from my archives

[Adam Donaldson Powell]

STUD.

Responding to the call

Of a warm summer night,

The muscled youth surveys the

Streets from his Oakland stoop

With the vigilance of a vulture.

He soothes the heat

Pervading his loins

With beer and cigarettes,

And gyrates to rhythms

From his Sony Walkman to

Intensify his baiting scent.

At the passing of each female,

He extends greetings and suggestion ?

Lastly to a haughty one who

Requests that he kindly ?drop dead.?

The youth throws a kiss and laughs

In sport and self-defence,

Until he spies the adoring stare

Of another boy, and yells:

?What are you looking at, faggot?!!?

AIDS .. ALSO A VAMPIRE?S LAMENT.

In the Spring of our rapture,

You assuaged my hunger

With gallant love-bites and

Wept rubescent teardrops

As my own offering

Cascaded willingly into the

Vessel of your thirst.

Thereafter,

Enchanting midnight promenades,

Serenaded by love-sick werewolves,

Inevitably climaxed with

Splendiferous candlelit repasts

Of aristocratic blood plasma

And the finest port wines.

Magically abducted by the ecstasy

Of transfusion and reminiscence,

We who are forever young

Renewed our vows of

Never-ending devotion with

All the certainty and bliss

Intrinsic to incipient passion.

So golden were our halcyon days ?

Yet unblemished by the ravages

Of over-familiarity and diseased blood,

Now yielding insomnious forenoons

In separate coffins and

Solitary meals under would-be

Romantic moonlight.

Since our greatest promise

Has become your heaviest burden,

I look upon eternity as

The merciless side-effect

Of myopic infatuation ...

And dream, perhaps,

Of growing old.

DRAG QUEEN.

You know ? I hardly recognised you

Out-of-drag this afternoon!

Your clever disguise

Enabled you to sit down

Before I could run away.

You both surprised and intrigued me

When you lamented the slow

Passage of time ? for I

Have often envied and despised

Your freedom, and almost fickle

Sense of reality.

Funny how ...

All these years ...

I regarded you as crazy.

But now that we share disillusionment

With expectation and time,

I recognize you in myself.

DIRTY TALK.

Dirty talking shadows in

Dimly-lit, smoke-filled bars

Stir restless gonads to

Suggestion, proposition

And sweet, nasty lies.

The scent of body sweat

Mingles with department store

Perfume like oil and water,

Leather and silk ?

Unlikely, yet strangely magnetic.

Oh yeah ...

I love the way the lie

Exuding from your posing stance

Binds my wrists and genitals,

Pulling me to my knees;

Demanding nameless submission.

Across the distance we begin a

Sultry dance of anonymous flirtation:

I turn to catch your stare,

You look away;

My eyes drop to my cocktail,

Yours slowly scan my torso and loins.

I acknowledge with a smile and you

Walk away because I broke the rules,

Was too eager to collude fantasy

With reality and was, therefore, unsafe.

You feign indifference as you watch me

Leave with another two hours later.

And I?m already half-spent as

I prepare to torpedo our dirty talk

Into the bowels of my compromise.

BLADE.

Our dance is ritual;

A senseless obsession

Between two moths

Playing with fire.

No chains, no whips

Just bondage ... and the

Ever-sweet consequence of

A sabre?s cutting edge.

ANOTHER AMERICA.

Few Americans know tha

The face of Miss Liberty

Is actually that of a

Frenchman?s bigot mother.

Like the masses of immigrants who

Yearly forsake old world for new,

We too see majesty of choice

Through all-too-childish eyes:

?Rustler, hustler, bankerman, anchorman,

cop, fag, redneck, punk;

baglady, bastardbaby, stockbroker, chimneystoker,

doctor, lawyer, plumber, drunk.?

Yes, we?re all watching you,

America ... with Mom?s apple pie

On the kitchen table and the

Girl next door at our side.

One nation, trusting in God

Down to our last hard-earned dollar.

?Careful not to step on the crack ...

broken backs are hard to mend!?

But the sons of Genet are most

Grateful for the vigilant

Two-in-a-thousand who

Cross the seas frequently

And dream of another

America.

FOR THE BOYS (WITH AIDS).

To friends who don?t know

And strangers who do not care,

Soldiers of love worship

Tinsel-town sex goddesses

With all their strength.

They thrive outwardly on

The rantings of Madonna and

Privately soothe their pain

And hopelessness with sombre

Strains by Leonard Cohen.

Their greatest ambition is

To shake the shackles of shame

Which imprison and threaten

Them with the most undignified

Fate of all: namelessness.

To some there is no irony in death,

But others are enraged at the

Uncanny plight of these handsome

Living dead, whose only crime was

Need for love and recognition.

HYACINTH.

Each Spring,

Appolonian tears of lamentation

Collect as sanguine dewdrop

Upon the verdant slopes of Olympus.

Nurtured by the glory of the elements,

The resplendent rebirth of Hyakinthos

Is made manifest throughout the four quarters

In carillons of sapphire blossoms.

The petals of these bell towers

Cense the air sublime with

The Spirit of the Great Mother

And the legend of creation.

In memoriam, the fugitive solar discus

Lay forever fixed in the heavens

As a symbol of love made Divine

Through resurrection.