Critiquing the Prose of Paul Bernardo

Hello

I’m the critic who liked Paul Bernardo’s fiction

calling it a ‘magnum opus from the mind of the criminally insane .

The greatest work of art from a serial killer since Charles Manson covered the Beatles’ Helter Skelter.’

Apparently I’m supposed to critique the artist not the art

as people have called me, ‘sick’ but not in the good way sick.

They have called me ‘perverted’

and ‘an enabler of evil’ and

‘somebody who would like Hitler’s paintings’

and I would if they were any good

good people can do bad stuff

just like bad people can do good stuff

so I don’t feel I need to retract my endorsement:

‘A great first novel from the laptop of one of Canada’s most horrible people. The best crime novel written from prison since The Sixteenth Round by Rubin Carter.’

Turns out putting your name to to the cover of a Paul Bernardo novel is a career killer. Now no one takes me seriously because I called the book, ‘the best work Bernardo has ever done.’ It’s true. It is.

It’s you who’s got the problem if you think he’s done better.

 

Literal is Relative

“When I heard the news I literally died!”

said my friend

“Welcome back, Jesus!”

I said.

 

It’s All In The Wrist

Skipping stones that quickly learn to skim

across the ocean’s tit

rocks that learn to roll with it

slide with the tide

no matter what’s the time

and suddenly you’re forty

and then you’re forty-one

and you hope it keeps going like this forever

until the sea saw that she can’t sustain such a stone

on her liquid bosom forever

and your skipped stone sinks

into this current’s bloodstream

and still you’re forty-two too

and you’re still alive

but you know

you gotta go all in eventually.