The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Qupperneq 99

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
97
i
EQUITY
by Paul Sigurdson
What does it matter —
To wash with a Bendix,
Or scrub crude cotton,
Like an Arab, with his feet —
Which is right?
What does it matter —
Diamonds flashing,
Blue-cold fire,
Coiled on the neck
Of a vain debutante;
Or beads of teeth
Tom from a tiger,
Snaking between
The potent breasts
Of a Nubian virgin —?
Are we whites
The wise people?
Is there no ignorance
In sophistication?
Sometimes I feel
Life’s true meanings
Are saved for the hungry,
The weary, the simple,
The sad, the lost and the pained.
OUR LOSS
by Paul Sigurdson
The General cries: “Viotory!”
The shark with the full-house,
The sweaty reliefer,
The slick disc-jockey,
The town mayor, obese and important,
The college die-hard,
And the boy at marbles.
What is this grasping for a word?
Sneaking, grovelling, faiwning,
Pounding, pushing, tearing,
Jostling brother and brother,
Kin and non-kin, white and
non-white—
All for the sound of three syllables?
Is it for the vaulting of the pulse
within,
The physical upoharge of exultation?
Is it for the sheer glee
From the tumbling cascade of frenzied
applause?
Or is it the last taint from the savage
Who gloated over a bleeding head?
Lord, let it not take Armageddon
To teach us,
How bleak, and scorched and empty
Is this word.
KING LETHARGY
by Paul Sigurdson
Shelled, surrounded, ’prisoned, tied,
On my couch I lie;
My blood could not be lazier,
If I were due to die.
Bring a crow-bar and a wrench
To pry me from my den;
It shall take more than guile or God
To make me lift a pen.