Boyfriend

Boyfriend

I’m so excited

I have a new boy friend

he’s barely fifteen

years younger than me

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did that pause catch you off guard

were you sure I was going to say

he was only fifteen years old

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was it hard enough to think of a man

having a boyfriend at all

then add to it the shudder that it was

an innocent emotionally underdeveloped

fifteen year old child

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though I can remember me at fifteen

jacking off to visions of rock star cock

Jimi Hendrix Bruce Springsteen

that I wished there in my bed

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telling you too much am I

get used to it

I’ve heard enough straight poets go on

sparing no intimate details

about blissful raspberry nipples

moist peach fuzzed mounds

so I’ll talk about man on man action

even if it makes some of you restless

a bit bored     a bit threatened

girl on girl would make you more comfortable

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I usually try to make the nestling

of men’s bodies into each other

sound sort of sweet and tender

pulling myself away

from the gasp   grasp of sweat    pubic hair

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so I’m excited

about my new boyfriend

though I hate boyfriend

boy carries that too young taint

man friend isn’t close

lover is more complex than it is at this point

bed buddy     yeah I like that

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I have a new bed buddy

he’s nearly fifteen

years younger than me

This month I am looking at some of the pieces I may be reading as part of Born To Be Blown. All pieces deal with music I grew up with from Mario Lanza to the Blues Magoos. Boyfriend presents the context of much of it. I’ve written before about the lack of openly queer role models I grew up and this touches on that a little. There’s also this sense of having no guidance at all other that straight poets.

I like the little ‘fooled you’ about sex and age at the start of the piece. It’s fun to perform with an actual pause with a big foolish grin to let minds jump to fifteen years old so I can catch them in mid-judgement of me. It plays into the illusion that all queers are pedophiles. Even at fifteen I wasn’t that attracted to boys my age. There is math teacher I’ve written about though.

Some of my musical hotties get name checked – only two as that list could go on & on. I certainly remember scouring lp’s covers pics for any hint of what might be in to r’n’r jeans. John Lennon was the only one who ever gave us the goods.

It moves into ‘present’ time with talk about self-censoring when I first starting hitting open stages, being shy about being too out, even been criticized for being too out in fact a male poet who were very explicit about his heterosex longings. I’m not sure where the ‘raspberry nipples’ came from.

At one time I did make an effort to present man on man without naming body parts but that got to be too phobic and I’m now quite comfortable to call a cock a dick if it fits the piece.

farewell yellow snow