Poem : Train Scent

A train-scent is the scent left behind when you drag something on the ground to train a dog to follow the scent trail.

This is a poem about rough sex and apps and cruising in a bodega late at night.

Not that I know anything about that.

---

Train Scent

*
Those gray sweatpants — pink crop top sweatshirt
perfect rubber ball — your ass
is an orange to peel

You drop small gifts on the internet — a leaking
plastic bag on a walk from the bodega to your apartment
*
You send me a video you took with your phone underwater
the rippling — the hands outreached

Choking me — when you remember my name
I choke — swarm of dark olive green — pouring
bile into the floorboards
*
At the edge of the lake — after running for miles
over the endless curtain wall of dry leaves — yellow
a burning zoetrope you move across

There you become a man in sweats on a jog
you turn into the 1980s
*
There — you know the spot to hit
after being followed from store to door

A spot to drop clothes — pretenses — care
place to become roiling water in a pot on the stove
steam resting the itch in the back of the throat
*
On the tongue — scent of black pepper and body
sour within — wrapping — a shell of pinkness
sniffing around a penthouse for ass

You drop small gifts — across my clavicle
there an obvious scent an obvious color

Poem-A-Day #328 : The Gay Looks Like Snow

The Gay Looks Like Snow

I set my gay on the table, it spills
napkins only spread it around

A gay comes on that reminds me of the 90s

Working on my gay becomes a problem
when the wifi goes out

All the heads look up, turn to the counter
watch as they gay the router

Outside, on the phone, I hear reports
on the gay of my grandfather

He was gay then out of the hospital
grumpy but well

The gay looks like snow

Poem-A-Day #327 : Gay Manifesto 2017

Gay Manifesto 2017

In the logos and glitter a haze : we cannot see : through dancing bodies a sort of new-oldness arises and it feels like things we've seen before :

The first Pride I went to : large and omnipresent : New York City in the summer presses down with the weight of wet felt : it was a parade : a caged revelry and the tourists clicked their things at it : the plumage of these exotic and safe birds did not escape the trenches of avenues and Budwiser logos : it was so gay :

That safety : caged and wrought : that we helped build it ourselves is exactly the point : that we enact a static form of homosexuality : that a culture that lives in stasis is destined to die :

Imagine the parade as one long column of gray : rows of queers in camo and black leather : queens dressed as reapers and demons : all stoic and facing the future expressionless : unsafe and unwilling to give comfort to the audience : there will be no haze of music or perfume or the reassuring touch of feathers :

Imagine signs demanding only progress : let us scare them again : let Pride be inferred :

Poem-A-Day #318 : It Is What The Brain Does In Response That Causes Concern

It Is What The Brain Does In Response That Causes Concern

In the stark light of January it is hard to predict where it will come from
the broken man missing all of his teeth or the men in their "nice" clothes
coming out of the diner

Conversation in the parking lot our gayness on display by virtue of existence
the voices may come harsh and faggoting or they will whisper followed
by laughter and stares and cackling as doors to cars open and shut

And in that moment everyone who is a target will be hushed and silenced
and kept from being as loud and real as those people who get to drive
out of the accident that just occurred

A cell phone may go off the ringtone a Tina Turner song and someone will
have to decide to answer it the cars will move silently by the small pressed
selves and eyes will lock

On the phone a parent or friend or sibling and they will be asking what's up
the moment will elongate time stopping a hung phrase looping itself to death
there could be a fire in that rubbing second

"Fine" will be the answer because there is nothing finer than coming through
the micro without a fat lip or a worse screeching of tires or blood on the snow
there is only fine here

Poem-A-Day #280 : Dilly Boy

Dilly Boy

Bitch you're meese

Nanti pots in the oven
shite ecaf but bona drag bona ends full basket

Bitch you so ?

Zhoosh yourself
hang the cards

Switch the ring on your fambles you look married

I'll let you doss me get down on my lallies
show the dish and all that in the cottage

Have you the measures to trade ?

Poem-A-Day #275 : Cum

Cum

How does evolution

Here the pin prick -
The drop of electric wires
on your chest

A stew of self bubbling away

You want to eggwhite it
but it's not even true

There is a vanilla here

The pus of it

I cannot swim but look at this go

Poem-A-Day #265 : The Latest Poem About Violence That I Have Written

The Latest Poem About Violence That I Have Written

I often think about Matthew Shepard
and what the last thing he heard was
and I hope it was a bird or
wind in the leaves

Not the sound of his own skull
cracking like an egg
on the side of a bowl

But deep down I know that was what he heard - engulfing
the sound of bone becoming soft - islands drifting int he ocean of brain
and then becoming nothing

And I fear that sound

I sleep restless with that sound

I dream endlessly of that sound

I hope - at least - that he could see the stars

Poem-A-Day #181 : Because I Am Spotted Every Day

Because I Am Spotted Every Day

When you asked about the gym with the monkey on the sign what you meant was that you thought it was gay because there was a monkey on the sign and that the monkey on the sign was flexing and what you actually meant was that the drawing was kitsch as fuck and that is has to be gay then right

And I think I said something about all gyms being homoerotic those bodies in such a small space sweating and pheromoning all over the place and watching each other and performing for each other and then taking selfies in the locker room half naked together and I probably just laughed the comment off in the end because I get it I do but let's be honest here straight men do gay shit all the time

What I really want to ask in the moment though is if you could teach me how to wear flannel like a straight man

Is there a way for me to hide better

Because I am spotted every day

Once in awhile I try stealth just to see how it feels and I only manage a few hours of it before I have to break the silence in the room and by room I mean my head because to be stealth is to actually hide something on purpose and then to have to police yourself constantly to make sure that there isn't a wardrobe malfunction

And I wonder if you have that same experience ever

And I bet you would say that you feel similar things but do you really

When you ask me about the gym being gay and then talk to me about some shit that's real straight I want to throw the pint glass and use the shards of glass to cut your face so you have something to be ashamed of for real

I can get real butch real quick when the weather permits

But only on days without glitter because if there is glitter I will stare into it and think about the light reflecting on my eye and then thick about how our brains invert the things we see to make sense of them and I will be too damn distracted to deal with putting on man for the day

Do you put on man

I check the mirror every morning to see how fag I look so I know how much fag I'll get

There are days where I can't so I don't

And there are days where I'm candy-colored pride parade

And I know there are days you'd rather not but do you know how not to because I had to figure that out at 8 so that I wouldn't be too this too that and I learned how to lower my voice a bit when answering the phone and I learned how not to accent myself I practiced that shit in mirrors and in public and I fell all over myself trying to not stand out to not be harassed to not end up beaten and or dead

And I'm being real histrionic but this is real history as well

But no that is not a gay gym it is a gym and looking at it now I don't even see how you could mistake this my understanding has bled off in the rains of late summer and frankly they have a phone number call them up and ask them if they're gay and let's see what they tell you and then we can start this conversation again after you've been called faggot for real

Poem-A-Day #88 : Gay Poem

Gay Poem

I stand in front of the mirror and I put my gay on :

It sleeps in a silver casket on the edge of the sink
near the toothpaste :

A cat coiled into itself möbius ass to mouth :

I want to tail something and unattached everything else
the sound of it could be a bottle under pressure giving in :

I christen this ship queer as fuck :

What do I look like when I sleep and am without my gay
do you recognize me in those lights
is it blue or some other field :

Turn to open sea full steam something something faucet away :

Ava Gardner touches up her face

Poem-A-Day #78 : Underwear

Underwear

Bands of elastic gray and cutting fabric
under your ass cheeks

          I am trying out this jockstrap
          trying to see what the big deal is about

That floss bit that they talk about
is more rope more floating finger of gentle pressure

          Someone told me that they were the height of sensuality
          that wearing them was akin to constant turning on

The ass is not so much raised as gently tightened
and the balls are compressed

          I don't buy the story being told
          this isn't terrible this isn't amazing

It's perhaps more about knowing what is on
under the clothes the nudity in the dressed

          It's certainly less sweaty certainly a kind of freedom
          though the cheeks become red

Poem-A-Day #65 : The Body

The Body

Glitter in the blood - on the pavement - an oil slick of confetti

This is the pooling of every beaten queer body - it bleeds until the sidewalk looks like an 80s music video and the world is tinted in purple and light

Watch it die

                    It is an animal with its neck broken

You are sitting at the dinner table and see it before you hear it - the queer is a bird is going to hit the window - is going to leave a mark

It is the wet slap of a towel in a bathhouse on the floor of the shower

And it is on your dinner table

                    On your child's plate - they will eat it

The newscaster is dancing around the subject of the body in the gutter

The people walking by - the metallic flow from the mouth - a swarm of flies diffusing in the night they will attack the moon down

THIS! 5/18/12

THIS! on May 18, 2012

1) James Buchanan

While I don't love this Salon article. It does raise some good points. It also seems to have lifted all of those points directly from our 15th President's Wikipedia page.

Debating the sexuality of historical figures is a fascinating genre of non-fiction. Remember when Hitler was outed in 2001?

Do I think living with a man for 15 years and lamenting his being away and talking about 'wooing' other men and finding an old maid to engage in a sexless marriage all points to Buchanan being gay. Yes. Do I think it matters. No.

But it is interesting.

2) ixxi

These little plastic bits connect square cards into larger images. You can use solid colored paper or take an image and they will chop it up for you.

It's expensive but beautiful.

3) David Leddick

Sal was/is my favorite Mad Men character. It will forever make me sad that I do not get a dose of Bryan Batt's fabulousness each episode. And I pray to the goddess that they bring him back each season.

This article about being gay in the world of 1960s advertising made me smile for that alone.

Hurry

Hurry 6/7

The voice on the other end is dark, angry
                        we know you have to go to work
                        we know where you park your car
silence –

I sit expecting someone to smash in the window
beat me into the concrete floor
nothing happens, I sit for minutes that feel like hours

I listen at the door, check the peephole
I open the door and look around
There is a dry erase board on my door
in thick red lines faggot spelled out

I close the door, chain the lock
I move a chair, a desk, a lamp
in front of the door
I pick at my elbows nervously

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I call work
I am not leaving until sunrise, everyone understands
nods, goes about their business

The Room

An extra poem today. This is from college. 2000 I believe.

The Room/It Is Me Thinking

Tasting salt off the back of your shoulders a wire-thick scar runs
blade to spine small white pinprick holes along the sides

I roll my tongue over the skin

This is your seam the place they pulled you open threw your batting
tried to rip your arms off

            He looked like a scarecrow when they found him
            the runner almost didn’t stop

You roll over and tell me it still hurts when it’s snowing
The same times my knee swells and I lay in bed trying not to move

You smile say that you aren’t Matthew Shepard that you were just bruised
I kissed every break

            Frozen to – tied to a fence-post and bleeding
            Crows blinking not understanding

I watch snow collect on the window frost crystals turn the world to glass

            They keep track of how long he’s been dead online
            There’s a recording of a scream – ‘listen to Phelps’

Someone left a note on my door took a marker wrote in purple ‘AIDS cures fags’
They called me told me they knew I get up early for work go into the parking lot alone

            He had blonde hair and clear blue eyes when in 1998 –

You roll over I pull you near and smell you it is warm
A sound like buzzing fills the room

It is me thinking

About tomorrow the day after and the day after the sound of a voice in my ear
whispering

            It was cold – so very cold

Noisome

This is based in the memory of a 19 year-old being beaten not far from where I lived in Santa Fe.

The papers filled with how he was gay. His business, etc... The opinion of the city was very much in his favor, but there was a strange homophobic underlay.


Noisome 8/8

There is that bloodstain again
Why doesn’t monsoon rain wash away faggot blood?
My street is dust filled and the arroyos are filling too
            but this stain is dark and wet looking

The violence of the gunshot the head kick the hand to jaw
They are painting the street again
Yellow lines and white lines over pooling congeal
            but the dust is too much makes it go brown

I watch them smooth out the black asphalt
Cover everything over again and again
The pain is so new that it reflects and pains the eyes
            but it is no mirror

McD

A French McDonald's commercial:

Uganda

The bill introduced in Uganda to 'execute' and then amended to 'punish' homosexuals is a horrible human rights violation on its own. Add to it the virtual acceptance of the proposed law by several American politicians and I start to wonder where I live.

Here are two videos:

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