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