Poetry Under The Influence

What Gain, This Senseless Game?

2012-02-09T15:28:00.000-08:00

It took some time for Blake to realize the man hadn't given him his number. Had he just been played, he wondered? If so, to what gain, and what a senseless game? He shoved his hands into his pockets, his left hand curling around his still somewhat hard cock, his right finding his car keys and holding them similarly. He left the arcade with slow long steps, in no hurry-- he hadn't any plans for the evening, nobody waiting for him at home. His parents had highly orchestrated lives of late meetings and social engagements, dinners, the theatre, fundraisers and silent auctions, sometimes together, but mostly apart. He was left largely to his own devices. Obviously! he thought now, leaving the arcade and heading for his car, a black hand-me-down Lexus that his mother found unsuitable on many levels.

He saw the man there, the man with the coat, with the Sunday clothes. He was leaning against Blake's car. Blake saw him smiling.

"How did you..." Blake started to ask, and the man replied, "You looked the type." He looked Blake over, a frank appraisal. He nodded then.

"I forgot to give you this," he said, taking his hand out of his coat pocket, producing a business card. Blake glanced at it hurriedly; he was more interested in looking at the man himself. He was tall, darkly featured, dark-haired. His dress shirt was unbuttoned just enough to reveal the black hairs of his chest, making Blake want to see more, the rest of him. His name, he read on the card, was Kevin.

"You're awful quiet," he said.

"Uhm, yeah," Blake said, laughing, adding, "Sorry."

"Don't be," Kevin said, laughing himself; "Sorry, I mean."

"Okay," Blake said, looking into this Kevin's eyes-- what else was there to look at?-- until Kevin opened his coat, much like a flasher, revealing the long pale length of his cock hanging out of his open fly.

Outlook is Unclear

2012-01-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

Magic Eight Ball? he said, laughing, shaking his head. You've never seen one?

Blake smiled, thinking this was like talking in church. He felt conspicuous, unworthy. He watched the man's hands as he described what a Magic Eight Ball was. They were pale and hair on the backs of them, expressive in the way he cupped them as though holding the ball in them. He couldn't yet imagine them on him, those hands. They attracted looks, standing there. The man wore a long coat of wool that somehow didn't look heavy, dark dress pants, a crisp white shirt. Blake wore jeans that were neither tight nor baggy, a long-sleeved tee; he'd left his coat in his car.

Instead of luring Blake into a booth, the man offered him his card, saying he was in town on business. What kind of business did one do in this town, Blake wondered, having lived here all his life, and did not have any particular appreciation for it.

Maybe you're free for dinner? he heard the man ask, and he turned the phrase over in his mind-- free for dinner, wondering, Am I free for dinner?

I could be, he decided to say, only it didn't come out the way he intended, the words conglomerating clumsily. He watched the man's lips cock a bit before stretching into a forced sort of smile, as though he had to translate what he'd heard into his own language.

I'm here until Thursday, he said, putting his hand on Blake's upper arm, patting him there. Give a call, he said, smiling again, turning, leaving. Blake watched him go. The dark coat swayed away.

Resignation ensued. It seemed the best one had gone. Blake milled with the others, stopping every now and then to sit in a booth and watch portions of a movie he'd seen many times before, unbuttoning his pants and ministering to his erection then leaving the booth when the time his quarter allotted him was up, with his cock tucked away but hardly hidden, an advertisement of needs yet unmet.

All the Old Men

2012-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

There were preliminary things, perfunctory things. Like: establish who would do what. Like: fly simply undone, or pants all the way down about the ankles? Were others allowed to watch, to join in? Or was this a private affair? There was protocal; there were rules. Blake was just learning this about the arcade. At first, he didn't understand why the older men walked about with their hands in their pockets, didn't get what men his grandfather's age were doing there, following him with strange fleeting smiles. And then he understood. And then it never occured to him that he could shoo them away with a scowl, with a hushed fuck off, man.

Getting the hang of things, he was told by one of them, not so old as the others, maybe, but well over twice Blake's age if he were to do the math.

Are you even old enough to be here? he'd asked. He smiled asking it as though he might be embarrassed by the answer. Blake smiled too, and the man said something about an 8 Ball, a magical 8 ball.

What is that? Blake asked, and the man shook his head, looking at Blake sideways. His eyes were blue, his hair silvery around his face. The stubble on his cheek and chin was very black, a peppering uncompromised by any salt. He dressed like someone going to brunch, to church, anyplace but here, Blake thought.

"Oh, Human Bondage!"

2011-10-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

Read it here.

"He in His Cups."

2011-10-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

Read it here.

He Comes When He Comes

2011-10-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've been informed that "My Last Good Year," published by Juked earlier this year, has been nominated by Juked for inclusion in the 2011 Best of the Net anthology. Keep your fingers crossed!

Yes, There Will Be Riots

2011-09-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

There's too much to say because so much time has passed. They look at one another, amazed, and they lie. You haven't changed at all, they both say but, of course, they have changed! They've aged, lost hair and muscle tone, they've thickened or slackened. Time's march. It will sadden him later, the difference between then and now.

Haven't I missed you, dreamed about you? Tell me everything, fill me in on all the days that have past since I last saw you? Who were you with? What did you see?

Some three thousand days. There's too much to say and so they say nothing. There have been dreams in which there had been this silence. In one, they grappled. In another, one poured a bath. No words were spoken.

Oh, dread. Time's march. Yes, there will be riots somewhere and injustices, car accidents, good and bad weather. Turn around and look behind you and time stretches out, your long shadow with everything in it, and somewhere in all of it he is sitting on a bench, holding a golf club and softly beating the dirt with it, and there are his knees which you will never forget, ever.

A Mini Review of Meet Me On The Moon.

2011-07-20T09:58:00.001-07:00

Read it here. (Use the handy Haydon's Ferry Review link to go directly to review.)

It's Friday, Not the End of the World, Okay?

2011-06-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

There's a couple in the parking lot, making out beside a truck. He's wearing a blue polo shirt, khaki shorts, baseball hat turned backwards. She's wearing a sundress, has blonde hair. They are going to Shady Grove for lunch, I guess. I watch them walk off, wondering if he has an erection. I would like to think that he did, and that he was happy to be walking around with it, half-hoping people would notice.

The dog sleeps on two pillows, one on top of the other, in a way that makes her look incredibly pampered.

My palms sweat and itch like they did when I ended up in the hospital. What are they trying to tell me?

I tell the dog I love her very much. I tell her she is the sweetest thing, that she and Daddy are the best things in my life. When I take out the trash, I tell her I'll be right back, to assure her she's not being abandoned. Maybe she doesn't really care. When I check the mail I say the same thing. I like to think it means something to her, the way "walk" and "treat" does. When I say to her, "I want to pick you up like a little baby," she bolts. When she was little I used to pick her up like that and whisper, "My baby, my baby, my baby," rocking her back and forth. Now, there's white hairs on her muzzle; she doesn't want to be picked up anymore.

I wonder what that couple are having for lunch-- I recommend the fried shrimp. I wonder if they are holding hands, if he's still chubbing. I like to think that he is.

Imagined Twin

2011-06-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

Read it here.

Inventions of Lust

2011-06-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Read it here.

Saturday Morning Blues By Fragonard

2011-05-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

The scrim of rolling blinds gives a beige hue to everything outside, the flailing trees and clouds, which seem to have a Fragonard hue today. Could today be that lovely?

Just now I said to the dog, "That's not Daddy-- that's the lesbians." Because we heard a door slam in the hallway. Because Daddy is out hitting golf balls. Striking them. Beating them.

Right now, I'm working on a story about a lost dog, another about two old gay men, and one about a boy who has a crush on a neighbor who's wife has become debilitated.

Right now, I'm thinking there's nothing as lovely as darkly haired thighs.

And wondering if I should buy the new Lady Gaga, even if I think her new songs are too "message-y"?

And why "debilitated" sounds right but doesn't look right.

The Housewife is Always the Last to Know

2011-05-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

I hesitate, but there's all this time, all this room, 927 square feet, to fill somehow. There are constants-- the floors, for instance, require constant upkeep, making of me a char woman of sorts, something like a woman on her knees. In a day, I develop pleuresy and die. There are other problems, too-- it doesn't end with death. It never ends with death.

Besides the floors, there's the bed to make, and furniture to dust, the tedium of housewivery. But it's what I hope makes me essential. What industry! What productivity! I want the man to think always, "I can't live without him!" Although I am the first to acknowledge the fallacy of such a statement. I've never considered myself indespensible. But who is, really? I can only make myself useful and needed, for a time. I do not take things for granted; I try not to, anyway. It's all a gift and I am blessed.

But I need to turn things around, turn the table-- well, not so much turn the table as to step up to it. I need to put myself at the table.

I told her today, wrote to her-- who do I have to speak to during the day but the help, the Marias who labor here-- that I was becoming sentimental in my dotage. I was being flippant, but I feel as though I have a sense of the edges of it, this. As always, I can imagine the worst scenarios, creating them fully, realistically, so that they bear, these imaginings, a vividness that makes me turn my head away, as though it were right there in front of me. But I wrote to her, "Wheel me out to the garden , if you would, so that I might see the garden one last time, its weeping willows and azaleas." The doomed heroine.

I think I'll try to imagine a better end, then. Best case scenarios. Life is rich, its rewards plentiful. I still have it.

Meet me on the Moon

2011-05-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Buy it here.

He in His Cups

2011-02-07T16:35:00.000-08:00

Read it here.

My Last Good Year

2011-02-01T06:28:00.001-08:00

Read it here.

We're Not There Yet

2011-01-31T07:44:00.001-08:00

Read it here.

And the Sea Keeps Its Fabulous Shadows

2011-01-31T07:42:00.000-08:00

Read it here.