last revised: August 96
©1996, All Rights Reserved

QUEER INTENSITIES

wet poetics of desire

Dick Cornwall

queer scent of desire

Queer
Betraying desire: le vice anglais - - - - the french disease
Ode to Walt Whitman
Poem to the Black Beloved
Fatherhood
Sugar Daddy
Song of the Soul

articulation of desire

Power of the Erotic
Night Gallery
Encounter
Family
Growing up / Going down
Celebrate love's union
Aquiline
Necklace
Minority Blemishes: libido as suspect
Furious Focus
Libidinous Lollipops
Queer Life/Love
Hustler
School for Scandal
Rob
Two too
Bed
Bed II

living in social constructions

Social Construction
In the Gay Gulag
Natural
Well
White fog
Breaking Free
Suicide
Benign
Respectable
Club 515
Celebrate Riotrebellion: L.A. 1992
Holy War
Beware empathy
Mudbury
Why did I ask?
No party
Blushing Reality

in celebration of all the queers with whom I've sung the blues

The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it . . .

Ralph Ellison

queer scent of desire

Queer

Queer is seeing souls
resisting roles
facing north wind bites
of polar societies.

Knowing the burn of isolation
invisibility of denial
trying to make manifest;
switching to presumed guilt
when breaking conventions.

Marlowe and Wilde,
Woolf and Stein,
Burroughs and Baldwin,
Hughes and Genet:

Recognizing poison and showing some.

Betraying desire:
le vice anglais - - - - - the french disease

The sky is luminous, almond glowing clear
As the sun starts to peek, as sweet hardon dreams
Flow into daily conscious guile,
I pull gently sitting next only to your lanky legs
jostling my knee jostling yours. With four hundred
others wedged in this aluminum whale floating so high
only your cock, basket so heavenly full,
through my eyes pricks my mind.

Sunning on the rock slab at the lake of the
fallen pleiades, tenting at eleven thousand feet next to snow
chill dipping, psychodrama. Someone's killing me.
Really killing me. I'm scared. Come without danger
Through the morning meadows cock so handsome and stubborn
Bring me to sweet water and luminous sunrise.

De ma prison voleur s'échappent si tu passes - - - - Thief, if you pass by, escaping from my prison,
Frémissant à mon pied des bataillons bouclés. - - - - Shackled are battalions shivering at my foot.
Ne résiste mon coeur, mes branches se délacent. - - - - My heart resists not, my boughs are coming undone.
Je te sais expirant, par leurs bottes foulé. - - - - I know that you are expiring, crushed by their boots.

Fly me away from this prison, at night,
Under cover of bedding, sweet Jean,
Only lover true, my head swims with
Light of the moon, stars shining brilliant
Next to so many, mixing in the word bowl,
Heads tied pretzels in the lassitudinous tub,
Cocks bobbing full, or loose if in meditative
Lull between spurts at 14th street, so close to Market,
No, heart of the market, here in the City.

Rendering secret tribute to poetry, to the Word, he felt obscurely that men must be dominated only by the voice

Gems of sweat grace my pillow, your handiwork,
Massive, beautiful Erik, inside me such reflexive pain so sweet
I fuck you Jean D.
I suck you, shoot you, kill you Riton.
Fragile beauty, I desire you, penetrate you - you kill me
Boundaries, bodies undone, fused.
Am I still calculable ?
Such queer genealogy of morals you give me, Michel.
Bedraggled, belated ms France so bourgeois at my funeral,
That you must accompany me, tar me - you are a sad one here.

Ce livre ne veut être qu'une parcelle de ma vie intérieure.
Puis elle s'enroula dans les replis d'une histoire née de ses désirs

But if I have nailed him to my wall, it was because, as I see it, he had the sacred sign of the monster. The flaw on the face or in the set gesture indicates to me that they may very possibly love me, for they love me only if they are monsters - and it may therefore be said that it is this stray himself who has chosen to be here.

Dinner at the Trout, tennis at Boar Hill
Chris so wilde at Magdalen - my precious porous memory;
Skipping sur la rive gauche down to les Halles, Étienne:
Am I a monster ?
Am I in prison ?
Am I deluded ?

He spoke to me very quietly. Perhaps he was afraid I might denounce him to the police. I wondered whether he was carrying a gun. My eyes furtively questioned his blue denim trousers, pausing over every suspect bulk. Though I intended my gaze to be light, it must have weighed on the fly, for Erik smiled, if I may say so, with his usual smile. I blushed a little and looked away, trying to veil my blush by exhaling a cloud of smoke. He took advantage of this to cross his legs ... It was certain that one day or another Erik's and Paulo's thighs would constrict me there, they themselves getting their bellies all raddled with the maid and the mother, in a room watched over by the memory of Jean. ... The gesture of surprise he had just made on realizing that the two names were the same tightened the trousers against his buttocks and enhanced them. The outline of the muscles excited me. I tried to imagine what his relationship had been with Jean, whom he hated and who hated him. ... I looked at his eyes and composed in my mind the following sentence: "So many suns have capsized beneath his hands, in his eyes. ..." ... I got into his uniform, boots, and skin.

I shall see you in bed tonight, Jean
Only queer lover here.

Tes pieds bleus traversés d'étoiles et de branches - - - - With blue feet alive with stars and branches
Tu cours sur mon rivage et bondis dans ma main - - - - You run on my shore and jump in my hand
Mais ose cet amour que ton rire déclenche - - - But does this love, that your laughter unlocks, dare
Hardiment le fouler de tes pieds inhumains ! - - - - Impudently stamp over it with inhuman feet !

Tu t'éveilles de moi avec leur promptitude - - - - With the promptness of my teeth's ghosts you wake
Les spectres de mes dents, pour hanter l'escalier - - - - From within me, to haunt the quick staircase
Si rapide il faut donc Guy que ma solitude - - - - Therefore, Guy, my heart multiplied by you,
Par toi-même soit toi mon coeur multiplié - - - - My loneliness now will have to be you.

Mais pour me parcourir enlève tes souliers. - - - - But to run on me take off your shoes.

Ode to Walt Whitman

Your Brooklyn boys,
your rural joys,
Live on in Hughes
García Lorca cries
for the joy and truth
you glimpsed and showed.

We too love young dreams
of gender equity,
racial equality,
parity of crafts,
lives with integrity.

Your celebration of one Voice of America
took long to root, now is catechism,
dogma for denial,
making difference invisible.

So hard for us to see: so circumscribed, circumcised
by genital fear: driven by cockassdelight
insane like Federico
crazy over perversion,: maricas, social disease.

Whitman, you glimpsed Calamus;
you shone for us
in Harlem, in San Francisco,
San Jose and Vermont.
Your maple poles depicted
live on, grow on
under our hands
lips, cheeks, and groins.

Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
Afternoon this delicious Tenth-month in my fiftieth year,
I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.

What coinciding, nature's whim?: Evolutionary force, socially dominant?
Our hands reach: no matter what proportions
our torsos take of our measure.
Our arms extend: just far enough
so fingers grasp
our tubes with ease: two year old knows
how natural careless nurture,: méditer et masturber,
no big deal, no need to cum,: just like eating,
just like sleeping.
Men know at a deep level: cocks are special
no big deal: just always to hand and mind.
Why covered, why dirty,: why taboo, why misconstrued?
Penis to phallus,: men to dominate ?
If some of us want to serve men,: to pleasure men for pleasure,
threatening the sexist cartel,
Must we be banned - shunned so completely?

As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-convicted !)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers ! (O tenderly,
a long time, and never avow it;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in
myself, the stuff of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.

You are our hero, Whitman,: demigod of our flow,
We all sing your electric: Ginsberg, Monette, Jackson, all.
You sing the body erotic: you sing cultural democracy,
You voiced limits: of race, sex, artifice.
You celebrated living: alive, clean, and pure
loving all men together: all mixed up with loving particular ones.
You opened our lives: to fragility of artifice become lie
Reality of our flesh and work worth celebrating: And opened eyes to our ease in spotting lies in other voices.
Your arrogance of speaking for all races and genders,: all people, helps us know we too are blind.
Some monsters among us embrace the lies,: offering queer siblings as sacrifice for their gain;
Yet many excel as social fermenters,: voices mapping new visions.
Such fun to slowly shine the burning white heat: on Emily, Langston, Eleanor and you
Claiming our power too as seers: with power to kill and power to bless.
You showed your clay: your weakness, your failing
We fail, we too deny,: lie to Symonds, to ourselves.
Artifice is powerful to blind,: to deceive ourselves
with the fog of fiction
And then we wonder why we die so lonely.

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot,
seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the
country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles,
stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted - for the one I cannot content myself without,
soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are
passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed - but it
is useless - I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment - I wonder if other men ever
have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me - distracted - his
friend, his lover, lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, dejected, thinking
who is lost to him? and at night, awaking, think who is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless?
harbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the fit
back upon him, taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours,
does he see the face of his hours reflected?

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch!
Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not
wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these
wanting,
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men
as they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of
their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly,
yet never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,
sleeping,
Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we
like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

Lies, Lies, Lies.: Culture of hypocrisy
Tiannamon Square to Moscow broadcast,
Congregational church to Boy Scout fire,
Thinking lies are truth
Teaching truth is lie;
Changing male to female: to avoid harsh scrutiny;
old morals crumble
old bounds crinkle
all blow away.

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for
future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met
there who detain'd me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together - all else has
long been forgotten by me,
I remember I say only that man who passionately clung to me,
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see him close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.

Demigods shatter when formed of marble: Ganymede lives in the sun's morning light,
heated to glowing for his beloved,
Whitman, you grew old for us,: Ganymede stayed youth for Goethe,
Can I too grow old?: Can I sing my body electric all my flow?
Can I too keep pride?: Keep alive, losing work, like you?
Can I live alive,: full pumping, breeze stroking?
Walt, Rob, Chris, Jeff,: You are with me,
I nestle in your back
with striking massage,
with kisses alive.
Nurture me still,: in my gay gulag home,
as those with prominence power: voice fear of division
blaming those who are cast: outside the main flow,
who say, "I am here too!"
Why do we burn our children in Vermont: with poems of solitude,
lessons of straight thinking,
isolation so deep,
medical science envies
the power of straight norms,
making us invisible,
unnamed from Ellison to White,
now seeing, now claiming
our underground,
our queer tribe with blows
to burn through whitewash.
Oh, you, riding mainflow,: I hear your dawning,
I applaud your waking.
Do not use your prominence to drown us: to shunt us to
demented-as-deviant,
labelled totalitarian,
unamerican, politically correct,
when we ejaculate our hurt
at parades that exclude us.
The isolation of the margin: is part of the flow of the prominent.
We are not individual,: queerly separate,
but tied together
despite best dogma.

I'm with you in Rockland
where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale
I'm with you in Rockland
where we hug and kiss the United States under our
bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won't
let us sleep
I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry- spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night.

Poem To the Black Beloved

Ah,
My black one,
Thou art not beautiful
Yet thou hast
A loveliness
Surpassing beauty.

Why are you my
first loving shower?
Why do you
still live in Cody's?

Oh,
My black one.
Thou art not good
Yet thou hast
A purity
Surpassing goodness.

Is your soul more tempered?
Am I yours to direct:
Am I too blind,
in love with inequity,
Black - white love,
a vanishing room?

Ah,
My black one,
Thou art not luminous
Yet an altar of jewels,
An altar of shimmering jewels,
Would pale in the light
Of thy darkness,
Pale in the light
Of thy nightness.

Fatherhood

Father carrying a two year old
why do you look so good?
not on a poster naked,
walking in Ames,
nurturing man,
so kissable.

Queer fathers, queer nurturers: appreciating rage,
holding helping humans
navigate the flow,
berdache to monk
teacher to sister,
granting indulgence
guarding springs of life for all.
Following Auden,: speaking with our cocks
writing truth, writing heart
veils shifted, redrawn.
From deep love,: fathering with our cocks,
not accidents of passion,
shining kids as companions,
as challengers, as teachers.
Desert of living in a lie:: sex for procreation,
preservation of species;
your life is white fog's sun.
So persevere queer breeders,: dreams fail, but
fatherhood drives on:
all forms of life need sex.

Sugar Daddy

How the hell else to be close? Cannot have regular work/play interchange. Buy sugar/fun. Discontent builds: I order food faultily
pay tips too large
act obsequiously embarrassing
because the basic lack cannot be avoided
so cannot fight and celebrate with confidence and continuity.
You control the TV remotely, Blow up because I try to work. I scrabble a paper together while you visit You assume I will not make time, we'll have no good space: Good to rage at Dad
I rage back
We collapse a year's emotional intercourse to a week.
Sugar Daddies are so evil such villains such bad parents. Again cast out: and then
despised for being outcasts. Threatened denial of custody, even visiting, because we are queer, so give all away to settle divorce and keep the kids. Queer Daddies are bad daddies. You learn fast to be self reliant and to see your own needs. You learn fast that those closest to you are selfish as well as loving. You learn fast the fragility of the walls: of the shelter our culture offers
of the shelter your parents offer
I love you: you are more of my life than you know
even as my life opens more to you.

Song of the Soul

I celebrate my soul:
my song maker,
my spirit force,
healer supreme.

No grand delusion,
no rhet'ric of god,
no abstract lying,
my soul zest returns.

Feminist birth of the 70's -
Cris, Holly and Meg so beautiful.
My yearning for soul purity and soulmates
distracted by churches, by plastic identities
planted tenaciously in my front lawn.
Song of the Soul fills so deeply with salty tears,
washing marriage away, only Cris's voice echoing inside.

Open mine eyes that I may see
glimpses of truth thou hast for me.
Open mine eyes, illumine me,
spirit divine.

Love of my life, I am crying,
I am not dying, I am dancing.
Dance of sadness, Dance of joy,
Dance in the juicy malestream flow.

Rainy days clean so deeply,
so wanting peace of mind,
but I am a man;
no time to not earn
to not compete, to get behind,
no time for waterfalls of tears,
endless waterfalls impair my family,
end all reason for living.

I need brothers of mercy
when I can't go on.
been travelling too long,
my family, my soul, too heavy,
not holy, loneliness is sin -
stark proof of social disease.

To leave always tempts,
like Thelma and Louise -
yearn for escape as easy rider
trashing dimestore identities.

All lesbian men come to me;
nellie-queens, urban faeries.
Lean on me, I am your brother,
Believe on me, I am your friend.
Listening to a song of my soul
I want to be a sweet woman -
no more susser man -
better lesbian than gayman
in our patri - archal flow.

Sing to me, brother.
Let me rub your soul,
Join the gaymen's chorus:
Separate voices together,
Joying, Dying, Singing,
Separate selves together.
Zest returns claiming our spirits,
Claiming time to write our songs,
To dance in the circle of joy.

Celebrate our souls:
our song makers,
our spirit forces,
healers supreme.

articulation of desire

Power of the Erotic

Power of the Erotic
Deflect for decency
Amputate is normal
Accept your handicap
Clip your soul
for your own good.

Dance at the bars
Play at the baths
Fall in love once and again
Soul seems whole
for awhile.

Virus cuts the soul again
Nights stretch into years
My body distorts me
My innermost power tapped,
drained.

Doug, Rick, Larry, Chris
AIDS action so late
Why not me yet? Will I follow?
Prime mover locked in a caste.

Born in Chaos,
We claim eros,
learn to effect,
actup our truth.

"The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self
and the chaos of our strongest feelings."

Night Gallery

In dark spaces
we see not with our eyes.
I reach out
and probe with unconscious excitement
travelling streets, stairs, halls,
looks, fears
floating on a current of sensuous joy.

It flows too deep
it guides me around blind corners
coupling and clustering,
stroking, kissing, grabbing, thrusting.
The current swells and shrinks
crests, hold on the edge
demurring, you are so responsive
and you also, all unknown yet so familiar
and all bound in the stream.

Men, gaymen, so similar, so different,
pissing, watching, wrestling,
publicly displaying, privately savoring,
shooting milk of life.

Acting well oriented,
or drifting, hanging out,
regaining fluid at the keg or porno flick
to rejoin the stream of juicejoy.

Such deep joy, contentment burning embers
hours, hours, hours.

* * * *

Musty, moldy
my nose stained with odor
My cock, do I feel anything?
So alert, just waiting
for the bite, the itch, the ache.
I exposed myself, am I wounded?
What happened in dark spaces as I rode the current?

* * * *

"Our" culture casts us out,
then condemns us for being outcasts
for playing in filth
among warehouses, dirty streets
when rotted stairs and back apartments are all we can claim
since the AIDS-war burned
all the tenements we bought a generation ago.

We are pioneers
exploring new territories without moral maps
dissolving boundaries of individualism
penetrating
our dicks as our compases
creating collectivity
dying on judeo-christian maginot lines
heavy infantry being lost
yet the stream renews us
finds new crevices to wear new channels for our cultural openings
cultural entitlement to our bonding
to culture our joystream so sweet.

Mental hardware built first for queerlove?
heteroids need override, enlarged nerve cluster,
rigged hypothalamus,
to straighten love out;
fails often at dawn of erotic juice
primary programming still aroused
when piss with other men
so bash queer out.

No surprise "our" institutions responded
so sickly to invasion by HIV
so little legitimacy,
so little entitlement
to explore, to cultivate
new culture, new bonds.

Are we the canaries,
warning of immune system damage
from infatuation with technology,
social structure meltdown
from love of bourgeiois boundaries ?

* * * *

Snug ass, curved headback,
angular cheeks, strong torso, long limbs
You are my sparkle
you are my life

Hurt me, take me
fuck my ass
I own you, I hurt you
when you ask

Queers have insight
into peer relations
submission and dominance
new skills playing both

Since I saw the handbill,
Night Gallery's art,
I've been alive,
everything else could go
whatever way it would
since I knew I would
spend one night with Art

Tap into the malestream
my lifestream, my maelstrom.

Encounter

We are finally alone, the reading, dinner, talk-talk done,
finally together with the hot STIFF drink I asked you for
(why didn't you respond to that one?)
You've smothered me with your eyes
and I've been so up for you,
verbal foreplay fun and warm.

You asked if I was healthy.

Did you mean am I safe for sex?
Am I safe for love?

* * * *

You are so handsome,
the curve of your head requires stroking,
cupping so I can kiss your witty mouth,
draw out your juice.

I know your lover died short months ago
still I startle when you indicate you're shrinking,
your lifespan in doubt, I want to know,
are you in danger?

* * * *

Can I have a sexlife?
Can I find fun, erotic play,
O K, too early for love,
but can't I play?

Why tonight?
Tomorrow I am free of blemish
Why now?
Why do I meet you tonight?

What are you doing this weekend?
Can't you come with me?
Does your son, your work keep you?
Are you really interested?

You stroke me.
I respond a little, but can we go to bed?
You'll go soft when I tell you,
when you see the catheter.
You'll say it doesn't matter,
but that will end it.

* * * *

Am I too old, too white for you?
I try to be close to you.
I am so scared you might refuse.
I like to be hurt when love enters.
I fear to hurt when inserting my love.
Passive is so innate,
Are you the same?
Why do you keep retreating from such good play?

* * * *

You study me so close.
Yes, I enjoy your eyes feasting.
As I stand, you still seated,
I see you watch my crotch so attentive.

So you decide to leave;
I agree.
You kiss me so directly.
Maybe you want me.
* * * *

When leave is only option,
I do not think, kiss is clear.
So good to kiss you full.

* * * *

I am so full of doubt. * * Why am I suspended so?
Off to Montréal, seeking life. * * You promised to call.
Can I live, can I love? * * Why do I miss you so?
I deflect your kiss * * Why was kissing you so important
beside the bus so public. * * lingering still so clear?
Are you afraid of me, * * Were you just humoring me -
afraid of a future with me? * * I invited you to come speak?

* * * *
Such cute naïveté,
encounter by two of the dying first generation,
replicating old moves,
the obvious left unsaid.
Excitement still comes with veils
and love still mixes bodily fluids,
spiritual mixing essential.
How could this happen so fast?
Both so hungry, that's why?

Family

Brother, sister, parents keep in touch.
We talk each week, update on house, dogs, work and love.
I call them and they call me -
usually comfortable, reliable reciprocity.

But holidays test my true relations,
when Dan is sick
or Dave in despair,
Hot dates are cancelled,
Chores left undone,
All understand
I'm deeply bound.

One explanation why this family evokes depth
no other approaches.
I've buried one lover,
no more need be said.

growing up / going down

to die

when your mon hates living

teaches

thoroughly

sent

ment

when your dad cares only

for

his dog

good school in isolation

solitary bikerides

guilty

masturba

constipated di al ogue

excell-above-all

grandiosity

never ending ache

why keep it up

or not

pass on

dis

ease ?

if die now

by own

ensure

dis

ease ?

pressed

"my"

kids ? ?

(he said: remember, we're all individuals)

never ending ache
why keep it up

Celebrate love's union

We dance surrounded
swimming in loud mosh
yet alone remain
wondering why, unsated.

You were conceived with care
loving life, thirsting, seeking
laughed, schooled, triked, hula hooped
Halloweened, read much, eyes touching.

Yet your soul still foundered
alone - too much - oft times
til each the other loved
seeing each other's joy.

So celebrate love's union:
trust and hope;
a time so special
its promise lives on and on.

Aquiline

As I entered the Crest Room for lunch, seeking physical and social nourishment to support the isolation of hammering my head through work,
I see your sharply drawn face,
high carriage, proud sure banter with two friends at the soda machine,
curtly ordering chicken tidbits from the woman, so wise but below you, behind the counter.

Clear cream, clearly drawn, nicely pointed nose, cheek bones jutting,
long head so fully curved in back, luxuriant, tasty, brown hair,
Dull, loose, form-hiding clothes, but your fluorescent orange windbreak jars, perfectly capturing what you do to me.

Sitting eating joining actively with colleagues, but keeping your every move in my mind with the barest corner of my eye - no revealing looks to betray my queer interest. The rapture is too precious.

I am twenty again too, and you, beautiful aquiline boy,
I taste connecting with you.
I dream of your beauty, your haughty power, your articulateness seizes me.
I am your prey
Take me, Take me, Take me
to your rook from these cardboard gothic walls.

Oh you nasty eagle,
you were there again today,
with your girlfriend this time.
Are you a mirage, to torment me in this gay gulag?
Not hard, for my grief for lost lovetime when I was twenty runs always so close to my surface, so much queer rage.

In this school for hypocrisy,
queer acts disgust,
cast out, denied.
Can this native son
choose exile, outing,
or will I be bigger
beyond my control,
shedding all respectability,
martyr for our rage?

Heteroid covers under assault,
bedcovers, tabloid covers, all around.
I drink deeply, behind the post, savoring your aquiline beauty.
Fly on, beautiful man.
I am your slave - I am your master.

Necklace

encounters
reason for more . . . . . . . . . of intense joy
bedded in routine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and deep despair
as our string plays out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . live on like beads
to seek and savor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . on the strings of our lives
two types of pungency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . turning, fingering, stroking
joy, pain, joy, pain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . as we moment by moment
joy parity all as one . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . repeating our mantras
decide to give . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the beads of pain
yet consciously . . . . . . . . . sweeter to replay
often more compelling

Minority Blemishes: libido as suspect

Why do our "friends" make such a big thing about our flowers?

Dennis holding lilies
Dan's flowers hanging full
as if all our most precious flowers were just whips up our asses
framed by Mark's tough leather.

Our "community" brands us with neon Q's making our affections central, then twists the knife:
"don't make such a big thing of it"

or makes our skin's color a dark stigma;

or sprays us with a perfume of slut-whore-sin;

or mocks our faces with distorted eyes and intentions.

Moral blemishes sprayed on those to be excluded;
minority equals few equals small equals negligible equals unnameable Other.

When George made domination territorial,
Patrick stood defiant: givemelibertyorgivemedeath.

When Timothy and Jesse exert moral imperialism,
I stand here: naked.

Furious Focus

We are embarked on the Great American Summer, my 10 and 12 year-old sons and I, driving across the continent. They are in the neighboring video arcade and I am in the Piggly Wiggly in Lead, South Dakota, shopping for our camping victuals. I have checked off most of my list, but have not yet found smooth peanut butter. I must have gone right by it since I have walked the lengths of the store twice. Rounding an aisle, I am startled to see a youth with close cut brown hair, well-proportioned height and snug new Levis. He is studying dental products and I am studying him, my furious focus on peanut butter now gone.

I watch him as closely as I can without obtruding. His shirt is loose. What does his chest look like, his arms, the curve of his back? Yes, his buns and legs are very fine.

He makes his choice and leaves. I turn also, finding P. B. without difficulty now. I am a whole human being again, rescued from a narrow focus by the surprise of this beautiful man.

LIBIDINOUS LOLLIPOPS

Leisurely licking, lapping, laughing, loving, meandering among words as we live our lives, we savor certain sounds more than others. The letter L is innocuous enough - initiating about three and a half percent of the words in Webster's dictionary, it mellifluously opens and warms our minds to register and play with L-ideas. L is soft, liquid, safe. Not sharply articulated like p nor cutting off previous sounds like c, L leads gently to its idea without losing the link with the last word.

When we sound L with our lips, we move our tongues as when we first sucked a nipple. We literally lick each L-word. This loving attention to pronunciation gives L-words pre-eminence in expressing libidinal ideas: languor, lust, leer, luxury, labia, lamp, lance, light, life, love.

Licking nurtured our bodies when we were babies. Now, as adults, it nurtures our inner selves. We grow from nursing on a nipple through thumb-sucking to sex-licking. Some affect deep within our limbic system is stirred when we sound L, awakening our safe, nurtured, inventive selves.

Straight folks, no doubt, can savor L-words and access their inner safe spaces by licking. Many lesbians work and play lilting and laughing on luscious lawns of L-words. But gaymen have a special insight into the cultural leap from patriarchal to androgynous, from fear and fighting to confidence and creativity: only we really know what it is to lick another man.

Queer Life/Love

I

Same together, peers joining,
submissive - I am yours
dominant - you are mine
alternately in random exhilarating rhythm
so loving, so consuming
hours all afternoon in Rome
reading Wilde in Umbrian tunnels
nurture lives on
new impulse to join the stream and keep it going
not succumb to despair
lifeflow continues.

II

Whitman is our prophet
of democratic love
Sacher/Masoch our mascots
stick it to normalists
Prancing in the École
as lace falls out of our leather costumed mouths
gender is our fuck.

III

I suck you, pleasure you,
lick your tube from balls to head
feel you spasm
mine vibrating too.

I kiss your mouth
devour your parts
you eat me, enter me,
I own you, pump you,
beautiful rhythms, time unending
riding the edge
"not yet, not yet, not yet"
"slowdown, slow down"
we wait hold still,
mingling fluids
delicious crisis surpassed,
nurture resumes
the flow keeps up juice giving life.

Hustler

4 AM walking home
a long night of looking, talking, yearning
edge of disappointment
streets empty.

rounding a corner heading for Lafitte's
what's coming toward me?
good proportions
I see you watching me watching you
I look back - you look back

You wheel around - "What's up?"
"Not enough."
I am hooked - you are beautiful
so handsome, slim, dark.
you say I won't be disappointed.
how do I know?
"I'm big."
"probably not bigger than me."
" 9 and a half "
you had me on your line so firm.

no mention of money - hurt protests when I say you're too good.
so good to wash your cock,

I stretch on the bed.
now the money - I'm short there.

you need to go out for another beer before we do it.
it was an expensive peep/touch.

It was a good hustle.

School for Scandal

You are such a beautiful rainbow.
Are we being filmed outside my mind?
Rod - so pretty graduating
sitting center back
sweet sweet smile
tennis coaching so warm.
Sean, you tempter,
coming to class in shorts of film
exposing beauty so wonder full
biking to Breadloaf's barn of scholars,
savor Susannah and the Elders.
Ding, sweet cherub face
how so positive?
how, so clear?
how, so sharp?
oh, so alluring.
Neil, why such trouble with your name?
Why tremble thinking you might visit?
My door must stay open,
only one kind of loving is jeopardy,
only queer love scandalizes this school.

Rob

When we are apart
and I sit quiet,
your loving face,
your warm embrace
fill up my eyes,
end all goodbyes.

In you I lose my self
spirit and will melt.
With you my members throb
signalling my heart's job.
I lose the boundary
between mind and marry.

Can I still reach to God?
Can you find your ascent?
Together do we lose
our ladders of ambition?
To be true to God within,
Must our love be rent?

Such fears the demons raise
as we new paths explore
seeking adventures more
seeking new songs to praise.

Sharing our fear,
pouring our joys,
mingling our juice,
a new Being we rear.

Climbing the Dolomite
filled with Frascati
in new camaraderie,
we find God's might.

Two too

You are the apple of my eye
You are the treasure with your chest

Two lips, a few falls
strong arms, two balls
some play, some tears
one joy for two years.

Bed

I unlocked the door
saw the rumpled sheets.
It had been used
since I left.

You told me how,
naive or hurting,
I do not know.

Our bed
our nurture
feeding us
feeding me
feeding you.

We ended then,
dreams of house,
careers joined,
parenting together
already gone.

Bed
Bed was all we had.
Bed was gone.

Bed II

Each night alone in bed
no lover's arms caress
hunger so deep
morning reveals its power.

Why don't ordinary successes sustain
why not content
so many beautiful faces burn
such anguish stains my memory.

When Luc joined you in bed
called at home, both so polite,
I despaired of love's success,
gave up, ran away to claim myself.

Now so alone, missing you so much
like a child without parents.

Living in Social Constructions

Social Construction

On a narrow spar over the canyon's
terrifying layers of color, I imagined

I was surrounded by ruins, doors
carved with the reliefs of their vanished inhabitants, doors
that yet would open, if only we could find them,
onto hidden chambers, the heartbreakingly

perfect collonades. Mother, Father,
listen: I was not born but made.

I look for male buttocks,
You look for female ass.
I delight in chocolate cheeks,
You want cayenne, vanilla or turmeric.
Is it just a matter of taste?

It matters so much
who's in, who's out,
who to relax with, who to trust,
who to take advantage of
and who to bond with on each transaction.

If I push hard
you announce I screwed you.
Reputation matters in social transactions.
Life rests on dependency -
interaction is the base
for economic well being.

A breast, a pigment, a misspoken word:
all clues to class
guiding our transacting:
take advantage of pussy
ignore dark skins
dispel all queers
socially constructing
so each sees events
so each can deny
using or feeling
antiquity,
inequity.

In the Gay Gulag

A. Invisible

Play pure heart
a queer Rinehart for Vermont
where we all show how good we are
help run the church bazaar
give to all kid causes
walk for poor, peace and ecology

Hide your queer soul
under loose pants and clever words
put down causes, keep us all safe
enjoy being invisible

In little clearings half a dozen men
become no one, and lost nothing.
I don't want to glorify this; the truth is
I wouldn't wish it on anyone,

though it is a blessing,
when all your life you've been told
you're no one, and you find a way
to be what you have been told,

and it's all right.

Try playing queer lightening rod
write articles, picture in paper
still in visible?

So be a faggot
pierce ears multipley
drop cock binder
tight jeans caress, manifest
still gulageans play:
"what's the big deal?"

We sleep in separate bedrooms
during her visit.
I become your tenant.
You - my landlord.
We perform
until she is driven
to the airport.
Kissed by her dutiful son.

In the homestate of Gaysville, Middlesex, Queen City and the Northeast Queendom,
must we, like Harriet Hatfield, play assimilationist, extol bourgeois values to run the flower shop, play the organ, sell books and pastry or to profess?

We pay dear to keep in verbal touch,
to State coalesce.

* * * *

You ask too much.
ACT UP, Queer Republic so extreme
we want dialogue
you would cut us off.
It's more productive to be
responsible,
respectable.
Please be careful in your words.
It's hard to be so scorned.

* * * *

Can fauns in the forest show wisdom and strength?

B. Not Convicted

Why make such a big thing out of it?
What you do in private, your particular preferences don't matter to me.
Why so angry?

* * * *

Why?
You ask why?
You taught them.
They learned well,
queer is vile
most unnatural
worst of evil.
Kill because taught
in home, school and church.

* * * *

We abhor violence.
We never taught kill,
just youthful excess,
hormones gone awry
and it's so isolated
or just queer fighting queer:
Didn't he suck him off
before kicking him so damaging?

* * * *

In February he tied, whipped and pushed,
120 feet into a quarry,
He earlier gagged, robbed and pushed
queer over bridge.
The jury was deadlocked,
the case dismissed
Michael Stewart in New York
Mark Knapp in Vermont
murder not convicted.

Spray from the waves in the ocean of bigotry.

C. Whitman in the Woods

Mary Rambo of Vermont, where are you?
Do you want to hear my story?
Am I true enough?

Only hot rage keeps me alive
calls up buns
spits out milk
as I write my story for you.

* * * *

Queerfear's abating.
I'm well educated, I have good taste.
no need to see class, to see gaybash.

* * * *

Play pure heart,
Queer Reinherz for Vermont.
Only other choice is underground, in my closet.
Is it just hibernation
in the optic white North?
Will I return like a boomerang to savor milk of my homeland?

Every view of the Green Mountains
pushes me into the well of bile;
Vermont is the whitest, the narrowest, province in the Americas
and we are its unspeakable outlaws.

* * * *

Hide diversity here, queerbar conforms,
bombs outside, shots in windshield,
so dress straight
hide cock/tit in pride parade
no sex clubs, no queer chorus:
celebrate Whitman in the woods.

Are all rural Americas a gulag for us?

Natural

You write so well of the beauty of the whale,
The big brain and threeway procreation,
Plaintive lungs crying
When human projectiles
Turn the ocean red.

Nature is so sacred,
To be cherished as our father,
As our mother, as our life.

Are social institutions natural ?
Only when arise spontaneously,
Immaculate cooperation ?

You see the uniqueness, the foulness,
The beauty of the trilium;
Show care for the wife/mother
who is a third petal.

Why so cool to sing our song,
So hard to see the poison ?
Dorian Gray disfigured
By witty, well-mannered aristocrats;
Will Beckwith anesthetized
By culture of hypocrisy,
Drunk with nonstop tricks so Will equals Phallus
Above the Queensbury porcelain.

Social dominance erotic,
Social dominance safe,
Social dominance natural.

Simple, looks Darwinian ?
The order of social procreation
Heterosexuality preserves inequity,
Creating societies anew each generation.

Sing of the trilium, the whale,
The maple leaves and mountain dews.
Beware the maple pole,
The calamus blade, adhesive boys.
Ignore the P-town poets,
tongues untied,
AIDS-fed anger,
Intravenous rage,
Ruffling well-mannered classes
Movies of poison polluting well-intentioned poses.

Well

alone a moment tears inside well up
why ? i am well engaged with colleagues ?
the meetings end, i say goodbye and leave,
my screen dives in the well of tears.

tears again as harbinger of freeze
sun dulls and night loses moisture
not erotic, no desire;
metallic green, waste from industry,
courses through my stomach from my heart,
fogging brain, tarring hands;
glasses drop, memory gone
play zombie chairperson,
passive mask pretending all is well.
just recite: it will pass,
always has anyway.

when fog lifts
why ? why did bile go ?
when will it return ?
now alive but future is present,
anticipating the next flood from the well of loneliness.

White fog

Sometimes my spirit
seems thin as paper,
no lust, no self,
just metallic memory.

To live, to interact,
seems pretense to require -
unquestioning faith
in one's importance.

But some cannot still,
as precept instructs,
the doubts, the difference,
that holds us out.

After a day
of pretence play,
after mind grown slow
with symbol juggle,
the spirit's drained -
a personal famine -
fatigue at the end
of labor of soul.

White fog of despair
enfolds my spirit.
Siren of ending
is sweet next to living.

Faith pulls me to bed -
cold shower of sleep -
awaken slow with song
after stuff for body;
metal-paper gone,
flesh-zest returns.

Breaking Free

"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile and cunning."

As I drive, I regain my self,
savor the silence,
use my exile to plot my triumph,
cunning flourishes in isolation.

If there are reports
of an accident,
remember my glory
as I plotted my end.

Suicide

There are many routes
to sui - side
pill, gun, car, drink
but to hide neath contempt
best use despair.

Benign

Gracious,
smiling hello,
"all are equal"
you generously assert.
Talk of your concerns,
surely they're everyone's issues.
Smother with tolerance,
facile understanding.
Probe not distinctness,
best not discussed.

Denying difference
makes neglect
malignant.

Respectable

I am respectable
I am Black
succeeding in your white world
I slave to achieve.
At 1 AM, still working
you've all gone home
I am alone even home
here in the whitest State.
Don't call me queer !

I am respectable
I am recovering
raised a Catholic,
raised a lady
in this male world
where Protestant/agnostic is mentor superior
pain racks my back.
Don't call me queer !

I am out
I work many hours for our cause
I write, I am community's hub
hosting potlucks
sharing pain.
Don't keep nasty slurs alive.
Damn it,
Don't call me queer !

I am Black
I am woman
I am man
I am queer !

Club 515

Small brass plate on a forest green door:

Club 515

Decorous ladies and gentlemen walking so close to respectable,
never would guess what's inside.

That's how we want it,
keeping up appearances,
safe closet's inside.

Celebrate Riotrebellion: L.A. 1992

$500 million and rising
50+ lives, 2000 broken limbs,
innocent people beaten, brutalized
daylight filtered by smoke of rage
flames covering whole blocks
rage consuming whole Blacks.

TV's focus on material destruction,
diverts our gaze from social disease.

President Bush denounces riots,
Would-be President Clinton applauds Bush,
Would-be President Perot is silent.

Ignore the impact of our policies of denial.
The 80's brought more poverty,
widened the chasm between those with voice and those without.
Yes, focus on law-breaking, "breakdown in values,"
add mortar to our construction of social labels,
be silent on the viruses causing rage.
Blame the victims of mainstream's denial,
Mock the stupidity of self-destruction.

* * * *

Our social hierarchy permits us
only one loud speaker.
We must mutilate ourselves,
make a leap of faith,
our lives in trust,
blind hope in the humanity
of those eating supremacy;
taking Patrick at his word,
claiming death when get no liberty.

Celebrate riotrebellion,
our only voice.

Holy War

A. Schools of Bigotry

Walking by your overarching spire,
would-be gothic stones make the clear story:
threat of spirit, hooded and robed,
you nurture, inform, instruct
about unnatural deviance, abomination,
coat with music and incense,
offer surrogate parent for us
who are age's frontline.

Our fear and loss are deep,
now our parents are gone,
so your power is great
to intimidate.

Your schools dot human geography,
strong instruction for young vigilantes,
hooded, robed riders nurture fear at night,
bash us, beat us so unnatural,
leave hate notes on our doors, cars, phones,
leave traps in toilet stalls,
smears, hate and baseball bats.

gothic instruction works well

B. Supplicants

We love you, honor you, esteem you,
We serve you with all our hearts.
Cleanse our souls, sing your hymns,
Om, endless Om.
Calm breathing inner boss
Deep discipline, asanas enjoyed,
Sex energy flows upward,
Fingered beads, holy cross.

So we learn:
wash out rage,
be happy
in Your company.
Never shoulder chips
mar my smiling lips,
manicured attitude:
this nigger-slut-faggot's
no soul amplitude.

C. Holy War

Around the world, through all time,
church is prime mover
channeling worry and envy
into religious crusade, holy war.

Beware empathy

I make an offer:
dinner with a gay African American poet.

Your response:
you want more places for "your" group, LGB students,
you ignore that more than white gay people are involved,
but you are earnest, positive,
you take all responsibility.

I am empathic:
I feel your concerns, your struggle and pain.
I shut down,
do not think.

At dinner you dominate discussion.
When some turn the talk
to substance of racial boundaries,
you grab it back:
"Aren't gays just like other minorities?"

How can you be so arrogant
to act like you know
what African American means,
to erase someone else's reality ?
Are you blind to other's acquiescence
to your act of supremacy ?

You will be much noted as
business-person, administrator, advocate,
a strong voice for your issues, your organization,
even widely celebrated.

* * * *

Beware empathy,
it leads to drowning -
selfpity is so disgusting -
never be a celebrity that way.

* * * *

Where do we get
the spur to reflect
on the burning in others,
on the ashes within,
to write to live
in a world of celebrities.

Mudbury

"I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only a quarter of me was queer - whereas really it was the other way round."

As a babe opening my eyes:
achievement, excellence, so much promised
all within grasp,
so much slime
as climb up the walls
of a pock of life
in piss and blood
stench of humiliation sticks like clay.

love that dirt

Princeton, Oxford, Berkeley,
taught me well how to erect
with white paper, construe with words
cover my crotch with respectable tweed.
Yes, I could achieve in my house of paper
elaborately built with shower
to wash away slime
bare my honest heart
instead of my cock
to hide my truth while playing integrity.

love that dirt

Now life-smothering work
to excel in all eyes, cover all pocks,
seen as confirmation
of individual choice,
good motivation,
as if I chose to have morning matches
lighting fires to my paper house
on the notepad on the office door
finding classes unfocused,
struggle to please by professing what I should not.

Colleagues and clients who deny all crotch
can see only respectable achievement.

love that dirt

mudhole of youth smells closer,
showers more frequent,
as flames leap higher in my paper house;
queer culture's a bit thin in Vermont.

Why Did I Ask ?

Why so afraid
when you report back,
showed the lovenotes
and Valentine card
to experts for advice ?

Why so nervous ?
You thoughtfully stressed
how harassing they are;
you acknowledge my issue
and promise more
which never arrives.

I delayed for months
while it continued.
"Just a nuisance,
no need to bother,
sorry to take your time
with such a small thing."

So thank you
for taking me seriously.
I still don't believe,
just wait for humiliation,
like faggot in Levis,
crave/hate respectable covers.

Why did I ask ?

No party

After so many years
of testimony, letters and calls,
it passed, so unexpected
just a month ago,
sixth state to claim equality.

Testified with a bag over head,
heard years later of the power of that.
Some good friends, some good meals,
good moves made in the effort
that seemed so futile.

Thursday, when the Governor signed,
just another workday,
classes from 9:30 to 9:30.
No one to join, to hold, to kiss,
no community, no celebration.

Blushing Reality

Sitting quietly, material carefully prepared,
studying the agenda, when best to speak?

Several names proposed, I cannot be still.
Speak up quickly, forgetting much, so poorly structured.

Envy those so eloquent in extemporaneous address
I stick to private writing where mind works free.

In contentious peer debate that threatens to reveal
the rules I break inside my head,
a curtain drops, the void fills all,
To stave off teenage memory:
The Blushing Reality.

Queer Blues

Blues Hardon

Sudden sure interest from afar
antennae work so fine:
shape of eyes,
shape of thighs,
basket, buttocks, cheeks.
Surprizing beauty, not my type ?
empathy, flexibility, words,
flow feels fine to me.