Island Men's Journal

Poem by Ely

She said Your life is woman-bound, Too many lady-eyes soft on your lips.

Your days Are full of femenine whiles Feelings, nesting lore, sexist oppression.

You need Away from our bossom-breasts To strut and swagger in the company of men.

Pet away From Jocasta And her seductions Away from all the mother-lover-mother-hate.

Go play With the bulging crotch-muscle boys Chew cud and chaw-chaw about mechanical toys.

Spin tales Of monstrous and heroic fishes Remember the drum-bugle thunder-flashes of war.

Find out The feel and mean of being a man The bonding power of the blood of comrades at arms.

I went Navy-blue sailor suit and hat Slingshot dangling, penny polished to bright gold.

The men Were busy, measuring their cocks Calculating the projectile velocity of their come.

I asked Of the tender tissue of the glans About whether a cunt could really bite a member off.

No one Said a thing, even laughed We were so very busy honing the heads on our shafts.

We knew To be wary of exposed, weeping hearts The narcous lure of the spider-silk of involvement.

To touch Naked hand to the flaring face of fear invites the mad, monstrous catastrophe of rampant chaos.

My boy Must learn not to cry, blink or flinch, To craft sheilds and armours and iron cables of control.

We fight Side by side in phalanxes and bars And charge corageous astride lively mares in tight brigades.

We cry For proud mother and loverlie lass Pro patria and democratia und Fuehrer and Jesus Christ.

I went To hospital, bloody death in my urine, There, amid bustling nurses, I found the company of men.

One, dying, Fierce blind eyes, white silky hair, Body stiff, rattle breath, voracious lip-smaking appetite.

The other, Safely shuffling from bed to john Back bent with timidity, anxious eyes measuring the grave.

And one more, Aflame in ignorant misinformation Eyes scurrying for escape, for the miracle return to youth.

We gather Around the electronic fire to grunt Our approval, taste, to display membercards of fellowship.

We joke About the hang of our plastic bladders And the shape of the latest aerospace jet-juice craft.

At night I wake to the noise of hurting men asleep, Warriors on leave from the concussions of commercial war.

The enemy, Fain, kept at bay with chemical wile, Slinks around the dark corners of our eyes looking to pounce.

And Death, We pretend, is another business casualty, A bankruptcy, a failure of proper management of life assets.

I admire The crusty guts of sick old men who laugh At themselves, at the world; men who rush out to live and die.

Among men My age, I am shamed waking from vivid nightmares, To weep for life, long for death, delight in groans and tears.

In bed I lie, wondering the wonder why, The company of men scares me so, scares me more than death.

Ely Raman Royal Jubilee Hospital Sunday afternoon, April 5, 1987