What To Do If Trapped In A Lift With A Dentist

by Marcus Freestone

and pointless.

  In any case, Republicans are mostly bible-bashers

  who don't believe in natural selection

  Despite the fact that we all have fish bones

  in our necks from our evolutionary past.

  They really should have stopped breeding a long time ago

  even before Reagan began to appear in cowboy films

  Where did all the Republicans come from?

  Who was responsible?

  Please tell us so we can find them

  and beat them around the knees and ankles

  with sticks and raw sewage.

  Oh dear, now we come to the Bush family?

  Such an abomination of nature

  they're even more twisted and wrong than the previous lot.

  They're so faulty and inbred

  they could even be members of our very own royal family.

  What sort of a gene pool do they have in Texas?

  It's so small it may even be subatomic

  Similar in size to a quark or even a Higgs-Boson

  and that's a very small particle/gene pool.

  REPETITION

  Life consists of experiences

  That's all we have

  except memories of previous experiences

  Why do we seem to prefer to live in memories

  rather then experiencing something new?

  And how much of our experience

  is genuinely new anyway?

  So much of what we do and think

  is merely repetition

  of a previous action or thought

  Memories are inherently unreliable

  they are not an accurate record

  they are coloured and shaped by our present mood

  If memories aren't really memories

  and experience and thought is mostly repetitious

  then what do we actually have?

  What does human existence really consist of?

  Ah, there's the question

  The one that poets and philosophers

  have been begging for years

  begging for an answer

  May I posit that, like matter

  what we have is Potential Difference

  We all have the capacity to reach above the mundane

  to transcend the daily grind of anxiety and doubt

  to silence the incessant, futile chatter of our fragmented minds.

  So why don't we?

  Why do so few even try?

  There's no indication that this will cease to be the case any time soon

  and therefore no indication that the chaotic mess of human society

  will be resolved any time soon.

  Until then, we will always have poets and philosophers.

  I've been a slave to poetry and philosophy all my life

  I don't mean that I look to poets and philosophers for answers

  though that used to be the case

  but rather that I write in order to understand

  I now have most of the answers I always sought

  If I had all of them, would I still write?

  Sarte said that people write in order to understand life

  Does that mean that when you understand life you stop writing?

  Writing is my life

  I don't really do anything else

  nothing that interests me anyway

  So if I ever had all the answers and was completely content

  would I actually be worse off?

  If you can pass each day happily

  without thinking about all this stuff

  then be thankful you're not a poet

  It's a filthy job

  But somebody's got to do it

  Well

  I have to

  PORNIFICATION

  Some of us men have sense

  Don't stereotype us all

  I personally hate violence

  and porn and football.

  I'm deeply disturbed by adverts

  with women in revealing tops

  clearly dressed as schoolgirls

  displayed on our bus stops.

  What message should I take from this

  and does it matter much?

  Does it bother other people

  or am I out of touch?

  Is it a post modern joke

  I wasn't invited to?

  I don't want porn at bus stops

  But some obviously do.

  I once saw a girl of twenty

  and written on her t-shirt

  was 'I'm gagging for an F.C.U.K.'

  is that how modern girls flirt?

  For half a horrid second

  a primeval side of me

  pictured what I'd do to her

  up against a tree.

  I'm a gentleman

  I'd never cross the line

  but others often do

  not just from time to time.

  The bus stops are bad enough

  but this was so much worse

  I felt physically ill

  at my testosterone curse.

  I wanted to warn her about

  what had flashed through my head

  but it would doubtless be

  a tricky path to tread.

  I loathe this kind of branding

  that doubtless comes from men

  provoking my libido

  again and again and again.

  You may think I'm overreacting

  but listen to the next verse

  and then tell me that

  this isn't all a terrible curse.

  Once I saw a girl of eight

  with mini-skirted hips

  her hair all in bunches

  and scarlet painted lips

  the image of a prostitute

  she walked with her mother

  I wanted to punch that woman

  but of course I didn't bother.

  Instead I bottled up my anger

  and a violent urge to cry

  'when did this start happening

  and someone tell me why?'

  Why would a mother do that

  does she think it's fancy dress?

  Where do you buy those clothes from

  who are they meant to impress?

  All they did to me

  was leave me in distress

  what did the future hold

  for this junior mistress?

  Not to mention the 'Playboy' skirts

  And 'porn star' t shirts

  Is that what people now aspire to?

  I really wish I had a clue.

  This isn't unconnected

  to the adverts using sex

  to sell me everything from razors

  to Vitamin B Complex.

  It's all so disturbing

  I don't know where to turn

  from the provoking images

  into my eyes they burn.

  I don't know where to go now

  but I thought I'd write this poem

  Cos if you're a woman

  these things are all worth knowing.

  They may not have occurred to you

  but here's my point of view

  is this how things should be?

  Is there anything we can do?

  That woman with the t-shirt

  is of course not to blame

  and part of me liked it

  to my everlasting shame

  but I wouldn't be surprised

  if she thinks a suffragette

  was an early 80s punk band

  that's how bad things can get.

  Emancipation isn't

  getting your tits out

  and drinking tons of lager

  and behaving like a lout.

  Being a man isn't

  competing in stupidity

  so grow up now

  And find some lucidity

  And stop the post-modern rape jokes

  And stop acting like blokes

  And act like a human being instead

>   Start thinking with your head

  We all need higher ideals

  To feel what our neighbour feels

  Embracing humanism

  Isn't high idealism

  It's just realism.

  PACKED LUNCH

  Once in junior school

  I couldn't stomach the food

  my mother had given me

  cos it wasn't very good

  sandwiches I didn't like

  filled my tupperware

  every day at lunchtime

  I wished that they weren't there

  I tried to eat a bit of them

  but couldn't manage a sliver

  so on the way home

  I threw them in the river

  The next day once again

  I had some similar muck

  packed up in tin foil

  just my rotten luck

  I don't know what was in them

  whether it was fish or hog

  and so it was, when I got home

  I flushed them down the bog

  Sadly, though they floated

  and were soon discovered

  and therefore I was punished

  they locked me in the cupboard

  That last line was a lie

  but I couldn't find a rhyme

  for the events that actually happened

  when I was told to apologise but wouldn't

  and ended up standing on the landing for an hour

  looking at my fish tank

  They had a weird idea of punishment in my family

  1 2 3 4

  1 2 3 4 hundred times

  I wish you'd shut your face

  I cannot stand your idle thoughts

  I wish you knew your place

  It's further down the food chain

  than a human should reside

  but that's your place cos you're

  something amobeas can deride

  1 2 3 4 thousand times

  I cringe at things you say

  you never cease to amaze me

  it just gets worse each day

  Ideas drip from your mind

  I just wish they were fewer

  cos everything you say is

  like the outflow of a sewer

  1 2 3 4 million times

  my skin crawls when you speak

  it makes me questions Darwin

  that a mind can be so weak

  If you see a book it frightens you

  and science is a far off land

  there was nothing natural in your selection

  you cannot have been planned

  1 2 3 4 billion times

  you fail to think each day

  a life of hate and ignorance

  is your moronic way

  you're pointless and redundant

  there is nothing you can do

  however many times I try

  I can't see the point of you

  Forgive me if you think

  this is just bitter polemic

  I wish you were just one person

  but you're now an epidemic

  WI-FLI

  I wonder

  if a mayfly

  ever thinks

  about the good old days,

  when it was only lunchtime?

  8 THINGS YOU CAN DO ON A TRAIN

  1

  Go to the toilets and rub

  a dead fox across your face

  it may just possibly

  improve the smell of the place.

  2

  Sellotape a photo of Hitler

  onto a beer mat

  and then smear his face

  with a gallon of pig fat.

  3

  Pretend you're using a laptop

  by folding some cardboard in half

  and writing a windows error message

  to make the Mac users laugh.

  4

  Pretend you're using an i-pod

  by placing a