I use this page to post a variety of pieces, both those just out of the sluice, and older pieces that feel fresh to me at the moment. I generally keep them up for a month, or a few at the most.
Look for new poems (and more) at the start of each month.
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Curse: To the Masked Ones (new in July)
The Gray Notes of Shimmering Rapture (new in July)
Scary Gender Poem (new in June)
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Been quite a while since I’ve seen fit to write a
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CURSE:
TO THE MASKED ONES
I can see you rotting in your grave,
skin peeling back, muscle withered,
eyes dried up, ligaments snapped,
grimace pulled past teeth and jaw.
May you be aware of that for centuries,
and you know you will,
as all the violence you set upon others
comes back at you.
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During Pride Month I decided to finally write a poem about being graysexual. Make of it what you will.
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THE GRAY NOTES OF SHIMMERING RAPTURE
Do you know a caress so light it barely meets your hairs on end,
a touch so saturated with light that you can’t imagine otherwise,
that opens all your pores like chakras, like mimosa leaves at dawn
welcoming the fire of stars and adjacent flesh?
Do you know how far the lightest touch can send you,
tumbling through ancestors in a human flume?
Or how, in the light, eyes lock as if fused?
You a rush of vis vitae
channeling nerves white-watered and arcing
nipple to nipple, throat to throat where we become
two pulses synchronized in absolute song
wringing sense from deep memory, nascent and
thrumming the spine, the groin, the soles of the feet,
bodies merging in the umbra of molecules, in the salt of the skin.
Do you know the source in your flesh of erotic joy? I said joy:
where that fount springs in you, and why? What transpires in
that shock of intimacy where the illusion of self evaporates
in the delicate mingling of lips on lips
and mutual sucking of the breath?
In that breath?
Some fear this, understandably so
as that self may be sand in the wind.
Some savor and seek it amidst
the bulky inducements of animal flesh.
And some of us dwell there,
deep at home in the blend of pupil and shine,
in the gray-steeped shimmer of embrace.
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Gray.
Say gray.
Gray.
Say gray today.
Say gray today.
Say gray.
Say way.
Way gray.
Gray way.
Say scent of fog.
Say in-between.
Say safety.
Say here.
Say being seen.
Say gray.
*
What is a gay man without his dick stuck in something?
Probably asleep.
What is a gay man without his dick stuck in something?
At the front of the line.
What is a gay man without his dick stuck in something?
One sad excuse after another.
What is a gay man without his dick stuck in something?
Nothing, my dear, let’s take a walk
through this marvelous city where crème brûlée flows in the gutters,
tall trees sway like scarves,
and the hydrants are each an homage to indelible dildos.
You need some air. Now tell me,
when did your dreadful affliction begin,
or were you always a neuter at heart?
Are you sure you’re gay?
How can you tell, when the steam of the baths belies
your manliness molded of paper mâché?
Are we sure you’re gay?
Can you show us your card and your rod and your curd
or at least your trussed up affectation?
How do you pray on your knees in the bar when your ensemble
lacks style of the last thirty days?
Do you fumble your way through the dark rooms and caves
without striking your match on the stripper designed to give way?
Are you sure you’re gay?
*
Say gray.
Say gray in the intricate room of dearth.
Say gray in the earth.
Say gray in the roots of the rose.
Say gray in the floret that spills into day.
Say gray.
Say gray until night steals your heart.
Say gray until hearts beat of steel.
Say gray in the comfort of real.
Say I know what I feel.
Say don’t tell me what I am.
Say sound familiar?
Say gay.
Say I know what I am.
Say the grass knows too.
Say why don’t you?
Say I’m gonna lie down here a moment with someone who does.
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Gray, upon which all colors are vibrant.
Gray, within which all colors manifest.
Gray, without which hue is ungrounded.
Gray, which illuminates shade
and which all shades illuminate.
Gray, proof that all music is sacred.
Gray, proof that all wavelengths exist.
Gray, proof that no wavelength is separate.
Gray, which thrives in the liminal
and coaxes vines through cement.
Gray tumbles down the hill
and lies aglow in the grass.
Gray is having the best day,
having strolled and shared eyes and hands.
Now they pause in the scent
of chlorophyll and soil,
grateful for an unguarded moment
and wanting only that.
*
Say gray.
Say gray because gray is.
Say gray in the humility of dusk.
Say gray lest your love be betrayed.
Say gray in the trade of light that allows.
Say gray in the found duct that lets live.
Say gray that expands you.
Say gray that acknowledges.
Say gray that celebrates.
Sing gray.
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Found this in my notebook from who knows when last year. But it’s cute! And perfect for Pride Month (and for scaring the haters). 😀
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SCARY GENDER POEM
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I’m a they & I’m a we
‘cause there isn’t really me
and there isn’t really you
‘cause you’re part of us too.
BOO!
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So this happened.
In Response To: don’t get too close;
i’ll turn you into
poetry.
Paul Corman-Roberts
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Make me a haiku
spray-painted on the window
of a shuttered bank.
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Written in memorium to a poet whom I didn’t know, but boy a lot of people sure did. Hope he likes it.
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Brian Fugett
Who is Brian Fugett and why don’t I know him?
200,000 marbles spill out of the back of a truck
and I’m supposed to know which ones are his?
What kind of wig is he wearing?
Why is his glass full of ink?
Does he care more about pizza or the rain forest,
and whichever the case, should we set up donations?
Alone at a taxi stand in the rain, does he shiver or pine?
How many puzzle pieces does he carry in his pocket?
How many thumbs?
What’s his favorite weather?
What’s his favorite instrument?
What’s his favorite street?
Did he buy you coffee?
What were the last words he spoke to you?
Did he park his car nearby?
Is that him walking on the next block?
Does he whisper in the distance?
Does he shimmer in the light?
Who is Brian Fugett,
and how do you say his name anyway?
/Fū’-jett/?
/Fū-jett’/?
Fuh-gett’/?
/Fug’-ett/?
Fuck it.
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My fave poem in a while came out of a workshop prompt and an article in the Guardian about a small and one might say eccentric Icelandic publisher who puts out tiny editions of 69 copies only during a full moon, then burns whatever has not sold when the moon goes down. Yes, you read that right and you can read more in the article here. The press is named Tunglið, one of the Icelandic words for moon (surprise!), and is pronounced (near as I can transcribe for Amuricans): /toon-glid/ with the accent on the first syllable and a very hard “d”, which is apparently the sound of that lovely Icelandic letter. So I wrote a bewitching little poemsong called “Tunglið”, and here it is.
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Tunglið
I must go to Iceland for a full moon
because I will learn how to swoon and succumb
to my eldritch desire to oil and slide
my body back into the cave.
And once I am rock-sworn I’ll breathe by a candle
in order to handle my mind in the dark
of the first incantation of stone-breath and sanctum
that keeps me alive for a day.
And as the moon rises aloft of the mantle
I strive along with it to bay and to shine
as the sun breaches vacuum and ricochets hither
I know it’s my time to arrive.
And so I refind my resound and my whither
and catapult tendon and spine to the sky,
upon which I gather my sally and story
and flame away, flame away, flame.
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And here’s another recent in which, for some reason, I take apart the word “purchase” etymologically, syllabically, and etymologically by syllable. Go figure.
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PURPOSE
Not to chase but to pose, one purrs forth
purchase of a future, formless bursa filled
with anomalous currents. Such pie to vie for,
one might posit, a fortuitous fractal of firth,
unbegone berry clung to a bough with a fork
that reposes toward thriving or morte. Further
pure purpose, I say, lest fang be fractured
and fallow the marrow will lie. Now fly!
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