verwirrt / crab and proud
ваще я тут типа сидела и делала диплом, двигала свои буковки на видео и все дела, но чо-то я так устала и пришла на дайри... а тут Хизер пишет про Сайкена, и мне навеяло, что я давно хотела что-то еще почитать по теме ну или около того... в общем. чутка (гей-)поэзии на ночь глядя, йес?
зы а скоро предзащита, whyyyyyyyyyyyyy T___T
"Iranian Boys Hanged for Sodomy, July 2005" by Stephen Mills"Iranian Boys Hanged for Sodomy, July 2005"
by Stephen Mills
We have their last photograph,
a magazine cutout of the blind-
folded boys, with nooses round
their necks and masked men
behind. Men with thick hands,
hands that keep everything
in order, everyone blind.
We let the picture drift around
the apartment like an omen
that will one day make perfect
sense. Some mornings I stick it
on the bathroom mirror before
you shave, the next you have it
on the fridge or tucked inside
my O’Hara Collected. Some nights
I slip it in a shoebox marked
“private” and forget we ever cut it
out, but by the following evening
it’s under our mattress as we make
love. Each time I thrust into you,
I’m thrusting into them, creasing
their boyish bodies, one only 16.
On Sunday morning I ask you
if you think the Iranian boys
loved each other like I love you
here in America where true love
must be complicated. You’re sure
they did, believe being hanged together
reeks of romance, of epic novels,
and Hollywood love stories, but
I fear it’s just a case of being
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All I can see are two terrified boys,
hands bound, about to be hanged
for public view. And I need to know
if it was quick. If the rope did what
ropes are meant to do or if the boys
found freedom in the dark
of their twitching eyelids?
"Gebet eines Ehemannes (A Husband’s Prayer)" (excerpt) by Mark Wunderlich"Gebet eines Ehemannes (A Husband’s Prayer)" (excerpt)
by Mark Wunderlich
[...]
Let that be enough. Let me not dwell
on our weaknesses, on our smells, our shedding
skin and hair. There is a small chalet
somewhere on the cool green pasture
of an alp where we shelter, our heads
on the striped ticking, our hands
barely touching as we sleep.
"The Embrace" by Mark Doty"The Embrace"
by Mark Doty
You weren't well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.
I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead.
I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.
You'd been out--at work maybe?--
having a good day, almost energetic.
We seemed to be moving from some old house
where we'd lived, boxes everywhere, things
in disarray: that was the story of my dream,
but even asleep I was shocked out of the narrative
by your face, the physical fact of your face:
inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.
Why so difficult, remembering the actual look
of you? Without a photograph, without strain?
So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,
your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth
and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held
each other for the time the dream allowed.
Bless you. You came back, so I could see you
once more, plainly, so I could rest against you
without thinking this happiness lessened anything,
without thinking you were alive again.
"Trick Noir" by Brian Teare"Trick Noir"
by Brian Teare
Close your eyes and you’re stoned, child, here on River Road
where the city on the banks begins fished quick like river-trash
up form the water. Imagine. Follow the water-silt and stink.
valley laid out ribboning black and fog-licked up hills
from the riverbed. Imagine wet asphalt wheezing beneath tires
as he drives, gin-bottle rattling on the floor. Sitting shotgun,
you’re stoned. Don’t panic—grin at his jokes. Try not to think:
the minister’s too-sweet son, locker-room jocks, Daddy’s .38,
or the girlfriend you can’t get it up for. You’re sixteen, sweet
jesus, don’t you get it?—his fingers easing up the cuff of your
shorts, curving in over your thigh—he’s married. Imagine
the cool metal as he says, Nice—is this for me? and, go ahead,
what stoned boy wouldn’t smile, first-time high and happy
he’s hard for once? He’s not handsome, this man, not anyone
you’d want to see again but you will: he’s got a truck and a place
to fuck, and that’s what the city likes, wheels and sex between men
discreet. Open your eyes. Roadside trailers laid out end-to-end
repeat like railcars in the rain. Could be your life, his, imagine—
scrub pines leak sap into the truck-bed. The white detonations
of oncoming cars etch error into each windshield-streak, play up
the fracture inherent in glass. Believe me, in time you’ll look back
on these moments when you’re drunk or stoned and he’s taking you
back to his place where he’ll pay you after, but not yet, no, now,
please, forgive yourself of the future—of his hand; of the ring bright
on his finger; of the river moaning in pine-wet wind; of velocity;
of how you’ll bend in his bed; of the honkey exotic in his gold-tooth
smile; of moist dark green bills; of the need they’ll leave behind—
and I too will forgive you, briefly, here where the city’s beauty begins
by touching you. The day he asks It’s our secret? You’ll swear Yes to him
and ten others just like him and it will never stop again, touch.
As for me, I’m no one you know; I exist only in future tense.
Don’t imagine me, please, there where you are, hard beneath
a stranger’s hands. Close your eyes. The wind is thick, awake
where the kudzu chokes the creekbeds that follow the road.
Listen: know that I think of you and the city, its green-river
stink, black asphalt giving rise to mist at the rank apex of evening.
All beauty, its excess and rot, begins here, at the end of River Road
where the city slides its lights into water slow beneath the bridge,
and there’s beauty, too, in the tinny chuckle of his belt unbuckling,
in the crushed corsage his underwear makes on the floor,
in the tick of bills he counts out after. Remember it’s the same
for us all: you wouldn’t believe the life you’ll be asked to live.
For seven months of tenth grade you’ll feel stubble burning,
bruises pitted black from skin like cherry stones, pinched nerves
singing against school desks and your mind lost to knowledge
because the city’s secret touches you all day and no one can know.
Each algebraic equation halved by his having you, metaphor
a vehicle—its engine idles in your mind—imagine the distractions
of geography: by night the city’ll spread himself out on greasy sheets
creased like a map where his cock is the compass—rose, and risen,
dizzy with fixity—and his mechanic’s hands engineer the scale
on which you’re laid. His lessons will teach you this much:
there are only two ways to fuck a boy and be a man—drunk,
or paying for it—and anything else, he’ll say, is less than a man
and worse than a woman: a faggot. Which would be you.
"To the Living" by Billy Merrell"To the Living"
by Billy Merrell
Listen, I am talking to you.
William Bronk (1918–99)
I am afraid for each of us, daily,
and often in more than one way—
I am afraid for us all.
Not because we are not careful
but because we are not safe. Living:
heating left-overs, searching to match
that unmatched sock, letting the mail pile up.
I am scared for each of us as we separate
the egg white from the yolk. Not because
we are out of reach but because we are
out of touch—I press a shirt,
though I don’t know when I’ll wear it.
I print a second copy just in case,
never thinking of myself
as sensible. But I worry.
I would know if something were to happen
to you. Wouldn’t I? I would know
if you weren’t all right.
That makes it easier, somehow.
The world is much smaller and I am
glad you are all still here—maybe not
around—but still with me.
... by Billy Merrell...
by Billy Merrell
In the morning, I wake up early,
make him an omelet and bring him juice and we bend
around each other like crossed fingers. He hopes for a short day
and I hope for a long one beside him, but he goes to class
and I clean my room, or start to, read a little before putting it off.
I hope he finds the note in his pocket, the penny I snuck
into his shoe, and thinks of me, while I am here, thinking
of us. That is it, that tired, daily loving, that missing
or not missing. A thought as I put away the candles and
then wash the mess from breakfast. This is it, a picture of him
I found mixed with pictures of my family, that comfortable crossing,
uncrossing, going off, coming back. This is that moment
I know I can wait all day for him, all night, tomorrow.
That moment I’m not worried and glad I’m not. This is it.
зы а скоро предзащита, whyyyyyyyyyyyyy T___T
"Iranian Boys Hanged for Sodomy, July 2005" by Stephen Mills"Iranian Boys Hanged for Sodomy, July 2005"
by Stephen Mills
We have their last photograph,
a magazine cutout of the blind-
folded boys, with nooses round
their necks and masked men
behind. Men with thick hands,
hands that keep everything
in order, everyone blind.
We let the picture drift around
the apartment like an omen
that will one day make perfect
sense. Some mornings I stick it
on the bathroom mirror before
you shave, the next you have it
on the fridge or tucked inside
my O’Hara Collected. Some nights
I slip it in a shoebox marked
“private” and forget we ever cut it
out, but by the following evening
it’s under our mattress as we make
love. Each time I thrust into you,
I’m thrusting into them, creasing
their boyish bodies, one only 16.
On Sunday morning I ask you
if you think the Iranian boys
loved each other like I love you
here in America where true love
must be complicated. You’re sure
they did, believe being hanged together
reeks of romance, of epic novels,
and Hollywood love stories, but
I fear it’s just a case of being
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All I can see are two terrified boys,
hands bound, about to be hanged
for public view. And I need to know
if it was quick. If the rope did what
ropes are meant to do or if the boys
found freedom in the dark
of their twitching eyelids?
"Gebet eines Ehemannes (A Husband’s Prayer)" (excerpt) by Mark Wunderlich"Gebet eines Ehemannes (A Husband’s Prayer)" (excerpt)
by Mark Wunderlich
[...]
Let that be enough. Let me not dwell
on our weaknesses, on our smells, our shedding
skin and hair. There is a small chalet
somewhere on the cool green pasture
of an alp where we shelter, our heads
on the striped ticking, our hands
barely touching as we sleep.
"The Embrace" by Mark Doty"The Embrace"
by Mark Doty
You weren't well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.
I didn't for a moment doubt you were dead.
I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.
You'd been out--at work maybe?--
having a good day, almost energetic.
We seemed to be moving from some old house
where we'd lived, boxes everywhere, things
in disarray: that was the story of my dream,
but even asleep I was shocked out of the narrative
by your face, the physical fact of your face:
inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.
Why so difficult, remembering the actual look
of you? Without a photograph, without strain?
So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,
your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth
and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held
each other for the time the dream allowed.
Bless you. You came back, so I could see you
once more, plainly, so I could rest against you
without thinking this happiness lessened anything,
without thinking you were alive again.
"Trick Noir" by Brian Teare"Trick Noir"
by Brian Teare
Close your eyes and you’re stoned, child, here on River Road
where the city on the banks begins fished quick like river-trash
up form the water. Imagine. Follow the water-silt and stink.
valley laid out ribboning black and fog-licked up hills
from the riverbed. Imagine wet asphalt wheezing beneath tires
as he drives, gin-bottle rattling on the floor. Sitting shotgun,
you’re stoned. Don’t panic—grin at his jokes. Try not to think:
the minister’s too-sweet son, locker-room jocks, Daddy’s .38,
or the girlfriend you can’t get it up for. You’re sixteen, sweet
jesus, don’t you get it?—his fingers easing up the cuff of your
shorts, curving in over your thigh—he’s married. Imagine
the cool metal as he says, Nice—is this for me? and, go ahead,
what stoned boy wouldn’t smile, first-time high and happy
he’s hard for once? He’s not handsome, this man, not anyone
you’d want to see again but you will: he’s got a truck and a place
to fuck, and that’s what the city likes, wheels and sex between men
discreet. Open your eyes. Roadside trailers laid out end-to-end
repeat like railcars in the rain. Could be your life, his, imagine—
scrub pines leak sap into the truck-bed. The white detonations
of oncoming cars etch error into each windshield-streak, play up
the fracture inherent in glass. Believe me, in time you’ll look back
on these moments when you’re drunk or stoned and he’s taking you
back to his place where he’ll pay you after, but not yet, no, now,
please, forgive yourself of the future—of his hand; of the ring bright
on his finger; of the river moaning in pine-wet wind; of velocity;
of how you’ll bend in his bed; of the honkey exotic in his gold-tooth
smile; of moist dark green bills; of the need they’ll leave behind—
and I too will forgive you, briefly, here where the city’s beauty begins
by touching you. The day he asks It’s our secret? You’ll swear Yes to him
and ten others just like him and it will never stop again, touch.
As for me, I’m no one you know; I exist only in future tense.
Don’t imagine me, please, there where you are, hard beneath
a stranger’s hands. Close your eyes. The wind is thick, awake
where the kudzu chokes the creekbeds that follow the road.
Listen: know that I think of you and the city, its green-river
stink, black asphalt giving rise to mist at the rank apex of evening.
All beauty, its excess and rot, begins here, at the end of River Road
where the city slides its lights into water slow beneath the bridge,
and there’s beauty, too, in the tinny chuckle of his belt unbuckling,
in the crushed corsage his underwear makes on the floor,
in the tick of bills he counts out after. Remember it’s the same
for us all: you wouldn’t believe the life you’ll be asked to live.
For seven months of tenth grade you’ll feel stubble burning,
bruises pitted black from skin like cherry stones, pinched nerves
singing against school desks and your mind lost to knowledge
because the city’s secret touches you all day and no one can know.
Each algebraic equation halved by his having you, metaphor
a vehicle—its engine idles in your mind—imagine the distractions
of geography: by night the city’ll spread himself out on greasy sheets
creased like a map where his cock is the compass—rose, and risen,
dizzy with fixity—and his mechanic’s hands engineer the scale
on which you’re laid. His lessons will teach you this much:
there are only two ways to fuck a boy and be a man—drunk,
or paying for it—and anything else, he’ll say, is less than a man
and worse than a woman: a faggot. Which would be you.
"To the Living" by Billy Merrell"To the Living"
by Billy Merrell
Listen, I am talking to you.
William Bronk (1918–99)
I am afraid for each of us, daily,
and often in more than one way—
I am afraid for us all.
Not because we are not careful
but because we are not safe. Living:
heating left-overs, searching to match
that unmatched sock, letting the mail pile up.
I am scared for each of us as we separate
the egg white from the yolk. Not because
we are out of reach but because we are
out of touch—I press a shirt,
though I don’t know when I’ll wear it.
I print a second copy just in case,
never thinking of myself
as sensible. But I worry.
I would know if something were to happen
to you. Wouldn’t I? I would know
if you weren’t all right.
That makes it easier, somehow.
The world is much smaller and I am
glad you are all still here—maybe not
around—but still with me.
... by Billy Merrell...
by Billy Merrell
In the morning, I wake up early,
make him an omelet and bring him juice and we bend
around each other like crossed fingers. He hopes for a short day
and I hope for a long one beside him, but he goes to class
and I clean my room, or start to, read a little before putting it off.
I hope he finds the note in his pocket, the penny I snuck
into his shoe, and thinks of me, while I am here, thinking
of us. That is it, that tired, daily loving, that missing
or not missing. A thought as I put away the candles and
then wash the mess from breakfast. This is it, a picture of him
I found mixed with pictures of my family, that comfortable crossing,
uncrossing, going off, coming back. This is that moment
I know I can wait all day for him, all night, tomorrow.
That moment I’m not worried and glad I’m not. This is it.
@темы: jehan prouvaire