Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Turning Thirty

Turning Thirty,
In my kitchen, peering out at the snow,
Watching the snowbanks grow.
In thirty years,
What have I learned?

I peer over at the dog my grandpa left behind
His last legacy
Lying on her side
She looks as though she’s waiting to die. (Don’t all geriatrics?)

She’s the dog I lovingly call “the fudge-snacker”
Oh, you find that offensive?
Well, she eats her own shit.
I find that offensive.
She whines, she wobbles, with arthritic hobbles,
Then she vomits up the turds that she gobbles.
The piles look a bit like hamburger
And smell like death.

And as I walk the old bitch,
Still those mouth-breathers say
“Give me a kiss.” (She licks the man’s face.)
“I love dogs.”
“For a boxer, she sure is pretty.”
Right.
She’s pretty ugly, and pretty stupid.
And awfully smelly, whoa Nellie, I tell ye,
She’s ancient
And she grows older still.

The end of life is horrible.
The beginning is pretty bad too.
But that doesn’t stop us from making it a little worse anyway.
(Why not, right? Preparation for the REAL world. But what is the real world? I mean, aside from mindless cowards victimizing the weak? Or is that all we can aspire to?)
Who is the sick fuck that dreamed up circumcision?
I want a name.
So I can piss on his grave,
With my incomplete dick.
I hope he’s rotting in hell now,
With a circumcised face.

I suppose I should be grateful.
I suppose my circumcision was my first birthday present.
And it lasts a lifetime.
Chocolate orange, eat your heart out.
No way I’m doing that to my son.
No way.

Traditions are just like any other life.
They die.
I’m going to watch this one die.
I’m going to make it die.

We all do that, don’t we?
We come up with ways to do a better job than our parents.
Because no matter how hard they tried,
We can do better.
We think we’re so goddamn smart, don’t we?

A mother screams at her eight-year-old son
because he doesn’t know McLeod is pronounced “Muh-Clowd”
She says I didn’t read enough
But you have to learn something before you know it,
And you can’t read sounds.

Year after year, she sent me to camp,
And year after year, I kept telling her not to.
But, as she told me,
“Camp is not a punishment, it’s a privilege.”
Well you could have fooled me.
She tells me about the fun she had at that same camp, thirty years earlier,
And I realize she simply didn’t have the mental capacity
to distinguish between my childhood
and her own.

The kids made fun of my pale skin.
Even the counsellors did.
They said I didn’t tan enough.
But it’s something I could never change.
Believe me, I would have if I could have.
Even my mother made fun.
Something about burning out her retinas when I took off my shirt.
Yeah, right.
I wish.

Now it’s my thirtieth birthday,
And they ask me,
What do you want for your birthday?
And I tell them I just don’t care anymore.

As I look up now at the grey sky,
As the snow descends, forming mounds of cold crap we have to move every day,
But we tell ourselves to keep fighting the good fight,
So we grab our coats, and our shovels
And we trudge outwards
The drudgery
It’s the drudgery that really gets me.

And the dog farts again.
(Fudgery?)
Just no more shit-barf, okay?

Turning Thirty,
And all I’ve got to show for it,
Is this shitty poem.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Mendicant’s Lament

You were right, Shadowthorne, and you too, “best bud”! Why should I be bothering trying to help other people’s relationship when I can’t seem to do anything right in my own? Maybe it’s easier to give advice than to take it. Then again, the advice I gave the Mendicant last night was the same advice I would follow, assuming I’m ever even in a relationship situation again.

Mendicant called me up and asked me if I had spoken to Wolverine.

“No, man. I’ve seriously not had the time. Like I said, though, I can make a point of speaking to her now, just to see how she is, but I don’t see her online now.”

“Thanks, man. I’m really torn up about her.”

“I know.”

“Just tell her I really want to talk to her.”

“Doesn’t she already know that?”

“Yeah, but she won’t talk to me. I tried telling her I wanted to talk to her, and she said it was a trap, that I’m stringing her along with some secret that I won’t share unless I see her. She says if all I want is closure, she’s not interested.”

“And you don’t just want closure, right?”

“No, man. I just have so much I want to say to her.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“I don’t know. Lots of things, man.”

“Name one.”

“I don’t now. I miss her.”

“You want her back?”

“Yeah, I do. I love her, man.”

“So tell her that.”

“I can’t just say that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well if you can’t tell her how you feel, what can you do?”

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to her.”

“All right, listen. Here’s what I think you should do. Tell her you want to say some things to her, and promise that, once you’re done, you’ll stop calling. Write out a list of all these things you want to say to her, so that you don’t feel like you forgot anything. Make your list, check it twice, just like Santa, and then have it in front of you when you speak to her.”

“But it’s not even her I get when I call, it’s her parents.”

“Oh. Well that is problem. Okay, well, send her an e-mail then.”

“I don’t have internet right now.”

“Then write her a letter, put it on a disk, and take it to an internet café, or somewhere else with internet. Or hell, do it the old fashioned way and send her an actual letter. Just find a way to get your words to her.”

“Okay.”

I don’t want to interfere any more than that, but I am a little curious as to why she dumped him. I mean, the guy’s like her dog. She kicked him. Hard, apparently. And like a dog, he’s trying to come back, saying he’s sorry.

I do not like Wolverine at all anymore. I can see why so many people get swept up by her antics. She’s pretty, and she’s reasonably intelligent, and she certainly has the capacity to be civil, but that woman has deep sociological issues.

What bothers me is how like each of them I am. Do I sound like him when I’m pining over a love interest, like he did? Did I run from a perfectly good, perfectly loyal lover, like she did? Well, I think so, but I’m learning.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Playing Cupid

Now that I’ve just finished exams, and am looking to start some new projects to occupy the next two and a half weeks, some odd ones dropped into my lap. Namely, a guy friend and a girl friend of mine are both smitten with someone, and they want my help.

The first is the Mendicant. Remember the Mendicant? Wolverine moved in with him a short while ago, and last I had heard, everything was fine with them. The Mendicant called me up on the week-end though to ask if I’d heard from her, since I’m their only mutual friend. I told him I’d not seen her online, and so he asked if I could give her a call and see how she is. They had a fight apparently, and the result was that Wolverine moved back in with her parents, and now she refuses to take calls from him. Unfortunately, there was drinking involved, so he’s fuzzy on the details. So for this mission, I’ll have to start from scratch. I told the Mendicant I’d make a point of speaking with her after my exam, if he wants, and he said he’d think about it, and call me first to confirm. (I missed his call yesterday, unfortunately, but it’s on my to-do list.)

The second is a girl from my critical theory class. She’s an ethnic mix, a devout Christian, and she fervently believe that a thousand years from now everyone will look like her. (Brown – I think that was the extent of her argument. I don’t totally agree, but then again, I usually don’t argue to fiercely with people who believe in invisible men.) Anyway, I’m calling her Manifest Destiny. He’s Slavic, and he’s into martial arts and UFC, so I’m calling him the Slugging Slavic Secret Weapon. Maybe I’ll call him Triple S. I met with both after our exam at a pub on campus. We spent 7 hours at the bar overall. I don’t know where the time went. My cell didn’t get a signal in there, and that, paired with a glass of beer that keeps getting “topped up,” it is impossible to keep track of time. We got into which girls and guys in the class were hot. I piped up immediately, admitting that, at least in the summertime, I had a big crush on Parasite Eve. (I also told them both I only had eyes for Scrapbook Girl. I didn’t actually tell them who she was – just that I liked her, and that she knows. I don’t want to embarrass her.) Anyway, Destiny said that she liked our prof. I know, typical, right? He is a good-looking guy. But anyway, when Triple S left to use the washroom, Destiny admitted to me that she liked Triple S. So I made a mental note of it, and when she left, I asked Triple S what he thought of her. Specifically, I asked her if he was interested in her. He said he might be, but that, given enough time, he’d probably forget her. I found that a little discouraging, but workable. After all, if you want to get technical, everyone can be forgotten. Then next time I got her alone, I said I thought he probably would be interested in her. After all, she’s really pretty, and she was actually one of the smartest girls in the class. She told me she didn’t feel pretty enough to be with him. She pictured him to belong with Bright Eyes. (Remember Bright Eyes? Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed her.) I found her lack of confidence in her own worth disheartening, but, I took into account that she said she’d only feel right if her made the first move, and really seemed interested. I suppose, she, like most of us, didn’t want to be embarrassed, or rejected. So finally, the next time I got him alone, I asked him again. I didn’t tell him why, but I told him he should go for it. Ask her out. Frankly, I don’t know he could do better, because I don’t think there IS better, no matter how inferior she feels to Bright Eyes. She’s just as intelligent and just as pretty, though admittedly, Bright Eyes has cooler bangs. (She’s sort of known for her bangs the same way I’m known for my mutton chops. Oddly enough, Destiny told me *I* should go dressed as Wolverine for Halloween, because of the sideburns. And who am I to argue with destiny. Oh man, there are way too many puns inherent in the names I chose.) Anyway, when it got late, Triple S politely asked me to take a hike so he could get some alone time with Destiny. I was happy enough to oblige.