1.To a Friend
You inspire me to create my most beautiful self
Only to dismiss me
As an unimportant afterthought
Not unlike that 2 inch long waterbug
Scurrying across the kitchen floor
In the dishwater light of my kitchen
2. To my niece (and her lover, crystal meth)
You are my family
And my heart aches
To talk to you
My brother–your Father
Tells me you really need a family
I need one too.
But when you say “I love you”
They are just words;
You’re never available to talk,
to catch up, to love
Is it because you’re scared?
Is it because of your hatred?
Your damage? Your love of the pipe?
When you say “I love you”
They are just words;
there are no actions
When you talk of love
I talk to a vacuum
3.To a Ghost
I long
To dig you up,
Unearth you from the
Crawl space of my heart
Dismember and
Chop you into small pieces,
Run you through a blender
And sell it as the secret ingredient
In Power Smoothies
For the jocks on Avenue A
You know–the the shirtless ones
The ones who run half-naked
up and down East 6 Street
when it’s 100 degrees
or 20 degrees
the ones,
The more machine than human
who spit if you stare
the shells of men
With their power love digitized;
sucked out
consumed by their phones
4.To a Vampire
I will mindfully bake a meat pie
Containing your heart
Tear it
to pieces
Feed it
to
the scavenging starlings
pecking at the vomit
left by screaming drunken Millennials
on Lower East side Friday nights
5. To an unavailable friend
My loneliness is boring me to tears
I want to talk to you
But you are
silent
As the floor underneath my feet
“New age people can turn on you” you said.
Oh, that bitchy wisdom
Floating somewhere between
My front door and raw East River sewage
You are a horror
dead and wooden
like a cold, clammy corpse
Devoid of feeling
You are the surface
I walk on
Do sit-ups on
Tap my foot to the beat on
You are the silver screen
I project my shadow on
By Shamanic dancing
on rooftops of freedom
I celebrate
Not being involved with you
In the rage of the primal moon
I forget the sex of you
In the heat of the ride
I birth again my heart’s beating
You are a fly I swat
And fling off the roof
Into the open mouths
of passing people
Walking by like motorized
eunochs with back-packs
more machine
than human
So I burn sage
to eradicate the decay of it all
6. To All the Down Low Men I have Loved
You cannot control me
I mindfully
Take back my power
Sprouting, growing,
Flowering like shy sunflowers
Seeking the sun in your muscle touch.
But you don’t care
Is to fuck or fight.
the only measure
Of the space in between us?
When you see me, do you see
A different race, a different gender
A different desire (your own)?
And you can’t stand
The spotlight of my heart
Shining on you.
Is it fear
I will reach out to you?
Make a move on you?
Or is it fear
You will reveal yourself?
Your walls crumbling
Like tissue
unveiling
Like a hummingbirds
Emerging from the suffocating muscles
That hide your heart
within your headless torso
Keeping it hidden
There is no mystery to men
Only fuck or fight
Fuck or fight
Oh the boundaries
I take such pains To delineate
Then demolish
Jumping on you
In the privacy
Of my dark mancave
Where we can hide!
Where we can sigh
Like big horny ladies
Or dogs;
Peeling off our masks
mutually exploring lust
devoid of shame
Hammer, pound, finger
Into each other’s muscles
Release–destroy ourselves
Then say goodbye
DEDICATED TO THE SUPER QUEEN
You are
An injection
That has pierced
The interstitial fluid
Running wet between my organs
And gut.
When I observe
Our intimacy
(longing to savor it)
You turn
Ice queen
Swathed in battens of bitch cunt chiffon
Holding your hand up
In a signal of dismissal
One moment;
The next–you inspire me
To dust off
The cobwebs from my heart
The next-you bite,
The venom from your fangs
Paralyzing me
I am chanting
Murmuring silent
Serenity prayers
I am dancing
Like a Shaman
Under a cloudy New York June moon
Eradicating the plague of you
from my warrior’s heart
WHY I DANCE
I dance;
to kill my loneliness
To slay the passing couples that walk in time
Flashing “Keep Out” to me in their lover’s subetext
I am busy
Building walls around myself
Seeking protection
from the toxic karma of
the disastrous Mom’s repeating their negative shit
Ad infinitum;
Just when you thought it was safe,
That bitter queen was right
It’s not New York City;
It’s “New York Cunty”
Oh dear me
How gouache
That I’m passing on inclusivity
How can you be inclusive
When you’re poor?
When the super studs
Make you invisible?
And the talking vaginas
Talk through
And over you
Like you’re a dead body,
An obstacle on the street
To step over
Pissing on the sweet, obedient niceness
Of passing gays playing at being married
To make scat on the lingering groups of foreign NYU
Rich student babies
Whose parents pay the rent
You know…the ones who physically
Move next door to you;
But who remain detached
(except from their phones) for a year or two or three…
Then move away as if they were never here
The ones,
Who hold court at
The Tibetan Café
Using Mummy and Daddy’s credit cards
To wipe their ass
Playing at being continental, worldly
Adults;
These aren’t my people
They are global aliens
Of a foreign, rich entitled world class
The sort never stopped or questioned by ICE
The sort of burrowing, maggot parasites
That NYU loves.
I remember New York
Before NYU took over;
When love was here
among the junkies, the dirt,
the drag queens
the men in chaps
Wondering back and forth
Before Chelsea piers
From one leather bar to the next
But that’s gone,
Real estate development
Tolls the death knell
For overt kink
For anything other
Than entitled kids
Braying for this or that
Organic candy
In East Village Organic
Where even the owner
Warns you
About sharing too much information
(i.e., I’ll take that box of rubber
Gloves off your hands,
I’ll put them to good use–
massaging my clients”).
“Why do you share that stuff?”
Says Humpty Dumpty
The fat, homophotic, yet sweet
Bear from Beruit.
“Because it’s part of me–
I love the broken part of me
I love the part who touches
Strange men
Without judging
Even when the nausea rises in me!
Who provides release and respite
From the psychologically killing
Crowds of rich breeders
Who provides a pirate-like getaway
From Perfect, hip couples
And entitled women demanding
“What’s in that peanut butter?”
Sometimes consumerism
Breeds the nausea
Love was here
Now it’s sterile
I radically accept
This arch of unfeeling nausea
Toxicity as a way of life…
Woke or die,
Don’t worry,
It’s just another shooting
Just continue
Talking on your phone
Just continue
Analyzing your profit curves
Your social media whore scores
Your humanity ebbing away
Like a tide that goes out
And never returns
I radically accept you
New York Cunty
New York Cunty
New York Cunty…
Amen
Orphans…and unfinished poems…
That is the only way
You know how
Are about as effective
In my addiction toward you
As passing
Gun control laws
during an NRA convention
My heart— is not strong enough
To seduce you
Into loving me
Yes, there under the crawl space
Of my house
I will dismember the corpse
Of your love
- FOR THEM
There are a few lovers
I’m not bold enough to go after
I wonder if these are the healthy ones?
As opposed to those I capture
Take no prisoners
(if prisoners are things called feelings)
It’s kind of like
Shooting fish in a barrel
No challenge
But as I age
More and more
I’m leaving challenges behind
My heart suffers enough
Stresses over the loss of groceries
Kicking the wall
Over the loss of a client
My loneliness is boring
Do you find it so too?
You call me for support
And in your drama fem calls
Your circle round and round
Like a hysterical girl
You only say you need me to listen
Whatever I say
You don’t hear
FOR MUSCLE HIM
I see you
And immediately
And immediately I feel flame
born from sacral chakra
Primal lust reptilean fear
I want you
and I know of yours
I will penetrate you
to show you
the pain in your heart
reveal all
Your pulse palpable
as summer storms
I’m aware
Of firings from my sacral chakra
Part lust, part fear
I want you
And
I am aware
Of your fear
When you see me…
Is it the fear
I will penetrate you?
Or is it the fear
You will show me
The pain in your heart?
You will reveal too much
To me,
Your discomfort
Is palpable as summer rain
I am the wrong skin color
I am too old
You don’t see me
You see only
Projections of your shit
Onto me
And I see
The fear in your heart—
The fear you will reveal yourself
Like a hummingbird
Emerging from the suffocating tissues
Of your thick muscularity
Oh I want you
But you’re not real
Just a figment
Of my imagination
Of my imagination
You are like an injection
That has pierced
The interstitial fluid
Separating my gut from my soul
And yet when I turn to observe
Our intimacy
–to savor it perhaps?—
You are an ice queen
Swathed in layers
Of bitch chiffon
And cunty silk
Holding your hand
Uptight to me
In a signal of dismissal
You inspire me
To dust off
The cobwebs from my heart
And feel again
Then the next moment
You sting
Like the the dull, talentless
Toxic spider you are
I can feel the venom from your fangs
Paralyzing me.
Coming with tricks
Is more healthy
Than a weekly dose of you
I am mindful
That sacred chants,
Candlelight vigils
And shamanic dancing
Under a cloudy June moon
All these things
Can provide
The necessary antidote to you
All of you
Who don’t love me
I will eradicate the plague of you
From my heart
And be at peace again…