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Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
a new poem
holding no regrets for lies
he’s told
he does bemoan a certain
lack of loyalty
his lies have shown him
given time and all the loss
he’s ever known
great strides in conscience
grace his girlish gait
gaily walking swiftly
toward mayhem
fearing men who can’t
outrun their trousers*
feeling he has left his pants exhausted at the door
fled becomes the only strategy he leaves behind
feeling he has left his pants exhausted at the door
fled becomes the only strategy he leaves behind
every little heartbeat
letter sound may bore him
evacuating cavities of if and next
each time he tries to flee
his bowels deform him
despite goodwill he runs
from every little score
decrying any love that
tries to sing him
denigrating the use of
inlet when his taste for foreign lingo favors fjord
could the narrow breadth of
vast unopened heartache
castrate the way he waddles
into wrath
cavorting with the this and
that - what have you
beneath the folds of one
crass outlandish gown
belying the unflappable
tags of dignity
besieged by definitions
that have him prancing out of town
absolution from untruths he
knew would haunt him
await him at those
blanched and toothy gates
aware that all the things
that fight to love him
are all the things he
doesn’t really hate…
* “a man can’t out run his trousers” -
from Alistair MacLeod’s play No Great Mischief
Friday, September 21, 2012
two stories
two stories
after Anne Beatty's 'Snow'
I remember the cold night you crapped yourself walking home from your Nana’s house, how I always belittled you for calling her Nana instead of Granny, Grandma, or just plain Grandmother. “What’s that smell?” I said, as you rushed in the front door and went straight to the bathroom without taking your winter boots off. The odor went through the dining room, into the kitchen, across the living room, and stopped at the fireplace, as though it had made this trip before. This would be difficult for anyone to believe, except perhaps someone already familiar with the depth, substance, and navigational skills of your in-exquisite flatulence.
Our first month together was spent sharing
recipes, cooking each other’s favorite meals; like Chili con carne or spaghetti
and meatballs. Late at night, in the kitchen, you would stay up for hours,
preparing for our next gourmet breakfast, while I slept soundly with an
increasing waistline and a contented heartbeat.
When you made Eggs Benedict for me for the
first time, I suggested a spinach salad on the side, with real bacon bits, like
the brunches I remembered going to in the village before we moved in together.
The day of our first big dinner party, when you had to prepare for seven guests
and couldn’t find your recipe for stuffed mushroom caps and asked me if I had a
good one – you, wide-eyed and frantic in your mother’s apron, like an insane
chef in some televised cooking competition.
Our friends loved coming to our dinners,
prepared especially for them in our little converted carriage house. So many
friends visited, and the fireplace made them all want to stay very late and
drink in excess and tell stories about their most recent romantic escapades:
the accountant who met an ex-astronaut who he took to the Mars café for lunch;
the beautician who kept ending relationships with really nice guys whenever she
noticed a nose hair dangling from their nostrils; the transsexual flight
attendant who was afraid the pilot she was flirting with would discover her
‘secret’ and have her fired; the bellhop who was screwing an enormously wealthy
government official from an Arab Emirate and wondered if their relationship
would ever amount to anything.
Did our friends think we were interested in their stories because we fed them and listened intently as they slurred their words and spilled red wine on the carpet, costing us our damage deposit when we moved out? Now I think they probably knew we would never last. We were as hopeless as we had been as children, two boys playing in the same schoolyard, peering at each other through glazed innocent expressions, wondering what we would be allowed to feel for one another next.
Remember that night at your Nana’s, the ice was
so treacherous and you said we’d have such fun holding each other up the whole
way there, but I refused to go. It was like we were totally devoid of metaphor
and were literally sliding away from each other, but you insisted it would all
be okay. Later that night I tried to drive over to her place to get you but the
wheels of my car just spun in the glassy driveway. I fell twice on my way from
the car to the back door.
You have such different memories. You recall how beautiful the bridge was as you crossed it alone, like a small girl wearing a red hood in a fairy tale on his way to grandmother’s house, looking for icicles as you peered between the openings in the cement railing, hoping to find a magical one to put in the ice box for her to save for her Christmas tree - and how our love was frozen in time like some eternal chunk of winter glass.
By our fireside our friends would tell such silly stories about love and romance. One night, giving me instructions on how to love, you told me, “A love will die if you don’t treat it like God treats snowflakes, like a fine chef treats every entree.”
I went back to the village not long ago, after moving to a basement apartment not far form the carriage house that we shared. It was the end of June, and so many of our old friends were there, all dolled up and enjoying the annual festivities. Geoffrey, the one who always brought a dreadful homemade dessert to all our dinners, had just passed away that week. Despite all the stories and the drunken mishaps, Geoffrey had always been there, smiling and ready to help out with those nasty red stains on the pale gold broadloom, hoping, I believe, to stay late enough so I would fall asleep and he could have his way with you, when all he had to do was ask. I sat with Geoffrey’s widower, looking across the street at the thousands of revelers, and there were three of our old friends, sitting under the beer tent, laughing and sipping wine from huge plastic glasses, slopping cheap red dollops on wooden picnic tables like they did by the fireplace in our rented home. It started to rain heavily, and he put up his umbrella and locked arms with me, pulling me closer and out of the sudden downpour. When I left him, once the rain had stopped, I walked through the square and glanced at all the names. Three or four stood out – collections of engraved letters identifying some of the people who had passed through our lives. I felt sad. Even if they had been with us that day, we had no place for them to come to dinner.
This is not the way love should unfold. As you told me, love, like food and snowflakes, should be carefully prepared. We only had the beginning, the rest melted away, like fine cheese in the bottom of a fondue pot or snowflakes on mittens. It’s pointless to speculate upon what might have happened. Who expects things to last anymore – did anyone ever? But people do remember our dinners. They amount to something in the minds and memories of a chosen few; the ones we selected from our respective address books, and cordially invited to our home to share one of the many kindnesses we bestowed upon each other.
What I remember most is the night you came home with your trousers filled and frozen. The ice. Still, just saying, “the ice,” I laugh and my lips kiss yours like magic cylinders stuck to something that attracts them and yet becomes so painful once separated.
No further mention will be made of your
‘accident’, the way you said “Oops” when you came down the stairs after
showering, dangling a laundry bag filled with all your clothing, and how we
laughed by the fire, spilled wine, ate homemade pretzels, and made love as you
recounted a tale of frozen feces, and how, that night, when you were on your own, they accompanied you all
the way home from grandmother’s house.
I don’t know
how to love him
Should I
speak of love / let my feelings out / I never thought I’d come to this /what’s it all about?
Tim Rice
It’s an old story and not a very interesting one. A man of a certain age suddenly comes to the realization that he has had so much casual sex with acquaintances and strangers, and so little with people he has gotten to know, that he has developed no real talent for conversation with long-term lovers. So he starts to make a conscious attempt to talk to the people he is sleeping with. The list is considerable. He is still attractive and has no difficulty finding other ‘like-minded’ individuals. And except for one ill chosen remark about hair color during sexual intercourse, in the eyes of the seventeen odd people he is currently seeing, there is no noticeable change in his interpersonal skills. His sexual cohorts have never noticed him lacking in the art of social dialogue before. But therein lies the problem. To him it seems like dialogue – on the page. He is reciting it like a well-trained film actor. Not too loud, not too emotive, the camera will do some of the wok for you. When the time is right an outpouring of emotion will be extracted carefully and subtly. This isn’t the stage. You don’t have to project, or reach the heart and soul of the shop girl in the back row of the balcony with the windows to your soul. She – the filmgoer of your dreams - will desire you wholeheartedly if you simply follow the foolproof maxim - less is more.
But he doesn’t feel them deep inside – the
things he says – and can’t figure out why. He’s had so many women before, and
although in very many ways each new encounter is just one more, he has always
prided himself on his special love for all of the women he has slept with. So
now, at the moment in his life when he has decided to make a conscious attempt
to develop new social skills around intimacy, why does it all seem so hollow
and unfelt? Because he has already done it by rote so many times in a world
that privileges the concept of one and only? And by considering the emotional
trappings of the so-called ‘normal’ world of courtship and romance so late in
life has he inadvertently rendered himself a mere shell of a man filled with
nothing but the memories of extreme sexual fulfillment with a variety of
beautiful and exciting women?
He doesn’t believe any of that crap. He looks around at his men friends and sees their long-term relationships and they are not all train wrecks. But they are also not entirely fulfilling. There is nothing wrong with them. They just don’t strike him as something he longs for. So he decides to carry on with the business of learning how to consciously speak tenderly and meaningfully to people he knows – the people he is already sleeping with and the people he may one day sleep with after learning, through heartfelt conversation, all kinds of wonderful things about them. This does not stop him from continuing to sleep with near strangers. With time they may become the people he knows. He is simply making a mid-life adjustment, akin to buying a new belt when you feel your old ones are all just a little too tight. They feel fine, but they could expand a bit. He is aware of the objectifying nature of his metaphors but does not feel that they present a problem in his daily life. He knows that a woman is not a belt.
So now, when he walks into rooms with a
paramour that none of his men friends have ever seen before, and he notices
their smirky smiles, with a trace of envy marking their tone of voice when he
greets them, he always remembers to introduce his date by clearly stating her
full name and her profession. It may seem a small step to many, but in his
world it is a giant foot forward as he comfortably and confidently makes his
way toward the end of a life that he has absolutely no intention of ever making
any apologies for.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
4 poems
as luck would have it…
having fallen again, call it denial, call it a
river of love, rushing by…
love may conquer all
but pathologies always win
over-riding romance
with one bold stroke
of bloodthirsty genius
all those devastatingly handsome vampires
refusing to suck your blood
he-bitches craving God’s mistaken race
half in love with fairies
as luck would have it
he met him so close to a full moon
but not close enough
just a sliver, a French tip of desire
and if there is a man up there
he is dying slowly of a joking heart
having come to terms with the last lunar eclipse
that left him in the dark
*
two defensive strokes / one haiku
hand guns called his name
slipping into simile
like razors into veins
this was not a suicide note
just a jagged love poem
longing for another waltz
lyrical weapons
designed by moths to shade them
from the jaded light
*
Oranges & Roses (five pretentious stanzas)
one
the pretentious sentimentality of the clouds
hovering over us
rain, sleet, snow, obstructing horizons
causing thunderstorms to cower
two
the pretentious sympathy of the very poor
rationale behind the strategies some rich people
employ when they describe their personal ideology
on charitable behaviour
three
the pretentious packaging of oranges and roses
in the snow - like Queen Anne and her naked slave
boys
dying dark against the frigid whiteness
as they dance for ghosts
four
the pretentious way of suggesting
Queens had any real power
over the colonization of birthing bodies
and inviting Pocahontas for tea
five
the pretentious desire to take a road trip to
Virginia
just to see whether they sell snow globes
of a famed ‘Indian Princess' and her mis-taken
Cowboys
the beloved, savage, civilization of global tourism
oranges & roses eaten
among
clouds
wealth
snow
tea
travel…
*
gun control (three cozy palindromes)
snuguns
snugguns
snug guns
*
Saturday, September 8, 2012
the virus is making its magic tonight
the virus is making its magic tonight...
the virus is making its magic
tonight
huddled in this strained
embrace
we try to love each other
against all odds
resisting metaphors to war
attacking fear with love
rather than anger - not anger
entire patterns of
kaleidoscopic organisms
composed by two strands of
RNA
fifteen types of viral
proteins
from the last host cell
infected
entering immune system cells
building viral copies
each molecule playing
harmonic roles in this
process
from the first steps of attachment
to the final process of
budding
we have found a way to bloom
in these final diagnoses
the pain we feel is neither
sweet nor sour but both
the pain is lasting
and we find ways to endure
to create nostalgia for so
many futures lost
there are no soldiers here
no weapons
just a body and its own
private virus
un-camouflaged distinct
in some everlasting clutch
grabbed from a world
filled with worrisome warriors
wanting so desperately to
name it out of timeworn kinship
into realms of scapegoating
and histrionic imperialism
begun as a massive strategy
for the destruction of an identity
the dubious normalization of
queer
that had been so hard won we
cried in streets
rosy triangulations vigilant
on thoroughfares
only to be harshly chaperoned
by false scientific jargon - chat
herded along grid-like routes
to the ridiculously sublime missteps of time
the absence of the truth
of tenderness and touch
and now we have it here
in a plethora of bodies
abundance with but one choice
to love it and ourselves in and out of loss
to toss our sense of me and I
in the end
without regretting middles
and beginnings
yes, we huddle in this
strained embrace
composing entire brilliant
patterns of kaleidoscopic chaos
disseminating ordered mayhem
we may one day conquer
free to make this choice on
loving death
and the abject fear of
isolating ourselves from our detractors
bending viral loads into
symbolic signs swaddled and beheld - for bodies to enfold
yes, huddled herds - virions
of valiant sympathy and hard won grace…
Saturday, September 1, 2012
FOUR LONG 'ISH POEMS
self-portrait of the artist as a middle-aged malcontent
(a triptych)
one
i
sat on top of a mountain
rejected
manuscripts
stuck
up my ass
waiting to be included
in
a ‘best poems’ anthology
i
am still waiting
cold, wan, rash
rolled,
soiled pages
weighing
heavily
upon my urethra
two
i
committed myself
to
making a new piece of art
every
day
ended up with sore arms
and a very crowded apartment
three
through the threat of cataracts
detached retinas, missed eye appointments
and intermittent dental care
i see every word as precious
hanging
on each syllabic turn
white
mice in peanut galleries
swinging softly by their tails
in
deluded fog
‘the privileged poor’
my kitchen is
the size of a large closet
my bathroom is
the size of an impossible storage unit
my bedroom is an
equity banned dressing room
I am subsidized
to the tits
and have no more
space for judgment
but I have
enough room
for the hard won
oxymoronic
identificatory
praxis of the privileged poor
for what the
supreme global dwelling place for colonizers call
their democratic
right to shop and to be shopped for
so don’t cry for
me Central America
let no country
that has been
fucked by North American
complicity
shed a tear
for the tremulous fault line of rampant capitalism
as it fucks me
treats me like a
well fed pig
apple in my
mouth
skewer in spit
i spin and
sizzle
awaiting,
stinking, smug, impatient
for the well
cooked
insatiable
excremental excitement
of your gorgeous
hard won
wrath
strolling shot/shouldering love
sitting in the front row alone
driving into film with a backseat lightly grazed by random
cinephiles
he stretches one arm in a pink fleshy triangle over his head
fingertips resting lightly on the top of his right shoulder
soft tips sink nimbly into puffy skin
this faintly discernible intrusion into self
close to the bone
he gobbles devours endures celluloid moments
where he is safe outside the scene
someone onscreen
starts to cry
someone else onscreen puts their hand on the crying
someone’s shoulder
then the crying someone turns to the consoling someone
resting his head so gently on their shoulder
as the tips of the spectators fingers sink further into the
flesh of his own heart
skeletal blades and connecting tissue become crevasses of
desire
his arm stretches toward some unattainable limb - some
bodily matter
he is penetrated so tenderly
his hand is having sex with his shoulder
this unbeatable trust between limb and body - body and limb
in middle age these seconds minutes hours matter
providing erotic detached filmic comfort
still reeling in his mind
all those distant lovers mourning a lack of sexual
forgiveness
making love to their lost selves
fingertips on their shoulder blades
ready for their close-ups
mourning memories of tenderness clawing deep
absolving hollows from self-embargoed love
five reasons why I really hate my poetry today
one
I really hate my poetry today
I hate its lyric sadness and
the way
it wanders with such pomp
through come what may
declaring courage in the face
of doom
detaching from humanity by
describing all the stuff that fills a living room
two
I really hate the way I have
with words
they tumble out in
microscopic herds
rattling my teeth and sending
shivers through my underwear
I really hate the way they
seem to care
about what’s right and wrong
and what seems so damned unfair
and how they always end up
with some citation to some stranger’s pubic lair
three
but most of all I hate the
rhyming couplets
thanking gods for a lack of
exuberance over poetry in quintuplets
so I write in fives just to
piss my sad self off
so I can look in mirrors and
smirk then scowl then scoff
then covet some pricks hat
I’d like to doff
or doff some prick who likes
to covet dicks
but that was five and this is
one past six
four
chairs and lamps and tables
interest me
I should have been a
carpenter like that stud from Galilee
I would have filled the
world with furniture
Instead of furnishing the
world with love
I would have tipped my cap to our Lord Jesus
with one agnostic leather glove
I would have craved some
godly wisdom when push came down to shove
five
but instead I’m here and
hating my poetry so god damn much
just lifting my fingertips to
the keypad is like poison to the touch
but yes, such pretty poison I
can’t seem to get enough of
as one bard said, these are
what make our lives
the stuff that dreams make
muck of
p.s.
so let’s raise a toast to
words and all they say
like shit! goddamn!
and
“kind sir, have you ever
considered becoming, just long enough to kiss me, GAY !!! ? ”
photos, top to bottom; Madame X, Madame Recamier, Eleonora Duse, Martin Sheen, Rupert Brooke
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