The Cruelty of Boys

March 21 2016

The cruelty of boys

is different than the men

they will grow to become.

Because we were all guilty

of careless torture

when we first explored the world.

The pack-leaders and yes-men,

the sensitive ones

who hovered at the circle’s edge.

Excited, repulsed

conspiratorial,

lighting firecrackers

in crayfish,

dangling frogs above the flames.

I look back, and feel shame

for the fear, and the pain

we thoughtlessly dispensed,

our experiments

in absolute power.

So the men we became

are chastened

by who we once were.

While the few of us

who still haven’t learned

have the run of the world;

their bruised and broken wives,

plundered countries
plunged into war.

Helpless creatures, still sacrificed

the suffering earth.

I can forgive the cruelty of boys

who know nothing of life.

Their cruelty is cold;

but at least they lie in bed at night

alone in the dark

and aren't afraid to cry.

This poem speaks to regret and despair. But also about the seeds of empathy, and what real manliness is all about. I hovered at the circle’s edge; but never had the nerve to speak out.

It seems that many of my poems are inspired by those personal essays that appear each weekday on the back page of the Arts section of The Globe and Mail. This one as well. In an essay entitled Me and Mr. Hyde, Michele Luchs reflects on how, for years, the story of the demonic Mr. Hyde frightened her childhood self. She writes: “Then I’d wander down to the creek, where boys fished for crayfish then blew them up with firecrackers …”. On reading this, I immediately flashed back to a group of us boys, gathered tightly around, torturing frogs. The universal cruelty of boys, I thought. And how the psychopaths and narcissists – the Putins and Trumps of this world – never outgrow it.