Fears

If we were made of stone we would
walk this Earth unconcerned
of anything, for anybody.

We'd trudge slowly forward
toward achieving our goals
without the slightest bit of
hesitation.

But we're not stone:

we fall while rollerblading and
skin our knees, yelping
for the part of us lost;

we scale a tree, higher and
higher, branch after branch,
ultimately losing our
footing in arrogance, in agony
on the ground, part of us broken;

we lie awake at night,
crying to ourselves (or God,
if we believe) at the uncertainty
of the ground beneath our feet,
our failures.

We have our fears,
of riding bikes,
driving cars,
heights,
spiders, or
the very thing we want
to be part of and cannot--
humanity.

These fears creep up,
unsuspecting, nurse with
a 3-inch needle and syringe,
pulling all the confidence
out of our veins.

No, we are not always
so fragile, rag dolls in the
hand of an overeager child.

(We cut through mountains
with dynamite-- BAM!)

(We stand in front of trucks,
statuesque in solidarity)

(We let freedom ring, from
North to South we let our
words echo, even if our
death is a consequence)

(We dream, and dream,
and dream, scaling mountains
with a flurry of imagination)

And...yet...we...falter,

masking true emotions
in violence, spending days
teary-eyed in bed, struggling
to even let a single word
escape our open mouths.

We are not made of stone
and thus our path undulates
erratically on the most
universal of human emotions:
fear.

In the worst of the times we
are even afraid of our self,
looking in the mirror naked
and exposed, wondering why
a monster is reflected back.

Yet we can overcome these fears.

Unlike stone, our form and ideas
are elastic--

with a little tug, pulling the
courage we suddenly see lit up
in a firefly dance,
we can transcend
these limitations.

We can go anywhere.

Obscurities

You look down at the sidewalk,
perceptive eyes picking minute
details out of an otherwise
indiscriminate haze:

fissures in the smooth surface,
dates inscribed with jagged edges,
little critters crawling on
what must be a vast plane for them.

You look at the sidewalk
and see something more complex.

You bend the rigid metal of the
analytic with what you
envision in a simple glance.

You are not afraid to embrace obscurity.
.
.
.
.
.
I read a book by an author
nobody seems to have heard,
dust(y) jacket in mint condition
though it's been a quarter century.

Only two others have checked it
out, the last a decade ago,
and I can't figure out why:

Yes, the prose is intricate,
even overwrought in spots--
an effect of trying too hard--

but whole passages are somehow
etched into my flesh, consequence
of undaunted beauty and
boundless creativity.

I wonder, as I set the book
down and break to decompress,
if it because the words are
bricks through windows of
complacency that people
turn away, afraid.
.
.
.
.
.
I am sitting in a nursing home
room, staring a woman I've
known my entire life who
now, somehow, seems alien.

She calls me John in a frail
voice, though that's not my name,
and I begin believing this
lack of recognition to be mutual.

Her body is even different:
waif-like, with a gaunt face
overwhelmed by cerulean saucers
that gaze absently in every
direction.

I wonder when she is going to die,
even as we gaze at each other
for a second of
bittersweet understanding.

I want her to live;
of course I want her to live!
Yet I don't want this disease
to push her further into this
grotesque obscurity.
.
.
.
.
.
We look at the little flower,
blooming, as rays of sun
peak through clouds, and
wonder:

why are we destroying life,
so beautiful?

why are we fixated on destruction?

It's seems we don't care about
this blooming anymore, tired
of sitting at canvas and putting
little brushstrokes down to
finish our masterpiece.

We've accomplished so much,
gone so far.

Buildings stretch toward
the heavens in metallic glory.

And yet, we watch this
blooming and it has no
affect on us, same droll look
as we worry about our
dispossession.

The very planet that
cradled our civilizations,
Nature, is slowly falling
out of consciousness, falling,
fast.

Can we survive if we lose it all?

5/15

My bones are
somehow soft.

Formless spectre drifting,
languidly over the Earth.

It all seems so vast and
unmentionable.

My fear, precipitous
and consuming.

I look in the mirror
and see my innards:

large intestine, pancreas,
brain, bowel,

quivering, wondering
what the hell the future holds,

in my arms I imagine
a baby,

(no, not a baby, not right)

in my arms I imagine
a black widow,

I am alone, in a dark
room, but not

dark enough to miss
the red hourglass,

I will die, in this dream
I will die.

And the moments
leading up to it flashback

as the venom, so potent,
floods every inch my body.

Abjection in tattered
clothes as I sip soup,

out of cheap carafe
under the oaks in the park;

still further back as he
leaves me,

sludge spewing from his
mouth as he slams the door;

the death of dear friends,
cloaked in black as I weep,

stream running down
my cheeks;

to what seems a pitiful
moment of exaltation:

a slim volume of poems
published,

"Birth/Death," fragments
of loss and life, a mosaic,

all shattered now, all gone
in this spiral downward,

to the dungeon, hammer
against the birth,

leaving only empty space
and cessation.

All because of 5/15,
5/15, day of reckoning

when I get that letter
in the mail,

postman indifferent to
the fear I feel,

strong emotions of
stagnancy, suspension,

stepping out in summer
sun and body melting

molasses on pavement
as the ants devour you.

5/15
I cannot help but repeat,

I'm a broken record,
walking cliche,

thinking the end of my
life is suddenly upon

me if I do not get a yes.

Reality settles in,
bones hardening

as my form materializes
once again:

5/15 is not an end,
but a beginning,

I want to publish
those poems,

birth and death
of ideas, things, people

alive and well in my
mind,

(I've got a story to tell)

compassion in my
heart as I settle my hands

soft, gentle, against
the tree branch,

this world has not seen
enough of me,

it must quake and falter
and be remade,

in a new image,
without the smoke,

tear down the facades
and expose the harsh

lines of the face, attitudes,
and bend them to your will.

5/15
5/15

It is you who should
be fearful.

Beauty (Through a Lens)

Negation and Queer History

I am posting these comments that I included in my poem "Negation" because I feel they are important in terms of who I am intellectually and may serve to explain not only that poem but many of the other poems I have done previously. I really do want to start a dialogue on this and always welcome comments:


I think that loss and forgetting history figures prominently into queer culture. Older queer men who have lived through AIDS seem to be forgetting major events that have occurred in "queer history." This is nothing involuntary; rather, these men have ignored history because it is painful, because it disrupts any notions of comfort, exposing the full face of the monster lurking in humanity.

These assimilationist politics reflect the larger problem that is occurring among queer youth today. Far from the so-called increasing acceptance of queers based in marriage "equality", I think that the unapologetic gay bashing and bullying demonstrates the ill-effects of this denial of history (which is inspired, in part, by "Feeling Backward" and partly by the piece @harveymilk wrote entitled "Levity and Gravity.")

To deny history only creates psychical uncertainty and distress; history never goes away. The feelings of loss, shame and guilt are not gone in this denial. History is not some dead Truth of past events, but informs the present in so many respects. It's literally alive with each breath we take.

And so I wonder what the full consequences of this denial by an older generation are. Who teaches the kids history? Who mentors them? Is the idea that is pushed "that we are like everyone else" and that our "love is equal" problematic? On a basic level, yes, we do want to be loved and love, but how is that love defined and constrained through a heteronormative matrix? What about those who want to be fluid in who they love? Can anybody love multiple people at the same time? Are you viewed like some zoo animal when you walk down the street holding your lover's hand or when you go in for a kiss?

And so on and so forth. The intersectionality of queer history, loss and erasure; the psyche (and deconstructing theories of psychology which have victimized and dehumanized queer people); LGBT politics nationally and locally; youth; personal experiences as queer man; and academic meditations on gender, class, race, etc. really have informed what appears to be a rather simple piece on the surface.

Negation

He got that flag
many years ago
in the woods of
Bard,

displaying the
rainbow prominently
in his dorm,
self-expression
blossoming.

He has displayed
it since,
through moves,
through tragedy,
when fear and
uncertainty settled
in his body.

But he's taken it
down, just over a
week now,

when I came home
one night it was
gone, replaced by
some minimalist
piece of "art,"

(in quotes because
it lacked soul).

And when I asked
him about this
switch, he replied,
with a disconcerting
smugness,

"I have grown up
now. I have settled
down. That flag is
just a relic."

I looked at him
but said nothing,
in that moment
the connection
we created years
earlier disconnected,
suddenly.

I have grown up now,
I repeated to myself,

I have settled down,
I couldn't let the words
leave me,

the flag is just relic,
I couldn't hold back
the tears.

He's abandoned it all:
uneven fireworks
display of self-discovery,

struggle as his occasional
lisp or soft handshake cost
him a job,

the faces,
voices,
minds
that ceased
to laugh, growl in anger,
or create wonders
because of the monster
lurking in civilization,

and the kids like
him, wiping cum off
hands at this hour,
who deal with that
monster daily.

(I weep harder
as I think about it.)

All lost,
history vanquished
in three short
sentences and
a simple action.

I can't believe he
doesn't realize what
he's done.

I found out he's
not the man I thought
he was, the man
I came to love in
my awkward days.

I am not sure if I
I will leave him,

(I still love him)

but I cannot live
with someone who
has forgotten,
someone who is,
even without knowing,
feeding the monster
that haunts and chases
a people.

I am not asking
him for a parade,
but to remember
we are not the same
and never will be.

As we age, history
doesn't die.

It only grows with
us, breathing and
shifting in our
own experiences and
collectively.

I am asking him
to remember and
put up that flag again.

As I Lay (Dying) In a Holy City of the Imagination

I've made up
my mind already,

morbid thoughts
somehow managing
to escape the grasp
of happiness,

I know where
I want to die.

Only nineteen
and already
imagining the
penultimate breath,

so curious,
with so much life to
live, imagining it
cessation.

Why?

I am not afraid...
or at least I do
not want to be,
to die.

And already I
feel a weight,
an unencumbered darkness,
clawing, chameleon body:

Mother Earth struggling,
to shade herself, yet
melting,
losing form as exhaust
fumes dance sluggishly
around her,

genetic material coded
for disease--
failing hearts, kidneys,
livers, eyes,

and natural decomposition
of mind,
body,
soul,
torn and frayed
by the winds
of the Time.

And yet,

this
declaration is not
dark,

is not mysterious,

does not wear a
grotesque mask,

(I've never felt lighter.)

Perhaps it is because
I lack the eyes of a seer,
composition of a
misanthrope, am no
wraith

that I imagine my
death to be wondrous,

not in design, but
in the moments leading
up.

I want to die
in New Orleans,

a favourite poet
remarked it was
one of the holy cities
of the imagination.

Walking along
uneven sidewalks,
disfigured by the
roots of mighty oaks,
as the sun sets,
illuminating the sky
in royal purples

I cannot miss the
truth in this statement,
and this only a
fragment of a larger
whole

to the grandeur
and horrors,
superimposed
in vast mansions
with shutters you
want to peak in
to houses, in ruins,
you could see from
miles.

I want to die in
the place that has
inspired Capote,
Faulkner, Williams
and the like,

a place where my
own passing disappears

into the mystery
of Vieux Carre in
winter fog,

into the anger
and sadness of
the huddled masses,
hungry outside of
a shelter in Mid-City,

into the imagination
of the past,

into the imagination
of where the world
will go,

and into the imagination,
so holy and profound,
that lets me float freely
above all ills which
plague my body and mind.

I cannot imagine it any
other way.