Satan's Beard

The evil thing about your face
must be that beard tickling my ear,

mouthing indecencies. Must you
be such a brutal man, whisper

all of your fantasies to me?
Your lightest word contains a Hell:
a feather to my testicles—
grit inside an oyster shell;

each follicle’s a little fork
in my behind—if you’ll forgive
so obvious a metaphor
for love. What can I do? I live

in such a state of horrible
anxiety that you might shave,
I’ve stopped shaving myself and I 
have hidden all the razors—save

one: this one I keep hidden
inside my tongue. Now, how shall I
reward you for those little forks?
Shall I recite some poetry

or fuck your face ridiculous?

Ninja Love

Love is like a ninja
hiding in my heart,
fingering a little star
that glitters in the dark.

His face is invisible,
his mission here obscure.
I’ve no idea who
he might be working for.

The Emperor? Perhaps
he works for you. Maybe.
Your eyes suggest you hope
he flings that star at me.

Sigh

Because of all we have
committed to the fire
I seldom kiss your thigh
without a faint desire

to put a period
to these pointless affairs
where the sex is so exquisite
nobody really cares.

Pipe Dreams

It seldom takes more than a toke, just a whiff,
to start my tongue reeling off stories of you;
on our naughtier nights we might split a spliff,
surrounded by haloes of smokiest hue.

God only knows how I lost my huge honey!
Through railroad investments, a cyclone, a ring?
Ten carats of coal I once hocked for money
to pay for potatoes? I replaced it with string.

The calamity came from Switzerland—Berne—
a skiing instructor, I forget on which Alp.
His mittens said Matt. I said I can turn
a blind eye to that. Methamphetamines helped.

But now only cads will attend my cotillions!
Now, only cockroaches and creditors call!
Mostly cockroaches—I seem to have billions—
all poking forks in my nerves through the wall.

I sit in my corner, just nibbling my knuckle.
The party is over, and my place is a sty,
and I think of five fingers I tore from my buckle.
“Darling, don’t hurt me,” you said. “Don’t cry.”

Maybe

Maybe I do love you.
Unless I believe in you,
you cannot hurt me.
Until then what are you?
A mouth. An ass. A joke.
A hole of such hilarity
your slightest whisper makes
me fart with laughter.

I mention this because
I love you. Before you speak,
look in your mirror, dear,
and ask yourself, honestly,
“What can I say to him,
what can I hope to do,
he hasn’t done already,
when he believed in you?”

Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale Of Two Poets

This book began as a comment on Facebook--an off-hand remark about how much I owed to the work of one man--multi-talented writer, editor, lyricist, chef, and porn star Gavin Geoffrey Dillard. That ethereal comment did not go unnoticed.

Apparently, both Gavin and God are always watching. Unlike God, Gavin had the affectionate grace to send a non-entity like me a note. So, I sent one back. He replied. And so on. This correspondence evolved into an exchange of poems--loving, longing, erotic, spiritual, philosophical, funny and sad--that has been edited and introduced by poet Michael Lassell and published by Sibling Rivalry Press as Nocturnal Omissions: A Tale Of Two Poets.

For two months, Gavin and I wrote a poem to each other each day. At the end of those 60 days, Gavin flew from Maui and I from New York City, and we met in the Holy City of San Francisco--our lavender Byzantium--for a meeting of mouths and minds that culminated in a naked poetry reading before an audience of media scholars at the National Communications Association's annual conference last year.

Stylistically, the book is framed as a series of epistles from a young and inexperienced apprentice of verse (myself) to an older and wiser and infinitely patient teacher (Gavin). In it, we assume different identities: Shiva, John Keats, a vase, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Emily Dickinson, Ulysses, an ancient stuffed duck, old goats, Hobbits, Wizards, Diane Arbus, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emperor Hadrian, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and many others. But we never lose sight of each other. We give voice to men and women, gay and straight, fictitious and real, their desires and disappointments, tracing the lineage of love back to the beginning of all things.

If our effort stands for anything, I hope it will be regarded by the reader as a leap of faith: a plunge into the uncertainties of the future. Because, even in that lonely abyss, against the odds and your own expectations, like us, you may be surprised to wake in the arms of another--equally aroused--equally astonished--as yourself.

Click here to read publisher Bryan Borland's introduction and to check out an excerpt.