Life in the 21st Century

Friday, June 19, 2009

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

What part of “Fuck off” don’t you understand?
Your hemorrhoids are so huge,
Your asshole looks like the labia of an old whore.

I’m tired of poverty and struggle.
I’m sick of rejection and doors slammed in my face.
Let me taste a bit of success, again.

I want to look at the world from my seventh floor balcony,
Stretching my muscles on the cold concrete
In the darkness of the night.

I want sexual fulfillment
And a pink bow tied around my flaccid penis.
I want what I want and I want it now!!
Not tomorrow or next year
Or when I grow up or turn 65.

I want a life.
Not a broken puzzle,
A ringing phone that no one answers.
Fuck the half full jar of pennies on my wobbly wooden stand.
I want enough of everything.

Say “yes” when I whisper in your ear.
Call me up when I send you my resume.
You!!
Once I thought I loved you.
Maybe I really did.
Now it seems like blind, stupid lust.
Your once taut belly now turning to flab.

That’s not why I don’t want to see you.
It’s your superiority and contempt that stops me from picking up the icy phone.
Your jaw-dropping selfishness.
Now I see you for the tedious bore you really are.
Your phony two-faced smile.
Fans can’t see past those duck lips and the bulge in your pants.
I can!!

“Piss off.”
Is that clear enough?
I don’t want much.
Not a mansion or a pink Cadillac.
I can live without diamonds and all the things I’m supposed to want.

Just give me peace and quiet.
A good book.
Some hot flesh when I want it.
Conversations with decent friends.
Art to soothe my nerves.

Let me look at a book of Monet’s “Water Lilies” on my death bed.
That will ease the transition to the other side.
Ban the priest from my room
Then let me blow the male nurse before my last gasping breath.

Life is full of nasty surprises
Sneaking up and squeezing your balls when you least expect it.
Life is a Jayne Mansfield car wreck.
James Dean was nominated for two Oscars after he died.
A lot of good that did him.

Listen to the gorgeous sound of the ocean
Outside my imaginary home.
It’s the most beautiful music in the world.
I love to walk in the sun on a soothing summer day.
Smell the fresh smog as it burns the cancer in my lungs.
I’d like a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

There is no unemployment on Pluto.
Purple is the sound of ecstasy and infinity.
The Afterlife is one big drunken coffee break,
So I am told.
I can’t wait to find out the real, honest to God truth.

Uncle Jim's Family

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Today, we had a graveside memorial service for my Uncle Jim, Aunty Helen and their daughter Virginia. I wrote this poem for them and read it out to the gathered friends and family. We were all invited to speak. It was a lovely service and the reception, afterwards, was very enjoyable. It was a great chance to see everyone. Jim and Helen's 2 week old great grandchildren (twins) were brought in towards the end of the reception.

UNCLE JIM’S FAMILY

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

Helen was always so kind to me, as a child.

I forever enjoyed going over to Uncle Jim and Aunty Helen’s house.

Lots of activity and fun,

With good vibrations emanating from the walls.

Virginia said the funniest things.

I think of pink and dark yellow, when I think of that place.

I recall the antique front parlour furniture that no one ever sat in

And the rough and ready feeling in the basement.

Later in life, Ginny Ann was very generous and lovingly organized family get-togethers.

Now we all only see each other at birthdays or funerals.

May the Goddess bless you Uncle Jim, Aunty Helen and Virginia.

And I was blessed to have them in my life yet I didn’t even know it,

When I was young.

I think of Ginny’s straw-coloured hair.

The weight she put on, later in life.

Jim always seemed to be wheeling and dealing.

A born salesman.

Always the upbeat personality and almost swagger.

Aunty Helen and her nervous breakdown.

Her liberation through taking part time jobs

Just to get her out of the house.

She loved it.

I will miss them.

The quirky, gurgle of a laugh coming out of Virginia’s throat.

We all had big families and there was always someone to play with close to your own age.

Much laughter, tears, loving and drama at Uncle Jim’s house.

Sports on TV in the rec-room.

Secrets to tell the cousins.

A great place to visit.

Helen and Jim had a good marriage.

Virginia lived a fruitful life.

She always had the most beautiful homes.

A smiling face to greet the guests.

I wish all three of them great peace, joy and serenity in the Afterlife.

Thank you for gracing our lives.

Mine was certainly richer because I was your nephew and cousin.

Away to the light blue sky, far, far up out of sight.

Spread your wings and fly away to happiness.

Let the angels sing a soaring, rapturous song.

Goodbye.

I will never forget you three.

I think they would want us not to grieve too wisely.

We’ll see them, again, someday soon.

Potty Mouth

Saturday, May 2, 2009

POTTY MOUTH

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

I rimmed a dwarf on Sunday,
Instead of going to Church.
Sparkling purple amethyst sits on my kitchen table,
A birthday gift from a dear friend.

On Monday, I went to Confession.
The priest wanted to call the Police.
He thought rimming was an act of violence.
I was reluctant to explain the full truth to him,
As he’d led a sheltered life.

A piece of fluff got into my mouth.
I worried it perhaps was fecal matter.
Since it was odourless and tasteless,
I relaxed and tried to enjoy the situation.
The dwarf’s teeth were a little rotten
But his penis nearly hung to his knees.
In this life, you have to take the good with the bad.

I watched Garrett Hedlund in a movie with Jane Fonda.
He looked like the sexiest man alive.
My apartment is full of crystals and semi-precious stones.
Dreams and sorrows waft through the air, inside.
They are so real you can touch them.
I value the silence of the night more than anything,
Except, perhaps, a full body orgasm or $10 million in the bank.

I’ve never made this dwarf cum
Though we’ve had sex many times.
He hugged me close and I asked his name.
His voice cracked like an adolescent boy.
Soothing herbs entered my guts
To kill all the nasty micro-organisms he gave me.

I watched a movie that made me weep
And I worried about dying.
A miniature china version of Judy’s ruby slippers
Sits on a filing cabinet in my living room.
Anita Ekberg called from her villa in Rome.
I didn’t pick up.
Charlie Chaplin sat on my face and farted.
It felt familiar,
Like working at a boring office job
Peopled with nasty shit-head sharks,
Just like the ones who worked in the Purchasing Department at a large hospital.

The only thing worse than most jobs is eating cold midget shit
On a tarnished silver platter.
Life sucks most of the time
But dying at Grace is even worse.

The priest told me to go home and flagellate myself for 20 minutes.
I told him to fuck off then asked him for a date.
He thanked me for the offer
But told me he only liked 12 year old boys.
I knew he was gonna say that.

The psychic with the green sparkly turban
Told me she could bring back my lover
If I gave her $5,000.
I told her I’d give her $7,000 if she made sure he never came back.
She’d never heard that one, before.
The pervert threw a dirty diaper on Sasha’s white, furry couch.
This is symbolic of life on this planet.

I can watch the multi-hued sunrise from my kitchen window
Before I go to sleep.
Lots of things are very beautiful.
I musn’t forget that.

Hot Wet Food

March 19, 2009

HOT WET FOOD

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

Freddie stuck his penis into the soft chocolate mocha cake.

Runny whipped cream dribbling down his legs.

Tongue flicking into rude, forbidden crevices.

Fascist police running down empty hallways.

Hidden guns in lingerie drawers.

Tiny, taut breasts.

Bent, silver, broken knees.

Vicious and evil words spewing out of vile mouths.

Craziness and lies.

Fat lips and broken teeth.

Lust is harder than concrete.

Dirty buggered bitch dogs.

Dank, frightened basements.

Ghosts and putrid deeds.

Ugly faces.

Pretty boys who need to shave.

Love and violet smirks.

The loss of innocence.

Ricky Ray

Saturday, April 11, 2009

RICKY RAY

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

I see him surrounded by Dark Forces,
Swirling around and engulfing him,
Strangling his Higher Self.
I try to send him love and light,
To ease his pain
And to stop the devilish energy from killing his goodness.

Ricky calls himself a Buddhist
Yet he is consumed with rage and vengeance.
I do Wiccan rituals,
To the light of a candle,
In the silent depths of the night,
Asking my Guides for a miracle.

This ugly, mean being tries to rob me of joy and passion.
My creativity sits on a chair, unused,
Like a soiled, torn garment.
Thick hands encircle my neck,
Distorting my voice and choking my Life Force.
I stand in court pleading my innocence
For I have done no wrong.

Ricky has no support system,
No life, no hobbies, no lovers or friends.
His tormented shadow falls on all my daily activities,
Like a rabid dog chasing me through a nightmare.

I watched a movie on my TV set.
One of the scenes was set in a beautiful house
Overlooking the ocean in Southern California.
I read a book where the main character owned an 8,000 acre ranch in New Mexico.
She roamed the mountains with her dogs,
Trekking through canyons and cool streams.

Oh, how I long to escape to these places.
To find solace in nature,
Surrounded by quiet and tranquility.
I wish for money to lead a proper life.
Forever the struggling artist counting his pennies.

Ricky professes to believe in Karma,
Yet he cannot see the consequences of his actions
In the here and now.

The Universe surrounds me in a cocoon of White Light and joy.
No harm will come to me.
This is merely a learning experience.
I am not attached to this man,
In any way, shape or form.

I send Reiki to the courtroom.
I am alone.
My Higher Self speaks to me
And I try so hard to hear the soft, faint words.

Ricky is drowning in a black, inky cesspool.
It is not my job to save him.
My biggest wish is for him to disappear from my life
Forever.

Lip Synch Dysphoria

Monday, March 9, 2009

LIP SYNCH DYSPHORIA

By Philip Cairns

Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns

The last time I did acid,

I had the overwhelming desire to cut off my hands.

In the twisted logic of my skewered mind,

I figured, since they were the most valuable part of my anatomy,

Being an artist,

Then, therefore, I must hack them off.

“Yes” means “no” and “no” means “yes”.

Being alone, I could only have cut off one hand

Since I don’t own a chain saw.

You’d be seeing me, right now, with a gory stump,

Long since healed, on the end of one arm.

I’d have to keep that mutilated thing in my pocket at auditions

Or I’d never get hired, again.

Don’t know which hand it would have been.

I’m ambidextrous but I favour my right hand in most things.

If I’d hacked off that one,

It would’ve taken me a while to come up to speed with the left.

I have a little voice, inside me, that protects me under such circumstances.

“Don’t do it. Relax. You’re high on acid. You’ll regret it in the morning.”

“But my hands are so important. I really should cut them off. It makes perfect sense.”

“You’ll bitterly regret it. Big time. Believe me.”

When I came down, I decided never again to take LSD.

After all, next time, I might not be so lucky.

My inner parent might not win the battle.

That was my 6^th trip.

The first time was in the 70s.

That evening, my friend told me he had dropped it, too,

But I think he was lying.

I was crazy about Bob but the feeling wasn’t mutual.

The two of us, and a plus-size female friend,

Went to see the Kubrick film, “2001: A Space Odyssey”

At a midnight showing at the Roxy.

What a perfect trip!! What a blast!!

The third time I dropped acid,

I was staying at a friend’s cottage on the French River.

Walking out onto the deck, in the glorious summer sunshine,

A hornet’s nest, lodged under the strips of wood,

Was accidentally disturbed and they went nuts,

But neither of us was stung.

I did some painting and talked a mile a minute with my hostess,

Smoking endless cigarettes.

I found a bug outside.

Its face looked so human to me.

I held it in my hand and felt that we were communicating on some strange level.

It looked like a tiny, little baby.

Late that afternoon, there was a knock at the door.

An older, balding man stood there with a message for me from my hostess’s mother,

Back in Scarborough.

He’d taken a boat from the marina in order to deliver it.

A major theatre, back in Toronto, wanted me for a part in a play with Len Cariou,

The Broadway star.

That’s what it said.

The director wanted to see me, the very next day.

We raced back to Toronto in her car, on very little sleep,

Weaving in and out of traffic,

With just enough time for me to shower and change

At my parent’s place in the Burbs.

Then Carol Anne drove me downtown to the theatre.

I walked in, portfolio in hand, with grand expectations and racing heart.

The bitchy, impatient Artistic Director snapped at me,

“We don’t want to see that.”

(He gestured at the portfolio of pictures from plays I had been in.)

“We just want to look at you and hear your voice.”

I read for him but was not cast.

It was just another audition.

I didn’t tell him what I’d gone through in order to get there on time.

My vacation was shot.

On the final LSD trip, the 6^th one, I also painted.

It was a wild, psychedelic acrylic abstract,

With eyes and eyelashes peering out from the frantic colours.

Lots of deep pinks and reds and pale blue and startling yellow.

A stranger phoned and said I sounded sleepy.

He seemed pissed off.

I had answered his personal ad in the paper.

“I’m painting a picture,” I said but he didn’t get it.

The Asian man never called back, as he said he would.

The 5^th time was totally unexpected.

An upstairs neighbour appeared at my door, late one night.

He reached in my front door, thrusting a beer in my face.

“I heard you moving about,” he said.

He wanted me to drop acid with him but I had to rehearse in the morning,

So I begged off.

The shaggy-haired blond kept plying me with beer.

He handed me a purple tab of acid and I said I would take it later.

I dropped it on the floor and Dave said, “It’s dirty. Better put it in your mouth, ”

Which I foolishly did.

After partying all night with this scuzzy guy,

I phoned the director the next morning.

He had long hair and seemed pretty cool so I figured it would be okay to be honest.

“I can’t come to rehearsal. I dropped acid last night. I haven’t had any sleep.”

Darshan started freaking out.

“Oh, no. Oh, no. Do you still want to do the play?”

“Of course. I just need some sleep.”

“I’ll call you,” he said but I never heard from him, again.

That was okay. The gig was a freebee in a speakeasy

And I didn’t really want to do it.

I heard through the grapevine that the production never happened.

Sometimes it’s best to tell a little white lie.

Colours look so vivid.

You think you’ve found all the deep, profound answers to the great mysteries of life.

Your sense of perspective is all topsy-turvy.

It’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

Acid is so unpredictable.

Be careful.

Don’t do it by yourself, as I once did.

I was looking for truths.

Trying to find cosmic answers.

Wanted to know what all the media screaming was about.

Pink turns into swirling neon lime green.

Reality becomes a kaleidoscope.

You crave sex but it can be hard to function properly.

I somehow miss those wild, crazy times.

Life had infinite possibilities.

Now, it seems to be lots of cul de sacs, dead ends,

And doors slammed in my face.

The Circus in Thomson Park

Wednesday, February 25, 2009


THE CIRCUS IN THOMSON PARK


By Philip Cairns


Copyright 2009 by Philip Cairns


Marching and skipping across the top of the hill,
I could see the colourful parade come closer.
Vividly coloured Mardi Gras-like costumes,
Huge papier mache heads with enormous eyes.
Women dressed like gypsy fortune tellers
And brawny young men looking like Harlequin.
The sound of brass instruments
And the thump-thump of big, round drums.

Standing with my four siblings,
Amongst the canvas tents in a clearing in the suburban park,
I watched the procession as it drew nearer.
Smiling faces in a rag-tag band.
Electric blue, startling red, lush green grass and the deep brown earth.
The bubbling sound of the nearby creek.
The notes of the piccolo slipped out in a merry way,
Along with the bump-bump-bump of the heavy bass drum.

I remember the youthful face of the fortune teller,
Inside the hot, burning tarpaulin,
And the silly lies she told about my future.
The auburn haired young woman couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

Then, into the tent to see the Freaks of Nature.
The African Sausage Man with no arms or legs,
Lying on a wooden table, wrapped all in woollen clothing,
Rolling and lighting a cigarette using only his mouth and tongue.

A Pinhead in a dirty, sleeveless housedress,
Was sitting on the stage weeping and exchanging bitter words
With a short, mean, hideous man standing in the front row.
He was insulting and making fun of the pathetic, ugly woman.
(From this great distance in time,
I see her as being rather beautiful, in a Picasso sort of way.)
I was only eleven, but, even so,
I was appalled and disappointed by this so-called Freak Show.

Outside, again, there were stiltwalkers and jugglers
Roaming the grounds of the little ersatz circus.
There was cotton candy to consume,
Taffy apples to gobble
And sweet orange pop to slurp.

I walked home with an uneasy sensation in the pit of my stomach.
The Pinhead woman seemed so vulnerable and morbidly unhappy.
40 years down the road,
I remember the sight of her so clearly,
Sobbing on that makeshift stage in the intense August heat.
I went inside expecting to be frightened and excited
But came away feeling low and gypped.

The circus came to town.
Childhood dreams fell away,
Like the melting skin of a burn victim.
Phony adolescent psychics and depressed freaks
On a sweltering summer day in Scarborough.
A rerun from the past.