Supression, Its Evil Lurking At The Compost Pit Poem by RIC BASTASA

he was in grade three, neat and clean
and well taken cared of,
his tv shows screened
kissing scenes a taboo
and sexist language strictly filtered,
movies prohibited and
loose behavior restrained

christian boy in an exclusive
religious school of st. vincent's in a
small city, where girls are on the other
side of the gate, where the boys
look for them like some hidden gems,

to me that is segregation,
a supression of my right to be me
as a boy and for me to see girls
and have fun with them,

it was not easy, but there was this
incident which i could not really forget
and perhaps justifies my rebellion
for what is evil
in segregation for what is wrong
with supression,

my classmates, all boys, hid themselves
in the compost pit and rolled down their
trousers, their eyes like fire lighting
the centerfold of the Playgirl magazine
sometime in 1964.

i was the little christian boy
raised in the strictest tradition
neat and clean and feeling
so ousted.