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35. Poetry
35.2. Poemotions
35.2.6. Text of book
Start of page 192 in the book
Part Nine
The Nature of Boys
Prologue
Nine 193
Derek 194
Rory 195
Patrick 196
Bad Plan 197
Now Is 198
Man Climbing out of Child 199
Glory Killed 200
A Boy of Fifteen from all Angles
201
A Song of Reproduction 203
Face and Disgrace 204
Vicious Boy 205
The Doubtful Charm of Pubescent Boys
206
Redeem the Past 208
Start of page 193 in the book
Prologue Nine
Few adults except pederasts care about the nature of crass boys,
well known to be demanding, tiresome creatures (the men forget
they were once just like that). Yet troublesome boys will become
men, and despite feminism men have always ruled our roost. So
we should care about the nature of boys. The way they grow up
will affect us all.
The first three poems in this group say
little about the long-term impact of boys, for the ones they sadly
celebrate never did grow up. Even my adviser X gets upset about
boys not allowed to mature, caught short by death in all their
glandular complications. Nature killed the first of these boys:
pale, outstretched in the bed he lies; his yellow hair they forgot
to comb. The IRA killed the second. The boy himself put paid to
the last, when Patrick Crossman hanged himself today.
It's a bad plan that beautiful boys should
be so fleeting; let's celebrate what now is, and look at man climbing
out of child. There's glory killed as youth ripens.
Now we consider a boy of fifteen from all
angles: mother, girl-friend, school bully, school pal, school
teacher, father, and finally pederast. The lad's reproductive
apparatus is a wonder in itself. The pederast thinks the lad might
be vicious: you're aware, vicious boy, while glancing elsewhere,
you're aware you've got something on me. Later the pederast tells
the judge: I can only say that I did not give these boys their
charm, let alone wish them any harm.
The last poem in the group wishes some boys
would only learn. Wayne, please don't piss in the bidet.
Start of page 194 in the book
Derek
Pale, outstretched, in the bed you lie;
your yellow hair they forgot to comb.
Engulfed in drugs, I watched you die -
so near and yet so far from home.
Who envies youth should know your end.
'Just talk' you said to me, your friend.
'Just talk' you said, but I walked away -
and never came back to talk again.
Your wasted hand on the blanket lay,
your wasted life fled the thrusting pain.
I would have pressed your mouth to mine -
given life for death at any sign.
You sipped some juice from the passion fruit;
faintly smiled as I wheeled you out
into the sun, newest recruit,
scrutinising the world about.
Reconciled, you slipped away:
left no more than boyish clay.
Start of page 195 in the book
Rory
Catastrophes are everywhere, brought to the
screen
by indefatigable, skin-risking photographers.
Don't expect me to react though:
I reacted yesterday, when the Irish shots rang out.
I reacted to Rory: he's dead.
Only fourteen, and he's dead.
I wrote to his mother, out of the blue;
my grief equalled her's - that's almost blasphemy
it would be blasphemy if Rory were a god
- but he's not and never was;
just a boy who will never be anything else.
Maybe he's lucky, though the rest of us are
not;
if he's lucky now, it's only because
he was lucky then;
lucky at fourteen, lucky to know how beautiful to be beautiful,
and to be
a boy of fourteen, knowing he's beautiful,
knowing his new-springing power, knowing
the quick zip through all his veins,
knowing, as he leaps and dances,
the lightness of his limbs, and of his heart.
Lighter (if he knew) than it could be again.
Start of page 196 in the book
Patrick
Patrick Crossman hanged himself today:
hooray!
I fixed him good, I boxed him in
filled his adolescent head with fumes of sin
Told him his place was appointed
failure I said would be shame
And blocked my ears
to all his piteous cries
A judo belt he drapes around his neck
and dies!
Start of page 197 in the book
Bad Plan
That tender boy, slender colt,
clean-limbed mid-adolescent,
is so fleeting
that in a year or two
he will be gone.
If only I'd made the plan
such a graceful creature,
better than hosts of worthies,
would be the norm, the pattern, and they
would be gone.
Start of page 198 in the book
Now Is
A boy is not for ever young.
See him for his strength, his beauty now.
But see him too for what he was and will be:
the weakling child, the mawkish youth,
the plumping thinning male in middle age,
the old man, rotting flesh, the buried skeleton.
Then sense the wonder that for this brief time
perfection holds sway.
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