Ninety-Three

returning from

Massachusetts

we were steaming up

the windows with drunkenness

filling the inside

of your little white car

up to whiffy with fog

who remembers the verbal offense

or which of us was offended?

most likely it started

with a misinterpreted dance floor glance

and misunderstanding

became name calling

and name calling

became fist swinging

a ridiculous way to fight

two boxers seated

belted and belting

between us one pair of eyes on

the road

the other pair scarlet bulges

we lost control

and you lost control

car losing highway

and while vision remained

at the speed of life

observing the stand of trees

becoming more prominent in the windshield

an abandoned and pointless jersey barrier

flirting with white paint to my right

a few grit-weighted orange plastic barrels

waving hello and goodbye to your left

with a rude quickness

but the sound

the sound of it

went all slo mo

and I could hear individual leaves

and grass blades

and pebbles

on the undercarriage as

we skated and sheared to a stop

until a smallish boulder

more stupidly placed than any barrier

or barrel

kissed a dent into front bumper

slurry rage

hastily focused

into pin point panic and expectation

four shoulders and two necks

waiting for the sting

of strobing electric blue lights

tensed for a burn that never came

relaxing slowly

hesitantly

the rest of the silent trip home

then

barely in the door

shedding and stripping clothes

in a violence of kindness and hunger

God was mentioned

as we rutted like boar

in the kitchen

tusks scraping in broken sweat

in the broken dawn

and for years

I could not see that bumper

could not look upon that dent

without feeling a little aroused

without getting a little wood

Typo

now

I know it's heresy in

some parts but

I'm not an Elton John

fanatic

but that's what we listened to

the night we met

our best night

and your name is Daniel

funnily enough

and you are older than me

lying on a green carpet

that was even then

decades

out of vogue

a matted flattened collection of stains

at the tail end

of a silly party

aborted for

a lack of alcohol

yawns

and departures

and settled-for pairings

gropings

peeled our friends away

and we talked

we listened

we told our lives

spilled it freely

shared it messily

I think I was too tired

to polish

or puff up

or pose

and my guard was low enough

to abandon the false boldness

of the newly out boy

not just company

but communication

and not just communication

but communion

now

I know it's strange to

some folks but

I'm not a blond fanatic

you had a boyfriend anyways

but he was not in attendance

and cute you were

cute that yellow hair was

like a kid's wiffle cut

with a dash of punk

and I was very happy

just to be there

in the free mess

after that night

our deck of Queens shuffled itself

and we danced

and hung

and threw shade

in one another's periphery

for week after week

sufficiently distracted

as gay boys are

you by your fella

me by a long chain of changing pheromones

attentions deflected enough

to prevent a questioning thought

or stolen glance

some months later

by pure chance

and an odd quirk of nightclub clique pecking order

you cheerfully drove me home

and we chatted again

I think you took the long way

I'd forgotten you said

as I creaked the car door open

Forgotten what? I puzzled

That you were so nice

with a smile daring

nearly desperate in its openness

and a watery glimmer

a liquid twinkle

standing in your blue eyes and coating your voice

and I was still young enough

to be old fashioned

still green enough

for hesitation

too callow

to appreciate the rarity of such

forthright interest

and up to my little apartment I ran

I just wanted you to know

how often I think of never

Puff

discovery

was the fuel

that made our engine go

and it was

the rocket grade stuff

driving pistons

rods

and lifters

with reasonable efficiency

and ain't that what sex is?

tiny explosions

and the mitigation of friction

the transfer of energy through

intake

compression

ignition

and exhaust

and I bet we looked like

a harebrained clockwork

two fledglings

a pair of not quite men

pumping

and chugging and chuffing

under childrens' sheets

The Dukes Of Hazzard

of hazard

I recall smelling

our carbon based

emissions

diesel soot

you could almost see

on the walls

scent you could

spread on toast

by sticking a butter knife

into the open room

like fossil fuels

it was a powerful revolution

but alas

unsustainable

and the pollution

the shame and dinged pride

of unmet expectations

soon conspired with time

to gum and seize

our comely contraption

our infernal combustion

Les Conneries

trying to do

my liver a solid

with dandelion

and burdock

and shitty city water

I notice

my intuition is my best friend

at least

that's what the tea bag says

as I'm watching some absurd

Quebecois movie

about unrequited love

doubly unrequited

it turns out

tight characters

bitch and snit and snort

about and at romance

pose

preen

and present themselves

as immune

yet

play

pine

and pledge themselves

to one another

and that's always been

my intuition

too

to pantomime all

worldly and jaded

until a fella

says hello

then

without skipping a beat

a Hail Mary

pass of heart

must be I think the act a

sufficient

warning

I'm not to be messed with

then I break the stern huddle

and I signal him

go deep

go long

deeper

longer

and I push him right out the end zone

right out of the stadium

and my arm ain't that strong

and my chest is a cavity agape

so I'll sip the steaming

bitter brew

with a cupboard honey bare

and ask forgiveness

for mistrust

of purveyors of tea and wisdom

and lush cinematography

Marshmallow

haven't properly breathed

since I was

very small

a wee lad

free of

wheezing and labor

filling lungs like buckets

and when hormones

coursed

and I was

unable to fill little else

unable to fill out

when I

stayed wee

everyone let me know it

a person who'd never

say the word fat

to a double chin

would toss

skinny

thin

rail

around liberally

with

snarky thoughtlessness

don't you eat kid?

it made me feel

obese

oddly

this constant summing up of me

with guessed lowball figures

made me feel huge

because if I packed on pounds

if I let an ounce bounce

I thereby shed identity

I learned to suck it in

all of this nothing much

stuck between a rock

and a soft place

hyperconscious of every move

afraid to turn sideways

and disappear

yet in baggy athletics

no tummy

but tucked and rigid concave

ribs a cage

respiration rehearsed into

a girdle

shallow breaths and shallowness

cells operating on

limited nourishment

of air

of all else

and it turns out

hormones are irrelevant

you gotta breathe

with fullness

at depth

abdomen and chest both

you gotta rise

you gotta fall

all of you

every cell oxygenated

to be much of a man

Check Up

how do you recognize

a playful puppy

nip

when you're used to

venom

venal venom

and pain

and paralysis

and the pain of paralysis?

and the breath is

not good

but it's healthy

a spider it ain't

a snake it'll never be

it's the scales I miss

and the fine creepy hairs on eight legs

an interesting sensation

at the start

but at the end

it's Satan pimping fruit

and the web is just spit and mandibles

how do you hear

a firecracker

ladyfinger

when your path has

been full of atom bombs?

radiation

and you put them there

you dropped the bomb on you

baby

and the bang is

softer softest

but it's the tree in the woods

WMD it ain't

nuclear it'll never be

it's devastation I crave

and the shockwave making the earth the ocean

the thrill of absolute power

at ground zero

but a few miles away

it's cancer pimping death

and the flash is just blindness and burn

see how I nudge you

with my head

scratch behind my ears

smell them

not bad

pretty healthy

I've had my shots too

see the snout

and the tail

and the expressive eyes

and loyalty non-rabid

Little

sure I exaggerated

but I was hit by a car

knee banged and foot

run over

by a girl with a learner's permit

in a cemetery or a park

there were trees

certainly

although we were in the city

the malt liquor city

the memory lacks

like a bad artist's

composite sketch

from a description

shouted from a couple rooms away

in broken English

sure I exaggerated

and they got me crutches

but again the bad sketch

poorly rendered

from misremembered foreignness

Jacob got me crutches

somehow he did

and an Ace bandage

he was so worried about my foot

and I had Jacob worries

I didn't tell

my bastard boyfriend

about my Jacob worries

bastard boyfriend

who the next day

a day clear as itself

talked and joked and played with

his beautiful long hair

walking way ahead of me

leading our pack

our roaming gang

with his faggoty tra-la-la voice

ignoring me all sing-songy

sure I exaggerated

but it hurt that day

hurt while I hobbled behind him

behind my friends

except for Jacob

except for his crutches

right at my side

teaching me how to use them

in the malt liquor city

First Date

I don't need you

if you leave me I'll kill you

who can remember who choked?

who can remember who first got

his paws

around the throat of the other

the lover

and squeezed?

such strong hands for

a pussy boy

I remember

it was this pussy boy

squeezed hard and tight and first

my body doing what it could

with the beer

giving the rest back

with the breath

but we danced a lot this way

more tangle than tango

and it wasn't always I who lead

and when you follow

you gotta choke backwards

you follow fellow

and say

call me Ginger

and I preferred that

I preferred you take the lead

I could clench outrage between my teeth

its thorns far bigger

way sharper

than any rose's

and hell yes

it was hot

because you are lovely

we are lovely

but I didn't know

I just felt you

humid and close and stinky

human and male and threatening

knee in my crotch

and you could've spit

and I would've opened my mouth

because who knew

want and need are not the same

and self-preservation is not murder?

Romance

people ask me if I miss him

never directly

with their faces

or their roundabout Facebook comments

miss the way

he'd get his big awful hand

around my throat

and lift me off the floor

telling me

this time I love you

so much

then

the gut punch

an assault

a shot

and I'd like it

because it

changed the way

I looked

at things

at myself

lens Vaseline

stinky

old seventies Vaseline

from the back of

my parents'

medicine cabinet

you take a

lover

then leave a

lover

who's on tv every ten

minutes

you tell me

do you miss him?

do you feel fucked?

and I always

thought

I was on top

but I was

greedy

a power bottom

opening

receiving

nothing

spread and raw and empty

giving it all away

people ask me if I miss him

and I do

and I will

but I'll be damned

if he'll ever top me again

if he'll ever be inside

calling me the best

during

telling me the worst is

better than me

after

you take a

lover

then leave a

lover

who's in every store

who stalks you while

you buy your food

do you miss him?

should you send him a birthday card?

where are my manners?

Sweeter After Difficulties

the pain

of the sewing of

plasma platelets

and ink into

a mingle

is a different experience

sober

this hurts

I am here rather than

this hurts

I am going someplace

else

a meditation

don't be

ashamed of your arm

says the artist

of the spindly and fish belly white

thing

his grip on it tells me

he's serious

his eye contact

tells me he's kind

and I could

kiss him for it

wet mouths and

hands on his plumpness

but I don't fantasize

side-effect of self esteem

the sound of

the tool of

his trade

again dampening

but somehow making more obvious

the Bob Marley

I bet that mouth

tastes like weed

concentration now

knitting tautness into two faces

no woman

no cry

Bleep Bloop

all this talk about

world getting shrunk

share and connect and comment

agreements and dis

and we

don't even press buttons

anymore

they disappeared

fast

no buttons but

glass

digits and digits

and digits from digits

but no prints

they disappeared

fast

writing code into our DNA

adding impatience to the helix

used to have gratitude for buttons

it disappeared

fast

yeah I'm talking

to someone in China

but I don't even look up

at the boy on the bus

I disappeared

easy

maybe he'd hurt me

maybe he'd leave a print

Fraternity

best punch

I ever took

was from my brother

its superiority

owing to its force

and owing to

my asking for it

I remember

the sound

more than the feel

and the feel

more than the party before

my eye

a reminder

of a blank spot

of family humiliation

my Christmas eye

fattened tight

useless

and all sunset

and dusk

no broken

socket or cheekbone

but I felt

grit under the skin

sand under the flesh

and I wanted to

rub and pound and grind

that stuff

into fine

finer finest graphite

and write my brother

a note

Hunting Accident

mottled skin or not

skin that looked sick

or not

I thought he was beautiful

and ache

doesn't even begin

thoughts both tender

and hard

quick short stories

a together life

that I'd put onto the screen

of my Commodore 64

and read

never save

delete delete delete

right after the

drip drip drip

tears

other stuff

fairly friendly

with an intelligence

he thought made him lose face

and he knew I could see

those smarts

and it smarted him that

I could see

and I couldn't be seen

seeing

his ankle and calf

a history class focal point

that lower leg

telling of his entire body

somehow

a football body

a man's body

couldn't be spotted

spotting

or I'd have been

a spot on the concrete

in the courtyard

a queer smeared

so I kept my eyes low

kept my eyes on the ankle

and the text on my screen

file not found

Thirteen

how puzzling

it must be

to find yourself

lost and

lying in bed

next to a real

life-like

robot

the skin is warm

so warm

even as the thing

speaks all the ways

your behavior

does not

fit into defined parameters

how gloomy

it must feel

to know

even as it lists

these faults

it scans

for a more suitable unit

it doesn't eat

this mechanized Pinocchio

so sharp and angular

polymer angles

and yes kind of sexy

raw diet of raw data

and it doesn't sleep

this sleekness of bones

so sharp and angular

cognitive angles

and yes kind of thrilling

contrary cycle of contrary output

how frightening

it must seem

the speed and the strength

with which its

ones and zeroes

would control-alt-delete you

if that scan came up hot

manufactured

programmed

it has a plan

and kindness is a subroutine

but that anger simulation

that simulation

authentic

automaton authentic

 

Here We Go Again for the First Time

my diamond

he could play the stand up bass

just picked that sucker up

one winter night

and made it a finger singer

with a smirk

half disbelief

half cocky

half cocked

half cock

thing about diamonds

you can never observe all the facets

you miss so much

doesn't matter how hard you look

the hardness works against you

in fact

miss how while he was

looking at

you in the wings

stage left

he was looking at her

stage right

explains the smirk

maybe half nervous too

what a strange tense

game to play

more strained

than anything he could try

with his instrument

after the concert

it didn't matter he once kissed me

in his room

she was waiting by his car in the snow

and she was cold

and he was cold

told me no

no

he'd still like my strings under his fingers

but tonight no

and I couldn't see him in front of me

because

you can't find one single facet in a blizzard