WHY I AM NOT BERTRAND RUSSELL
Poetry
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]
BY RUI CARLOS DA CUNHA
Behind closed doors, locked shut, shuttered windows, a boy grows smaller and smaller
Even if he were huge, gigantic, a monster on the outside, inside
He grew smaller, quiet, a sensitive, little man without a future
In his soul, everyday he died, he could not cry, he could only holler
Not unlike a banshee, mourning the loss of life, no tears, only a wail
Defiant and piercing, his voice could shatter glass, so he was locked away
Cloistered in a bunker, underground, without light, hidden deep in the dark
Little Mumble Bunny learned to sing, perfect pitch and tempo, he felt pride
Only as a eunuch could his family sustain their lifestyle, a rupture
Shook their world with silence, his sadistic brother was forced to taste the spark
Enlightening lightning, kensho to satori, Mumble Bunny set sail
Dark days he left behind, behind closed doors, locked shut, windows shuttered, to say
Demons haunted his nights, angels guided his days, slept at dawn, woke at dusk
Of course, he was compared with a vampire in looks, his diaphanous skin
Ordinarily dark, grew pale over the years, life in the deep, blue sea
Remained silent for fish, darkness swallowed his voice, he could no longer busk
Silence taught him lessons, he learned to meditate, one night he met a djinn
Little Mumble Bunny read books voraciously, Modernist poetry
Only the djinn preferred John Donne to Eliot, Lao Tse to Ezra Pound
Campbell Kimball Russell, also known as "C. K." or the Mumble Bunny
Kin were no longer in, so the Mumble Bunny became C. K. by name
Eventually, C. K. learned to enunciate, his friends found it funny
Despite his unchosen nickname, "Mumble Bunny" no longer felt the same
Silence was not a grave, assaulting the senses in darkness without sound
Hungry for acceptance outside of his family, his complicit parents
Understanding nothing of children or childhood, except trauma and pain
Torture was de rigueur, the family discipline put in practice to ground
Sinister family rules into strict discipline, privilege for the first born
Hungry for acceptance, C. K. became "Russell", over time, he presents
Underhanded people to his warrior self, but with nothing to gain
The Book of Life opened slowly before his eyes, for years he felt their scorn
The Father and the Son, the Mother and the Ghost, his long-deceased sister
Ever since he was born, his parents treated him like their dead baby girl
Rehearse entitlement for his older brother, the favored son, their love
Equal but separate for their two sons living totally different lives
Deceased sister aside, the first born son knows all, how bees thrive in their hives
When a window opens, a door to the past shuts, God looks down from above
In the eyes of the Lord, C. K. felt unworthy, compared to the black pearl
No one but his brother, the lion in the sun,
his mane, golden glister
Defend perpetrators when it's only in fun, charming beyond the harm
Older children bully, harass, shake down, and haze younger siblings for fun
What if latch-key kids felt loved and not neglected, C. K. could not disarm
Sinister sister, ghost of household influence, affluent as the sun
A boy grows like an oak, bespoke suit for college graduation, too late
Bumble Mumble Bunny with marbles in his mouth spoke truth against trauma
Only his parents laughed and banished him downstairs in their dingy basement
Yet somehow he survived childhood, entered college, studied Classics, his fate
Generates connections, genealogy charts, the myth of Plato's cave
Reformed shadows observe sunlight for the first time, down in the basement, he knew
Only darkness, terror, the evil parents do, too tired to love and care
Worthless, invisible on the inside, outside... a part of the drama,
Sound and silence, siblings surround Mumble Bunny in order to dement
Scramble his brain with fear until body and mind drop away as they scare
Mumble Bunny to shrink, hide within emptiness, vast and boundless, a grave
As enormous as space without planets or stars, just a small boy who grew
Large enough not to be noticed by anyone, just a shell of a man
Living yet not alive, surviving as unfit to reproduce, no balls
Eunuchs of dysfunction murder the populace of possible infants
Religion cannot save a child from his siblings burning his soul, out of the frying pan
As he had three wishes offered by the old djinn, a pair of testicles
Nothing less than solving homelessness, poverty and loss of innocence
Drug and sex trafficking, global hunger, world peace, and global climate change
Since eight requests in one revealed his liberal bleeding heart, the djinn saw
Much to discuss, the boy now a middle-aged man, felt this was his last chance
As the rules of the game offer physical gifts only within a range
Legitimate for one person no matter who receives the gift, his jaw
Loosened and dropped, dismayed nothing would ever change, without a chance to dance
Eventually, C. K. decided to tackle these problems with a book
Rough draft to print copies took twenty years, he died before the world he shook