing my best...

You wouldn't be gaming nature...?

That life force that knows best how

its creatures will develop, we assume.

You suffer because humankind is

gregarious and acceptance is vital to

the satisfaction of life with companions

and to be shunned and mocked runs

counter to the kind of emotional needs

we all wish fulfilled. Please understand

I am happy for you that dark thoughts

of self-harm no longer cloud your

future. Public health dollars so much

in demand to stem the tide of so

many human ills are no doubt well

spent in expanding care and comfort

with your dilemma allowing you to

become 'yourself', no longer male, a

condition of your birth that had never

you say, suited the inner you. Having

always considered yourself female

however, I am struggling with the 

fact that you fathered two children

and now that you have transitioned

those children have a 'mamma' and a

'mother'. Is this all perfectly rational?

 Ah, but then, who ever claimed we 

humans treasure rationality over the   

 allure of emotional fulfillment?

 

The Last Word

 

Few among us is capable of reacting

with perfect equanimity when our

considered and rational points of view

are challenged by those interrupting a

conversation to make observations of

their own that turn the conversation in

another direction entirely. Civility does

demand the courtesy of listening but it

does not insist that one respond. On the

other hand if impulse and the conceit of

feeling it required to demonstrate your

understanding of the situation in the

round that response is forthcoming then

you deserve the sniping that follows. In

the event that the third party is having a

very bad day and has turned their cranky

mood in your direction the next salvo

can be more than awkward and puzzling

all the more so when rank is pulled

through the medium of academic 

credentials of which you have none. Yet

you respond as civilly as possible only

to receive yet another snippy comment

far more deserving of terminating the

conversation carried out on line. And

then you sit back awaiting what can only

be another wretched accusation veiled

in scholarly comment, planning this time

to use wit and condescension that would

devastate your interlocutor. You wait.

And you await that opportunity. But it

fails to arrive and opportunity is lost.