A totally gay poem
TNG reader Mike submits this poem.
I was just going through my neglected Twitter account and came upon this poem. It was when I would Twitter poetry in real time, one line at at time, whenever the muse inspired me, so it was a real stream of consciousness thing. Sometimes I was pleased with the results, sometimes not so much. I was more or less pleased with this.
I wrote this one last April while I was riding home from work on the bus. I was standing near a cute boy who I was sure was gay, and whom I'd seen a few times before on the bus. I tried starting out all Walt Whitman-y, but then lust or something like it took over. Which, in retrospect, is like Walt Whitman too.
Read the poem beyond the fold.
O knit-capped hipster!
Khaki-slacked, black-glassesed boy!
Politics-booked!
Public-interested!
Together-kneed and downward-eyed
I've seen you here before
I think you get off at my stop
Do you know that I'm writing this next to you?
That I've already judged you?
That I know everything about you
The most I ever will
And more than I ever could?
But I can look at you all the way from L Street to Park Road
And think about touching the scruff on your chin
With the back of my fingers
And I think you would like it
I think you would not want me to stop
Because I can see that you're scared too
And it's so much more pleasant to be scared together
With the back of my fingers
And the scruff of your chin.
4 comments:
In college I took a creative writing class with a really bad teacher (who was also a published poet, go figure). One assignment was to translate another work of art into a poem. I chose a painting of what looked like a prostitute and her baby sitting in the middle of a city. The buildings were tiny compared to the two human figures, like "attack of the 50-foot hooker" or "honey I shrunk the city."
Anyway, to describe the woman, I used the phrase "lip-stuck, eye-lined" to say that she was wearing lipstick and eye-liner. My teacher didn't get it and circled those words with red ink. It's nice to see that other people enjoy the literary device of turning a noun into a verb and then an adjective by adding "-ed" to it.
I love this.
Especially because I've been totally sure in the past that I would touch some strangers legs if we were sitting together for another ten seconds. I know the feeling.
I dig this, Mike, thanks! Creative, yet clear and meaningful. Next time you see him, slip a copy of this poem into his bookbag...
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone. It really means a lot.
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