Benjibopper

When my wife started stalking the CEO of Vitro Inc., begging him to save our Baby Dream with his hand-of-god technologies, I had an aneurysm. There was white blinding snow atop a mystic ancient ice cap. I was pawing the surface in search of new-age tranquility.

And still I couldn’t stop her.

My desire for 10-toed pink perfection, my need to pass on my DNA, was as strong as hers. For the thousandth time since the start of our synchronized naked insemination schemes I chastised my brain, told it to think positive thoughts.

“Make sure you tell him about the abortion,” I reminded my wife.

She waved a backhand at me. I should know better than to bring that up, it said.

If only we’d birthed the Down’s foetus into a baby, my brain countered.

But of course she was right. The first pregnancy was easy. We couldn’t have known we were in for a famine of infertility.

Now, just as foretold by my aneurysm, here we are, mitten in mitten, feeling our way up the final peak to our last hope.

If this Redemption Guru is the quack I can’t stop thinking he is, we’ll summersault to our childish deaths, joining our Sherpa guide, who took his own life a trimester ago.

“Look,” shouts my wife. “There he is!”

I’m snow-blinded. Gently sobbing, she guides my hand over his folded, up-slanting eyelids, over his protruding tongue and shortened arms, which hold a guitar. I can feel in our Guru's face the features of down’s syndrome.

He sings ‘Come Back, Baby,’ by the Ramones.

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Labels: 2007, Fiction, nova scotia, politics

"For what what the world spends on defense every 2.5 hours, about $300 million, smallpox was eliminated back in the late seventies. For the price of a single new nuclear-attack submarine, $726 million to $1 billion, we could send 5 to 7.5 million Third World children to school for a year. For the price of a single B-1 bomber, about $285 million, we could provide basic immunization treatments, such as shots for chicken pox, diphtheria, and measles, to the roughly 575 million children in the world who lack them, thus saving 2.5 million lives annually. For what the world spends on defense every forty hours, abut $4.6 billion, we could provide sanitary water for every human being who currently lacks it."
--James A. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi




I loathe writing about vice. I find myself increasingly saddled with responsibility, deadlines, demands, external and internal pressures, and it's hard on my system. I can't drink anymore, can't tolerate fatty fried foods, don't have time for messy affairs even if I had the desire for them.

So forgive me if I numb my brain with occasional images of 7-foot behemoths smashing spherical material through nylon mesh, while I yell at the TV, "De-fence! C'mon!"

Forgive me if I swear at computer screens 'fuck you piece of shit you have one function in life why can't you do it?!'

Forgive me if I swear too much in general, grumble and complain and sometimes neglect the pleasantries.

Forgive me if I take work to bed and sleep in come morning.

Forgive me if I need a little caffeine in the morning, and if I come off a little cynical when you're whimsical, dreaming your dreams for two.

Labels: 2008, non-fiction, nova scotia, philosophy

For 10 million I could buy a mile of the new twinned highway and still have enough left to get me one of those smart bombs, just a little one, just big enough to blow up my strip of twinned highway. I'd have to squirrel away enough to buy a wide angled camcorder and film the explosion from a rented helicopter. And there'd have to be road blocks to make sure there was no traffic - I couldn't afford the lawsuits.

Or maybe I'd buy me one a those new private sector prisons, double my fortune selling recycled uranium-powered tasers to convicted panhandlers so they can take their antisocial disorders out on sadistic guards peddling refried baked bean sandwiches. I could have a nice little factory farm in the yard - the inmates could provide free labour while I watch the US Open. I could give free sausages to whichever con raised the best sow.



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Labels: 2008, non-fiction, nova scotia, politics

In the roughneck tarpits of delusion
as they asked me to prove myself
worthy of some compensation
or sympathy

In the shot-down boredom of empathy
when I realized everything was corrupted
and there was no place safe to stand
or register

As I paid the price for my wager
the cost of my own existence
in this dodge-ball shotgun choice of life
or living

I said your name
I showed my ring
I drew your face
I smiled
I walked home

In the uninsulated time capsule basement
at the moment of no regrets
limbs entwined in the vulnerability of trust
or deception

Naming that naked moment of honest exposure
elucidating the consequences
of each and every opposite action
or reaction

As we laid bare the price of admission
for a forever existence together
and the smiling lips irremovable from our faces
or bodies

I spoke your name
I made a ring
I kissed your face
We smiled
We were home

In the daily face of insanity
departing from reason love and peace
walking into false transactions of cash
or truth

My pen hacks at conmen weavers
atop a chain of fool-hearted power
trying to catch a falling leader
or star

As I fumble for my credentials
letters planted in compressed trees
and they ask me who I am
or why I matter

I say your name
I hold your ring
I see your face
I smile
This is home

Labels: 2008, love junk, nova scotia, Poetry