28.2.09

Glass and Steel

This glass and steel,
glint and shine,
of ingenuity and labour built--
but the purpose?

Less transparent, it seems,
nothing but a lie
with its sheen in midday sun,
blinding the world in its glory:
feminist's phallocentrism,
I wonder enveloped at Bryant Park.

That myth of an American Dream,
I cannot help but think,
standing upright as Masses
pass me by,
the only other potent image
me under Old Glory, eyes fixed
on its tattered body being whipped
unapologetically by gusts.
Still staring I cannot but wonder:
why is it so?

No, not the fact of the myth.
For me, that is all too clear,
remembering the body left
for dead on Wyoming fence,
haunting melody of Wainwright:
scarecrow, scarecrow,
stark lyrics mimicking stark
reality, no need to dress up erasure.

It seems so far in the past,
and yet so close,
fresh wounds of my own.
Just yesterday:
changed form, same message,
vitriol repackaged, as words--
laundry list of slurs
lacking cessation of breath,
but no less painful:

My own leaden tears sitting
in bed, nursing a perpetually
wounded soul, at twelve
bud already tempered by mighty frost,
new consciousness in
the wake of disconnect.

Reminded of its permanence,
I repeat the fact of myth.
Too well I know I cannot have
what others can have at a basic level,
written in law, laced in social expectation:

I am more than this, I tell myself.
Yes, I am and yet...
I am bound to this consciousness,
sexual partner inseparable from
treatment of the act.
Both blessing and curse
it cannot be undone,
unlike vision it
never loses clarity.

So why do I have to live this?
I pause for a moment, making sense
of jumbled thought as I am
greeted by something more solemn:
Why do so many endure this?
I plumb the depths of my mind
before the final question emerges
from the brambles:
why do so many miss Old Glory in tatters?

There are answers to these questions,
somewhere in this body of mine
they reside,
but looking up at skyscrapers
around Bryant Park,
they don't need to spoken.

The glory in the glint,
the wonder of the steel,
the job, the money,
promised through adorned facades:
renunciation of hope
never a thought
in light of the Dream of
quiet consciousness.

Even through deconstruction,
Dream spurious to me,
I am momentarily enraptured.
For just a second, still staring up,
wounded soul is mended,
Old Glory suddenly replaced
by giant LED version.

The sight forces me to
grab my stomach,
sudden sharp pain,
falling to the ground as my mind
seeks to slip out of consciousness
temporarily.

Even in the most potent
disavowals of the material,
the last thing I see before
waking up to an unfamiliar face
is glass and steel.
Unable to speak, heavy thoughts
are a deluge in my head:
we are doomed, we are doomed
by this glass and steel,

And all falls silent.

22.2.09

Without A Name

Averse to labels
we plumb the unexpected
essence of this thing--
even without a name,
absent signifier,
we exist together in comfort

At night in sweet embrace,
draped in fabric and
lacking form from outside,
knowledge of our bodies our own,
we do nothing but smile;
lithe creatures lingering, in scene
most consider phantasm.

5.2.09

The Blend(s)

Olive, oily skin,
calloused hands,
perfect flesh regardless of
unmistakable imperfections

I stare, longingly
I gaze at the body
Walking by, hot summer day,
Melted ice cream cones on sidewalk

Wondering when I can meet,
Lip lock contoured by carnal desire,
Sensory explosion in deep woods
While Mr. and Mrs. Smith
repeat tired heterosexuality
on Fifth Avenue.

Olive, oily skin,
Calloused hands,
For me banished
into some lonely corner,
forgotten by the Joneses,
names insignificant because of the blend,
reassertion of an already repetitious act.

I have it now,
Perfect flesh next to mine,
But we survive only in the Village,
Strolling by curiously blank statues
And black trans females
Teetering over us in three inch stilettos,
Our place, our relics, our realities
Marked by obvious erasure.

Lip lock contoured by carnal desire, we have
Our moment outside of the place
that christened a Movement.
But it does not last long.
Lingering on the present, wondering about the nights
We spent recently, abject moments alone,
Did we make any progress?
We question in thick humidity,
A ‘no’ the only certain answer
But we try to dream before

Spontaneous combustion—
we are not fit for this world—
stolen line from Amelie,
combustion of our possibilities

Replaced by haunts,
Image of his calloused hands
Dissolved into memory of
Stinging red marks from a
stepfather’s solid hand,
angry crusades against desire,
scripture re-interpreted with each slap.

Lachrymose twelve year old
Sitting on the bed nursing wounds next to
Undressed men, photos from somewhere,
Usually hidden in the secret box.
Wishing arousal would whither, away,
Out of his mind, into air, into water,
He flips the photos over, blank white
Against light blue sheets,
but nothing changes.
It never changes, he thinks,
Shame beginning to flow in, open window
On a warm spring night.

Replaced by spectres of my own,
The always-lingering heterosexual dream,
White picket fence in every frame, collapsed
on a wild lawn, mower sitting out rusted,
Discomfort intensifying as distant family asks about
Any opposites I have found away from home.
I say I am focused on my studies,
the only half truth I know that spares
me from the guilt of all-out lies

That morphs into fresh memory,
Only a month and a half old, of strolling
Down Decatur Street,
Cold winter day, blustery,
Wearing fingerless gloves and
Rainbow scarf, mark of a faggot
Of course, or I wouldn’t have been harassed.

Words, yes only words,
But random strangers,
Faces and bodies unknown to me
(no desire to turn around),
heckled me,
homo, homo, they repeated
as I continued forward, ever increasing pace,
turning a corner I wasn’t expecting,
concrete example of the queer path
bending to reproach, self and others
challenging notions of forward motion.

Reality once again,
Dreams, heap of fabric at the feet of
These experiences, new and old blended
Together, overwhelming desire for
Olive, oily skin of my companion stifled,
In the place where the closet exploded,
lip locked lovers pulled apart
For common purpose, pressing purpose:

We find the nearest bookshop,
Grabbing notebook and pen,
Sitting down, writing free flowing
Thoughts, unconcerned punctuation,
Just ideas suppressed in our erasure:
haunts we connected on—
our walk—
trans hookers wearing cheap stilettos to make buck
because of discrimination at work—
lonely nights wondering is this (motioning to lived life)
really worth it all?—
Another thought:
Where will I be in ten years from now?—
And yet another: Why do I fight?—

And so on, multiplication
With new connections formed,
Wondrous brain,
unexplained, mysterious neural pathways
that generate ideas freely,
coloured only by our own experiences
and imaginings

Quick steps down Decatur
drawn out now,
no hurry, no rush.
We write until the sun sets as
Little lamps light up and
Larger buildings glow magnificently,
A city unconcerned,
The Joneses unaware,
Repression of deconstruction
In a larger fabric,
Overly starched by discourses.

Thanks Foucault, I scribble on the page,
finally setting my pen down,
Tired mind only gazing at his calloused hands
Continuing the furious scribble I lost.
Three hundred ticks of the second hand
I gaze at the hands…
But they are not the same anymore,
Imagining red marks from past slaps,
Something more than flesh.

And from that realization
An idea ignites my tired mind.
I too am guilty of the blend.
Why did I not see it before?

With that question
He finally sets his pen down,
So? He asks simply.
So what? I reply, unsure of
What to let escape my mouth.
What do you want to do next?
The words come out so casually
I am taken aback.
Well…we…can…
Silence lingers for a long time
On the third ellipsis
Before a clear answer emerges.
How does not fucking sound?
Idea of perfect flesh lost in some other world.
Sounds good comes out—without hesitation
he goes on: I think I know what you mean.

As he grabs my hand, I feel the roughness as
We are interwoven, walking into the
Jungle night with only one expectation.

29.1.09

Wishing

I throw a coin into the well,
Waiting a while to know
it has reached bottom.

Waiting for that sound I wish,
Fixation on the past—
Of lonely nights in bed
Deep red glass on the nightstand—
Fading to imagination.
Free me from this margin
I intone but suddenly find myself
Pausing…

Like creative bursts
From sitting by my willow,
Thoughts trickle into my head,
Without the usual reasonable limits.

A serpent wraps itself around me,
The uncomfortable tightness
in my chest intensifying:
Do I want to be freed from this margin?
I intone again
But there is only silence.

Hearing the distant plunk
I know what I have done.
I have wished to be freed
From this shadow zone.
Heavy in my mind is the realization:
I cannot take it back.

It escaped my lips and drifted off
Into Nature, into a power greater than
My own, a force more supreme and
Evocative than my simple humanity.

Where will I go if I am not in the margins?
I wonder staring up at the sky,
Indescribable blue, unblemished.
It is the place that I have always been,
From the nights as a child engrossed
In the fantasy world on page, unfurling
With talking mice, wizards and ghastly evil,
All seeped in man-made lore.

To those nights after bodily changes began,
cracking voice as body morphs,
carnal desire building, my newfound sexuality,
faggot, faggot I only heard.
I tried to hide it, pretend it was not me,
But what good did that bring me?


To those nights when the queer in me
Was comfortable, resting in my heart,
A point of shame no longer.
Ragdoll vanished, the image of me
sturdy in the wind,
Replaced instead by a disconnect,
Fine gossamer threads collapsed
With feeling like I did not fit in with anyone queer:
Intellectual building,
Postmodern deconstruction, leave nothing standing.
Perform gender…be nomadic,
voices of great wisdom told me.

The result: spectres of past experiences
Hissing acridly, no method of fumigation
When I knew only to question everything.
I found myself deconstructing me!

My body and mind scattered across some
vast landscape, ashes into the wind.
My mouth somewhere other than my head,
Only my ears listening to others,
always contemplating spoken words,
the poetry of it all and the harsh underbelly—
Lies, diminutive and brawny,
Lingering pointedly through harmonious facades.

So wrapped up in thought,
I am thrown back into the present world,
Realizing I am still hovering over the well.
If someone had passed by, I would have
Appeared to be suspended, standing up
Statuesque, in spirit of The Thinker.

Thus I wonder if it is at all possible for me
To ever break away from the margins.
After the proclamation and plunk—
Contract signed—
there has been no change,
Just endless suspension,
the pulling out of everything I tried to suppress,
Bringing a foggy world into a clearing
By shattering my own artifice.

Free me from this margin
I intone again.

But I quickly find myself laughing,
A noise that morphs into a blank expression,
And then again into a river down my cheek.
I cannot be freed and
I must not pretend.
It is who I am.

21.1.09

The Heart

I thought you had a beating heart. I heard it those nights I slept next to you, your arm around me, and felt at ease. But now I wonder if it’s beating anymore. I wonder because you left me stranded in a place I need to leave. You left me stranded, with nobody else, nothing else save my own imagination, and now I have fallen from that comfortable place I once inhabited. I know this week has been rough for you. From the already fragile relationship with your father now completely crumbled, to the break up with boyfriend, times have been trying. But that does not mean I care for you any less or that I am not there for you any less. If anything, it only makes me want to help you more. It only makes me want to see you go on and find happiness and comfort more than ever. If there is anybody I know that deserves that comfort, it is you.

But now I am starting to wonder if you have a glass heart. I have helped you. Yes, you have helped me too, but now, in the moment when I need you most—in this midnight hour when I gasp for breath and heavy tears stroll down my cheeks—, I send you texts, I call you and am always met with the same response: none whatsoever. The icy silence consumes me. In mind, in body, in the air around me, that question “why” haunts me. Why…it lingers so stubbornly in every breath I take. Why…it lingers and makes me wonder if there is ever any resolution. There was a moment in the tears that anger surfaced, that I found a “fuck you” escape from my mouth. But the adolescent angst vanished in the wake of my realization. You’ve gone through your own tears, those violent paroxysms, the moment where you wondered why you had the parent(s) you do, and the loneliness that results from such a disconnect. You may not show it like I do. You put on a steely expression—impenetrable—and walk forward with an air of nonchalance. But I know you’re feeling something. We all feel something.

So I am asking you this: do you have a beating heart or is it made of glass? Do you care about me or do you not? Or, are things really this simple? Must one always have this veined understanding? Or lack it entirely, instead possessing no compassion whatsoever? Maybe it is that you do care, but with your own problems, you are afraid to show yourself as a strawberry in these rare winter frosts? Your nonchalance seems a means of shielding yourself, a protection from that which might destroy any comfortable feeling in your body. But I have tried this before; I have put on my best artifice and been something other than my essence (an idea loosely encompassing the spectres of my past). The result was this: constant moments of disconnect from action and feeling, a gripping psychological drama with my self as the only audience member. I may have done well by external standards, but walking on a long path forward with my true feelings as steam shooting out my ears was not a way to live. Admittedly, I have not freed myself from my past. I have not liberated my present feeling from my essence; spectres still linger on every corner as I take the streetcar down to Canal.

But I am making progress. You cannot expect these conversations with ghosts to be easy. Harsh words, hisses, untamed violence, neglect…they want to rip every good memory you might have ever had away from you. Yet you battle because you want to live. You battle because you want to exist beyond them, apart from them, as a wooden toy and not ragdoll. Whatever you might choose, know that I will be here for you. I have a strong, beating heart. You may have hurt me more powerfully than you have realised, but at the same time, I cannot blame you for everything that has happened. I cannot blame you for whatever ghosts you might have, for how powerfully the vehemence may have resurfaced this week. You are not your self only because of what you have done; your life is the ultimate theatre piece.

I look forward. I stare into a great unknown, away from the hisses and pain. I have dreams of the city. I have dreams of that PhD. I have dreams of that emotional freedom, of unassisted gliding through the invigorating air. Whether or not you choose to follow now is your choice. You will be on my mind because I look forward not just for myself. I look forward for anybody who has ever touched me and deserves that freedom too. To all the queer kids. To all the impoverished in inner city ghettos. To all the women wrapped up in thinking they need to be perfect. And also, perhaps most importantly, to those who have hurt us. I ask, taking in the fresh air, who was it that hurt you?

17.1.09

Beginnings of an Essay for Pomona College

I’ve always found myself in the margins, the place poet Mark Doty likes to call the “the edges no wants, no one’s watching.” When I was younger, it was a product of my shy, intellectual disposition; I was kid you’d find wrapped up in a 400 hundred-page book at ten years old. Through time these margins evolved a great deal, becoming a product of my burgeoning sexuality, as I realized I didn’t fit in within everyone else because of my desires. By the age of 16, I started coming out as gay to family and friends. From how I view individual actions and opinions differently, to the organizations and causes I have been most active in, my sexuality has been the lens through which I view the world. While such a lens has complicated my movement forward, as the spectres of a queer past linger with sunken eyes, it has also given me the desire to stand up, with pain and sadness floating coursing through my blood, and transform the inequities—whether based in race, gender, sexuality or class—that mark our society today.