Playing God

I have fucked men by the dozen, so often sighted the precipice of desire and feared falling off it as I have willingly leapt in complete abandonment. I have sucked thrusted kissed licked smacked and spit – I have loved and blown and penetrated the mystery of the flesh and I have wiped my tears and others’ and wiped my semen off countless chests cheeks faces crotches, I have compiled an inventory of fuck faces, sex noises and stroking techniques, taken snapshots literal and metaphorical of countless lips, bum-cheeks and wide open… eyes, wide open hearts are harder to immortalize in tone and colour, but the smell of a man burning with desire is generally fresh in my nostrils and renewed any chance I get by first-hand experience. Hard to believe how similar that scent is across skin types and body shapes.

Some fucks have faded but of most remain certain details terse and splendid in impossible resolution, guarded by my memory, well-trained at preserving itself and only occasionally resolving to blocking out or removing, for we have learned, my memory and I, that holding on is phase one of moving on and in any case, holding close only hurts to eventually please.

It’s all a game, a sport, an Olympic effort. When we’re doing it, gods and goddesses come down from above, they ascend from their hellish abodes in the netherworld to witness the closest thing to creation they see in us, they smile between pride and jealousy, who knows? They want to share wisdom, pass on theirs and apprehend ours.

The perfect man is profoundly aware of the paradox that dictates that we should overcome our humanity precisely when we indulge in it most.

The gods and goddesses are superhumanly conscious that of their curse, too. They nod and give away no little mystery, raining a tear or two: that being divine is far from a condition of sublimity lacking any and all needs, that perfection is achieved not in the isolation of a being self-sufficient and unchangeable, but attained through communion, juxtaposition. If not a group effort, at least a tango for two.

And since it’s of divinity we talk about, let me play god for a while. An unsurprising thirst, that of playing god, given that god started it all by playing man when he decided to become a man and like a man live and like a man die, only to become god again via resurrection, which shows how Jesus tries to win us over with confusion. And I thought you were a serious guy. Do you reckon it’s fair to play the game of three cards, gambling trinity just when we were finally getting somewhere with this talk of hate, with this talk of love?

So let’s play. ‘Cause god, you need a big bang. But I’m on top this time.

The life-conferring breath is mine: it smells of dick and it blows into my memory to forge the perfect man, made in my image, not yours.

This man will never fall from grace like dominos’  - he will not be banished from any heavenly garden. Instead he’ll take off from this earthly plane down here only to reach higher grounds, the playground of his peaceful and blissful flesh.

I want to see him plant the seed of knowledge for himself and tend to it, from sprout to tree, not put an apple in front of him and say I dare you! God, how immature! How jealous are you really of your own progeny? Is it because we are younger and sexier than thou? Is it because being human, having needs and having them fulfilled actually feels better than being god and not having needs at all? It must feel so lonely, up there in the sky with your arms folded, it must get so boring licking your self-inflicted wounds, holes in your hands and ankles where nails were driven through your suicidal flesh. So see-through, you attention seeking punk. Couldn’t you just be normal and look to attain transcendence with the hole you were born with? And the nail, you had one of those, too. Nothing to be ashamed of. Your daddy made it personally for ya.

But who’s your daddy now? That’s right, I am, and you want to get pen and paper out and start taking notes, because I have way more than ten commandments for you to live by, for you to break in infinite attempts to prove your freewill.

My perfect man knows exactly when to sit down and be my lap dog, my pal, my god. He knows he can only come in when I saw so. He knows I’m the one who decides whether and how we play with boners. My perfect man knows when to disobey and when to misbehave. Straying from the path is a given, and sinning is always permitted, sometime encouraged – if done with style, meaning with the awareness that sin is always just a parody of the lawmaker and his boring seriousness. But anyway, back to my perfect man.

On the first day I make his asshole and with it his dignity. The one circular muscle. I forge it humble and unafraid. The asshole of a perfect man is unprejudiced and imaginative. The asshole of a real man may not be enthused by the fact that it is potentially a two way street, but it will never recoil when pleasure tempts it. The asshole of a perfect man, condemned to always face down, will never forget where we come from and where we’re headed and it will learn that there are no such things as dirt, or morality.

On the second day I make his eyes. They’d be black, and glorious like the sky, and also glorious would be his astonishing ability to get hard and slide inside me only a couple of minutes after getting fucked against a window and spraying his load on glass and carpet. They’d be eyes clear in the early evening that redden gradually, the transparent eyes of someone who likes to get high and then go at it for hours.

Perhaps there’d be some small mystery about him, a surprise factor. Nothing creepy, just maybe something a little unexpected, like finding out after quite a few sessions that really he identifies as a bottom, even though he can screw me as expertly as few others have, switching gears like the motorbikes he rides. And what a ride…

On the third day I’d probably make his skin. Smooth like moss, soft like the surface of the moon and white like marble. Veins like bas-reliefs pulsating with the glory of life, I’d make his blood, the sap of us human trees, the fuel in our engine, the holy toughener that flows in all the right places at the right time. At the touch, he feels imperfect like sublime things do, like all things that perish. I stroke his forearms with my hands and kiss them with my lips to make sure he is salty enough, because there is nothing worse than an insipid mouthful. I examine his chest and his chin, looking for moles and pearls of sweat in the heat of creation, looking for odd hairs on shoulders or out of nostrils. Eyes locked we’d find in each other father and son, brother and reflection, and the courage to become.

I reckon by day four his personality has started to form and show. See how he holds his breath, arched back to shoot himself through life like a dart? See his head held high, his nonchalance and pride? See how his belly inevitably rounds with what some fool or other will label excess fat? I like him already, his unassuming demeanour, how a smile highlights what turns him on, how when we fuck he looks like a naughty child, happy in mischief.  

When I create his cock and balls on day five I sit him down with those virgin eyes of his pointing my way to explain that the virility I want him to embody is soft and caring like a womb and that his manliness had better be as accommodating of other people’s desires and need as the earth is to the roots of a tree. The swinging pendulum between his legs is but a reminder of time ticking, not a head start over his sisters, by no means a means in life to get ahead, at most a head-job.

Creator and creation, we both rest on Saturday. It’s a big day tomorrorw.

The sun rises on my perfect man on day seven.

His skin hot with the fullness of life melts the morning rays that fall like ambrosia on his naked body, melts the sun like snowflakes at the touch – his hair, the colour of a sailor’s hair, ash-blond burned by harsh daylight and salt water, it  sways imperceptibly in this vigorous breeze that blows from the mouth of the sky.

My favourite parts of a man’s body are those in between parts, the ones we don’t seem to have words for. I like to rub my nose in the coarseness of his hairy chest, I like to trace the inevitable path that leads from chest to armpit, from hand to forearm, from belly to groin. And what about the fragrance of a man’s inner thigh, between crotch and g spot?

From now on, we stop counting our days, and start living them instead, basking between lust and trust, between soul and spine. Gods had their fun. Now for yours and mine. 

i dance therefore i am

when it comes to what really matters,
i do not know much.
but i have a feeling that
neither do you.
so let’s call it even and commence without pretense of revealed truths or
rules passed on by fathers, forefathers, the father
let’s make it fair and share
the darkness we walk through
step by step let’s snap out of illusion
and split the ground we gain like bread the poor
like mad the cure.

there isn’t much I know, I know,
but of one thing I am sure.
life is a dance, (mimic the beating heart)

:this here is my kickdrum and my snare
and it dares me to care,
for nothing but the moving.
grooving along in a sweaty dance hall
is my vision of enlightenment
because lightening may illumine the night, but in penumbras we can lie
and skin to skin, in soft moonshine
we can win
at midnight we can win.

so philosophers,
intellectuals,
critics,
emo's
hipsters,
brothers
sisters:

come dance we me!           

i ain’t talking theory, here
                                    i mean practice,
shake what your mama gave ya
                                    drop your booty like there’s no tomorrow,         
                                    because you know what? There ain’t one.

and if you're shy, timid, start easy
check to cheek,
or sensual
the sway of the hip,

or sexy,
down and dirty, then back up to kiss… whatever!

point is, the tempo’s set for all of us,
we have this much in common: limits established, rules of engagement.

life’s a contour to fill in with colour,
a tight rope to walk along and eyes to lock in glances over the abyss,
to turn the panic into bliss,
so when we’ve each killed god,
we are not left here all alone,

but all together!

brave and unashamed of our bodies with their truths
and our minds with their lies.

so let’s stomp over the frame
and we will find that a canvas is just as well a sail, if held at mid-air
a propeller to not just float,
but rock the boat,
to push ahead
who said we need an envelope for a word to be a message
a stage for a word to be a story
who said we need a gallery to win doodles glory?

i don’t know much I said but the guts tell me
we all hunger for intuition
the crotch screams a monition
that we can be masterpieces in the public square,
on a pedestal of feet firmly grounded onto this world,
flesh and bones
‘but the spirit?’ you say? ‘the spirit?’
well, baby, the spirit is nothing but the vibrations we emanate as we create the present
what we produce when we let loose
the wake behind us as we snake across today
the echo of what we say
the spirit is but the effects of our affects.

and since the present ever flows, we can correct
reflect and renew the pact that since we wanted to make it fair
every moment is square one,
and if you care to run,
it’s all downhill from here.

the measure of man

you wanna measure the man I am in this mean manner, mate?

making it a matter of muscles, like castles of sand,

and the hand! the hand!

oh, how beautiful, you decree,

when it packs a punch,

when it blows a fist.

you insist that I ain’t your brother,

at best a sister,

as in a sissy, a pussy,

a poofter, or a cyst, a blister in your perfect system where

either or are the only alternatives… and you call that freedom.

newsflash:

I realised a long time ago that if sexuality comes down to picking what toys to play with,

dolls for the girls, guns for the boys,

then I’m afraid I don’t tick either box with sufficient conviction

I decided that if gender is a matter of blue or pink,

then I ‘d rather forever merge into purple,

the colour of bruises

lest we forget abuses perpetrated

singularities negated

and still

a tear never trickled down these cheeks

the hurt stayed put, a dog trained never to bark,

let alone bite.

the pain confined and invisible and the pressure

growing on the inside like so much steam

that by age fourteen I could have counselled a guru on self-control,

sixteen and I feasted on the bullies’ abuses like a forbidden fruit

at seventeen my reality of choice was daydream

and by nineteen my voice spoke a different tongue,

because that’s how far I’d run from

those high school halls that seemed built to echo to perfection

their design ensured that each insult would strike with maximum efficiency,

bouncing words off walls like darts in cartoons,

like thunders with a thousand tentacles

- the punch would thump from every angle,

ceiling to floor,

from tickle to kick to the prickly pinch of a blow in the ribs

or the old trick of the ruler whacked on the back of my neck,

remember that?

…

I kinda miss those good old times

sometimes,

when rednecks and teens were my only enemies,

no subtlety required back then

for five to one was the prestige of their little boys’ club

they attacked with the might of the pack

and kicked

kicked and waited till we cracked

and we all agreed I clearly lacked the pedigree

to join in

I had never evaluated virility with the measuring stick of my dick

or by

how far I could piss

never turned a woman into a bitch to wear her

like a badge of honour

but the bullies have turned to ninjas and learned new moves

flying kicks of acceptance,

the bigots have turned to wizards who spin new spells behind the abracadabra’s of

tolerance

and –gosh, how daring!

even gay marriage.

they paint my ghetto pretty and tell me that I’m free

they say things are just peachy,

no need to get preachy.

Sixteen definitions of poetry and some attributes.

Poetry is language despite itself.

Poetry is rarely sense - and never meaning.

Poetry is a search for morals within the immorality of language, a search for freedom restrained (and defined!) by the despotism of the word.

Poetry is rhythm and melody. It tunes itself to the primordial utterances of a savage, to the deafening gushing blood, to the open wound of the initiated individual, desires the pounding heart of the chased prey.

Poetry is one weapon of the working class hero, along with a body privatised and sold off on the labour market. Along with the will and the potenza of the poor.

Poetry is never done with. It is never done. It never quite is.

Poetry watches the State machine more attentively then how the latter spies it. It escapes coding, and taps into the streams that the State machine floods with stolen waters, where nothing really flows but stagnates under CCTV surveillance, and conjures currents of its own invention, blows its own winds and in them flies its own flag.

Poetry responds to the demand of the straight-jacketed self, a most improbable leap of non-sense, from one cliff over here to another over there, annihilating distance.

Poetry is a limit tending to zero and infinite at one and the same time, and the omnipotence of human imagination.

Poetry is the tool whereby a unity of consciousness in nature is sought to be restored, the aesthetic par excellence alchemically morphing into the ethical.

Poetry is fatum, fate, that which has been said, announced, pronounced. It is a new law.

Poetry is an intrinsically revolutionary practice.

Poetry is a short-circuited formula where ‘game minus rules’ most definitely does not equal cheating. The apostate of civilisation, the anti-prodigal son. The offspring that negates its genitor.

Poetry is a riddle, on the run. A paradox when chained in prose.

Poetry is music. A tribute to silence.

hey man

Hey man,

you little man growing in the world,

let me tell you what I know:

first off:

make your world

      

posit alternatives - choose others better suited to the

     flights of your soul,

   that you humours rejoice in the clean

air of a paradise,

id est a freedom space in this land of lines and signs,

~~~~inject some vice,

yes: refuse this, confute these truths,

conjure collusions, intrusions,

a fusions holy of dream and wake,

little man: fake it till you make it: this is your boogie woogie!

second: in my world mine is the last word and mine the saying alone,

this tongue o’ mine’s a whip,

this language here I flip it – I twist it, yeah… I risk it all

this mental thread to cut and paste

I waste no breath, the import justifies the haste, so here’s a taste…

…could I amaze?

little man growing within me in the world around,

we are like Russian dolls

or onions

we’re an infinite snake which peels off eternally

  and internally regenerates,

which fact reiterates our common origins,

our brotherhood with life and death.

Vita brevis—

?

I’d say “mors brevior ” or… “till birth do us part"

-and  hurrah to me for stating the obvious!

Hurrah! madames et messieurs

or else I’ll be the beast, and you - gladiators:

twice be eaten by the tooth of the lion,

twice torn by the claws of the hawk,

twice gored by the horn of the bull and

twice thrown in the boiling pool.

see, little man?

this is no phoney school, but a brawl of enlightened fools, the stars tell me –again -  it is the top of the morning, flat ass on the kitchen bench and rum o’clock, but mind you: this is a new me, this ain’t a guy with a broken heart no more, this ain’t the struggling man-child fighting his protracted teens, no

 boom!

[drop the metaphors here and adopt a clear language------------------]

FUCK NIHILISM

Because life is a layered drink,

and the sweetest spirits

choose

the bottom of the

shot glass.

so, little man, listen, to a slightly bigger man,

listen, if you please

and

then go into the wild,

into the clubs,

into the institutions,

listen

to the promises of man

and listen

to his lies

examine

every wedded pair of eyes

little man,

learn the lessons you’ll be taught

til silence return:

 three days -three months -three years,

from the steep side of sunlight

lizardish y’absorb the heat,

whore-like, alone and cheap

or god-like, dear but beat

little man big trouble, squabble not. unravel

n b

THE STRUGGLE AND THE EXODUS

long before the feet did

it was my eyes who left, my heart

sore and wet, shiny like a full moon in the sea, moist like fog

and just as impenetrable.

i kept a steady pace, over the mountain tops,

beyond the rocky crown of homeland

searching for the marching beat, scanning my changing horizon for a spiritual parent, a poet, a revolutionary

and finding allsorts, more often

scoring a fuck than salvation

but learning to apprehend something

from everything,

that a teacher can wear as little as a cockring

or all the world’s phd’s wrapped around his or her humanism

till his or her humanity’s been covered

deflected, surpassed in the name of curricular

                                                               activity

                                                                        & dispensed.

long before my feet did,

it was my joy, who parted ways

to save itself and find a buddy

in someone else’s despairing fits of life disguised as pubescent rage

and

dance along creaking floorboards through the night

along the po, canals, the thames,

the yarra hand in hand

to comprehend in steps the mysterious waltz of friendship,

the spinning polkas of love at first sight in a drunken bar, dark in an alley, soho square

dover house - our unglorious chelsea hotel,

our dips and troughs, and our

flops, even they were flux, flight, flow.

sure enough, for coherence dictates our every move,

limbs were set into motion,

rather a gentle marathon – swift feet carried away,

as if a new order of church bells – appealing, these ones, redemptive

were summoning us,

as if our own will was sirens in the distance, their song persuading us now

as before it’d charmed and teased.

& lured i was – with you,

suddenly: communion, a partnership.

and if the rest is history

as in a story we write black on white, sweat on forehead, man on man

if it is true that our bodies bear the marks of each caress and kiss

like an ariadne’s thread leading us back

to our freedom of choice, the choice to chose love every time

we had a choice

then

i have no/thing to regret

you have no/thing to forget

we’re on the right track

the only path where value is still valued

where the market is a place we go to, to feed body and soul

and not a poisoned cornucopia

of dislodged ciphers, the evil of goods unhinged from reality: the reality of people struggling for human recognition

the reality where the square is not what we are commanded to think within and vacate when thought steps out of it

but the ancient gathering space to which we add dimensions of solidarity,

that the poor enrich

where poetics equates praxis

where word equals sword and

blood is never spilled for anything less than

an idea of freedom that would put the angels to shame in their pale,

sickly promise of transcendence

because long before we stuffed our heads with slogans

we had mouths full of poetry

before the prism split us into rainbow

to separate the colours

red from green, black from blue, me, not you

before power was a spell to be under or atop

we were sun, thunder, dirt and crop.

the extent of my needs

in their precocious browns the leaves -

in precious golds  - they shoot thru the air

like messengers of seasons in the making

another layer flaking off the tablet of time

 and heading groundwards

for to feed bugs of today,

grass blades of next week and

making me

a bed of dirt for when the carousel runs no more

and i upgrade to a raft on lethe

it’s a saturday,

sky diaphanous seemingly devoid of atmosphere

we recline and showcase our best symposium etiquette under the delicate weight of how elegantly we dip lentil balls in hummus

- how comfortably we share secrets, perhaps because for strangers

blabbing out the truth is the only way to carve radiance out of the dark of anonymity

or

because in our history of no more than an hour we’ve already unearthed hidden affinities

that accelerated intimacy somehow, adding an element of

fate to what was gonna be but a triple x date

like the fact that both of our names contain, in different languages,

the word for people

or that despite a shared love for autumn in melbourne,

neither of us is ready for this one yet

oxytocins dance like sufis in the aura of this our first meet

hormones parade like a springtime fair and

whenever I go to roll a cigarette you ask ‘want some dope in there?’

and each time my reply is ‘why not…’

until the green grass acts on my behalf and

spills my beans for me, figuring honesty will buy me your love,

or something along those lines

‘kiss me’, i say

‘but we’re not fucking tonight’

i am on the hunt for a narrative - a tale to take home

not just your smell on my skin,

not just a palette of bodily fluids

the gay business card…

even though fuck only knows

the extent of my need for touch

i could map it out for you, unroll it in the shape of a lust-red carpet for you to pace upon,

and man, you’d catwalk a long while,

from here to satisfaction the path is infinite and the trajectory divine-abolical

especially if you, like me, set out to travel it anyway,

disregarding

the compass of the humble and wise that warns:

beware! the stomach of want will always be ravenous

you’d better learn to go hungry and pretend you couldn’t possibly

take another morsel, be it a bit of art, of ass or grass, human heat, or god’s touch

so be my guest, feel my unrest

not just my cock thru these denim pants,

because i never thought i’d ever beg and plea for less flesh and more soul

less feeling up and more feeling full stop

but I am

shame you have to be my first nay

after so many aye’s

spat out with automatic eagerness,

pity, really, that the ultimatum of the heart that feels left out and claims his share

should land on your ears, that the hand unwelcomed should be yours,

a gentleman’s hand