Gary

You know I wrote a poem about that guy's fucking forearm.  Shit after two marriages, four straight relationships and fifteen gay ones I'm starting to think I was only in love once.  The rest was obsession and lust.  It's true with the gays you test sexual compatibility first and then fall in love.  Although it was different with that motherfucker.  He had me by the balls from the first second I saw him.
If Montclair could have a ghetto, that's where I was.  105 Pine. Low rent, drug addicts a mind your own business neighborhood.  There was an Acme diagonal from me across the railroad track.  I went there every day.  I shop for my groceries every day; why spend money I don't have to.  I could be laid up, on a coke run or dead tomorrow.  Who the fuck knows today what they want to eat tomorrow?
I'm on my way over to the Acme to get dinner.  I see a man wearing a hat walking toward me, first I notice he's white that's unusual around here; he's young maybe thirty and wearing what I'd call an old man's hat.  Fedora? At a tilt. Shit he is the handsomest man I've seen in months. Years.  Ever in my neighborhood.  He eyed me.  He cruised me is what he did. Did  he cruise me? Fuck not here on Pine Street in Montclair.  Not a beauty like that.
I went about my business.  Something to fantasize about later.  I'm fixing hamburger; fire engines, cop cars, flashing lights I go outside with every other friggin resident for ten blocks to see what's what.  Mother fuck.  That guy is out there. Right on the sidewalk.  In my fucking neighborhood.
An hour later I'm sitting in his living room getting drunk. We smoke pot. I blow him. I'm in love.

Three years later we are living together, we are running partners using dope and hits.  We are fucked up.  Cannot stop.  We bring dangerous people into our home.  I beat him up. He stabs me. I throw his clothes out. He takes an axe to my piano and chops it up. I can't let go of him.

Such a man's forearm. Strong, visibly muscular. The golden hairs.  The ever so fucking golden hairs, I kiss them, rub them on my face.  His presence is destroying me.  I live in dereliction to keep him. I hate him. I cannot live without him.  He hates me.  He cannot live without me.

And for this man I write poetry?
The honesty of a Love can only be determined long after its death.

Christmas Eve 2013 Breaking Tradition

Today will be the first break with Tradition.  Everything is new; all things have been renewed.  Nothing's changed.