A New Sun Rising

More later.

Some Further Thoughts On Cock Sucking

Yesterday, I offered a disquisition on the problem of what makes a gay writer gay. Today, I should like to amplify on those remarks and arrive at few general guidelines for students of literature.

I prefer to apply the word cocksucker instead of gay to myself, since cocksuckers are so universal a phenomenon and so well understood. One may be a cocksucker regardless of his or her sexual orientation. Indeed, like your local library, the telephone directory is packed with cocksuckers, male and female: page after page of them. The cellphone has merely expanded the reach of their mouths. Cocksuckers are often found sucking cock very loudly on crowded trains, particularly the 7-train.

Intellectually, artistically and emotionally, I feel that the majority of my readers can relate better to the term cocksucker than they can to gay or queer. I am sometimes unhappy. So are they. How can we be unhappy and gay? It is semantically impossible. Besides, let's be honest. After a few beers, even the most saintly, patient, inclusive and understanding people will freely acknowledge that 90% of their neighbors are, to one degree or another, cocksuckers, regardless of race, religion or ethic background. The other 10%--the nice ones they never mention--are probably aliens, most probably from Andromeda. Their customs are certainly queer. They may even be gay.

As for myself, in addition (obviously) to being a cocksucker, I also happen to be a writer who sucks cock. This probably lends a slightly fruity flavor to my work, depending on the soap you used this morning. (I favor the savory ginger bath bar from Origins.) It is a taste which may not be to everyone's liking, I admit. But I appreciate your efforts to meet me half-way on the subject. Especially the soap. Thank God for that. Even so attentive a lover of Man as myself cannot suck off the entire human race. I have dishes to do and poems to write.

Regarding the original cock sucking question, What is a gay writer?, my rule of thumb is this:

A gay writer may be less than great and still write well. But a great writer is always more than gay. He is very likely a cocksucker, just like everyone else.

Here endeth our foray into Fairyland—the philology of fellatio. Go forth, you sexy beast, and sin no more.

What It Means To Be A Gay Poet

Speaking strictly as a man who enjoys sucking cock, I have always seen myself as a member of Poets Anonymous: one more individual trying to make sense of a universe largely hostile to my desires. I am not sure if this (the cock sucking, I mean, not the universe) qualifies me to be a gay poet. It is so hard to know what anything signifies in the world these days. My desires or cock sucking.

I do use the word gay sometimes in my work, but hardly (now that I think about it) in reference to myself. This is not a political statement. Aristotle may believe that man is a political animal, but somebody should tell Aristotle that I am not an animal. I am not a man either. I am a cocksucker, a different beast altogether. You see, I show up everywhere I go as a mysterious mathematical variable—usually an “I”—doing whatever the authorities have forbidden: swinging from chandeliers, peeing in potted palms, smoking cigarettes, making love, that sort of thing. One wonders why?

I think I must have trouble seeing myself as a member of a collective, community mind. I have discussed these feelings of isolation with other members of my support group—Catullus, Andrew Marvell, John Keats, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, A.E. Housman, Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, and that cute cashier, Chad, at my favorite coffee shop in Queens. The consensus among us seems to be—at one time or another—we have all been loved or hated as individuals.

In other words, cocksuckers. Whether we were sucking cock or not.

The Lady Next Door

Thin flakes of the sweetest chocolate paint

curled invitingly from the door trim

belonging to a neighbor who would faint

when I pretended to be eating them.

She planted flowers with strange leaves—like hearts—

on either side of the gas meter. She

had me collect their seeds in olive jars

because I said they looked like bombs to me.

Her yard was where I saw my first eclipse.

We gathered to observe it on the lawn.

Before one word of wonder reached my lips,

the birds stopped singing and the sun was gone.

Although I knew that the darkness would pass,

I was glad grandmother gripped my hand.

Why teacher said, “Don’t be afraid,” in class,

she said she would never understand.