Corresponding with the Heterosexuals
Hi, enthused teacher or bewildered student
or concerned parent!
Thank you for emailing out of the blue or
as the French say, out of the bleu.
To answer your urgent & original question,
I am not inspired, ever.
I write just so you will assign/do/
help with—while disapproving of—
all this homework
about me
& grow up
or finally be well-adjusted, capable
of taking out the recycling
on a semi-regular basis while talking to your
semi-handsome neighbor
who’s sitting outside. Ah, the fresh air
becoming hotter & oranger by the minute.
Oh, that’s not a gay thing,
sorry, that’s a planet in deep
doo-doo thing.
To answer your less urgent & unoriginal question, yes.
Your dreams will die & so
will you. But if you’re lucky, you’ll go first.
Meanwhile, someone in Switzerland
is sending their very first email,
now isn’t that a sight for sore eyes. Oh,
a cliché! Quick, let’s revise. Now isn’t that
a kite for sore lives. Much better, n’est-ce pas? Sorry,
I know French
is filth & the gayest of langues. & now
I must go feed my second pug, Symposium.
Yup, that’s a Plato thing.
Oui, that’s a gay thing,
so sorry. Désolé. Je suis vraiment,
vachement désolé.
Quintessence: the Soul (If It Exists)
Ajar.
Aloft. Afar, afoot. Ashore,
atop. Aflutter,
ajar, sometimes a lot.
Then amuck,
adrift. Afire.
Awryly aflame. Asunder,
afucked. & closed
up, or is it down. Sometimes
for a year,
years. Then
afloat, aloft, ajarred afresh.
Anewer aglow.
Astride atrue, across aflew,
awhoevenknew:
something in you
so never closed, forever fucking
abloom, in fact,
even while amiss, adoom.
Unasleep, even
amidst the dullest
miseries. Who knew—this life,
this alive. Agog,
agod. Awash with vowel & you,
committed to
comma &
not yet, or sure, period, but then
right away up
to go alltheway down. To stumble
allaround for a
letter, another.
recipe for courage with a side of hot
increase your daily chapstick application by fifteen
hundred percent.
practice your kinkiest sex
on your frown-frumpiest days.
retreat for at least an hour every night
to be with your butt-soft, ass-tough poems.
apply ever more of your heart
to your mouth—
but don’t forget speaking
is only one form of loving.
if one cat sweater doesn’t suffice, don
on top of it another, larger,
sweaterier cat sweater.
remember that a synonym for your heart
is total babe.
remember that the moon shares
that synonym.
wonder aloud on a park bench in a busy park,
is this poem too moony,
too self-helpy?
accept help
beyond yourself. admit you were wrong
about how good the burgers were at that one place,
they only tasted that good to you
because you were utterly
magnificently stoned.
say the word “vestibule”
five times fast.
for a week, say to everyone you meet, yes i now
spell my name “chanel,”
no it’s still pronounced “chen,”
yeah if you don’t get that, i hate you.
listen to the pomegranate
on the kitchen counter say, you think you know
what a fruit is. you haven’t the foggiest!
become alive
enough to live
your pomegranate faggotries.
understand that your slutty love for words
isn’t always a lovely sluttiness
for truth. recognize that sometimes
& sometimes often
another synonym for your heart
is undeniable asshole
—though undenying this is only the first step.
store your chapsticks well.
say lolz
ever so slowly. be not
only a generous lover
but also a generous love.
know
but don’t dwell on the mountainous
fact that there are just slightly
over four hundred
thousand steps.
know, in the depths
of total babe, that you will, some
very december days, be poemless
& even sweaterless,
but never will you be kinkless.
