Sunday, May 5, 2019

Poetry Corner - What Say Ye? Oh Doctor?



This is the seventh in a series of poems and song parodies that I wrote for a contest that centered around male infant circumcision. The contest encouraged original songs and poems, as well as parodies of other works. For my last Poetry Corner entry, I posted a parody based on poetry written by late American circumcision mogul Edgar Schoen.

This time around, I'm posting an original poem I wrote, expressing my disdain for the American medical profession.

At the time, I was still single, but I knew one day I'd be married and have children of my own. I knew that at least one of my children would be male, and that I'd have to deal with knife-happy doctors wanting to mutilate my son. (Or sons?) I wanted to prepare myself for the hypothetical encounter where some doctor or nurse came to us trying to peddle circumcision.

Having been an intactivist for some time already, there was already so much disdain I had for doctors who did this; for doctors who were in the business of hocking this needless surgery on parents of boys.

Of course, I wasn't even sure I was going to be a father, but there was so much I wanted to say to any doctor with the balls to approach me and ask me if I would let him take my son away and mutilate his penis. There was so much anger. There IS still anger. I can't believe this is happening in my country TODAY.

 "I may never have children, let alone a son," I thought to myself, but I wanted an opportunity to tell a doctor off, even if an imagined, hypothetical one. So when I wrote this poem, I poured every last thought I could into it; all the things I'd like to tell a doctor to his face if he or she dared TRY to ask me.

A doctor asking me to let me circumcise my son might as well ask me if I could let him rape my daughter.

The NERVE of nurses and doctors.

So this poem depicts what I would have liked to say in the hypothetical situation where a doctor or nurse approached me and my wife to asks us to let him mutilate my son.


What Say Ye? Oh Doctor?

What say ye? Oh Doctor?
Why must this child be shorn
of normal, healthy tissue
with which every boy is born?

What say ye? Oh Doctor?
Is he dying? Is he sick?
Is that a cancerous tumor
growing on his little dick?

And what say ye? Oh Doctor?
What prompts this "big decision?"
What ails this child today
that commands his circumcision?

Just what disease in newborns
is circumcision s'pposed to cure?
Why must healthy newborn boys
such needless pain endure?

More than urging parents
that they sign away permission,
Don't you need an actual reason
for performing circumcision?

Just what other healthy body parts
do you remove at parents' whims?
If parents came and asked you
would you cut off healthy limbs?

Since when does circumcising
healthy boys become your task?
Can you even be performing them?
Let alone their parents ask?

If there's no rhyme or reason,
Just how is it that you dare?
Come into my wife's room
and ask for what's not there?

Is it the child's well being,
or is it your thirst for blood?
Or is it for the money
why you say that this is good?

Are you actually worried
That this boy won't look like dad?
Or is it that you envy
the foreskin you never had?

Is it that you thirst and hunger
to inflict the pain
The same torture that you suffered,
on newborn babes again?

Just how is it called medicine
to mutilate the healthy?
To put newborns at needless risk
of death while you get wealthy?

How exactly is it, Doctor,
that you even have the gall?
To pawn these lies on parents
from door to door and hall to hall?

How is it legal for you to perform
this needless surgery,
let alone consult the parents
of the circumcised to be?

Profiting from needless surgery.
Is that not against the law?
In non-consenting individuals,
Is that not medical fraud?

In the end, what is it, Doctor?
What have you left to say?
What keeps this child from coming home
intact and whole today?

SHAME on you, Oh Doctor.
How could you sink so low.
Why the onus on the parents,
when it's YOU who's paid to know?

Shame on all these "studies,"
that seek to justify,
the blatant violation
of basic human rights.

Get thee OUT of here, Oh Doctor.
How dare you come into this place.
Boldly peddling your snake oil,
What a fucking sad disgrace.

Leave this place immediately.
Get out of here.  Begone.
Get this straight: WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER
will you mutilate our son.