Category: poetry

The Name Game

topoetLeave a comment

The Name Game

this is not my real name

in fact

I use my given name so infrequently

no one is sure what it is

I’m not sure of what it is

 

I won’t tell you what you want to know

not that it’s a secret

there is no deep shame

that I am hiding

 

names that I use

change from time to time

location to location

in fact

we may have met before

when I was someone else

that’s why I sometimes

seem so familiar

 

I don’t go out of the way

to disguise myself

to cover my trail

only who I might be

so that when you say

you understand me

I know 

you don’t even know who are talking to

 

everything you know

is about another person

someone with a name you know

that’s not my name

it wasn’t then

and it never will be again

I’ve met guys on line who. for privacy, I guess, have more than one name. In fact nearly all people on line do – a handle, a nickname, an email address that doesn’t reveal who they are. On dating sites guys have names like Toppugood43 or flexlexy – that may hint on what they want to do. Some have given one name in chat, then another one shows up as part of their email response & when they text another name & when we meet maybe their real name.

 

Some never give a name at all, really. ‘Hi it’s Toppu.’ Or not even that much, as if their phone number will tell me who it is. Names are one of the way we define people, so I can accept people needing to self-define by choosing their own name & using it as a sort of mask. Would John Wayne have made it big with his birth name Marion Morrison?

One of the reasons for ‘branding’ myself as TOpoet, was to remove immediate information about myself. All I want you to know is there – where I am located & what I do. No gender, sexuality, race or even age is alluded to. The only preconceived notion one may have is about poets, not about me as a person – unless it is to conclude that anyone labeling themselves as a poet is a pretentious fop. Guilty.

So this piece is about the ambiguity of names, of what we think we know about people & how insubstantial image is. It is easy to be someone else on line. I’m never sure if who I may be chatting with for the first time is actually the person in the picture (if they have a picture). I don’t know until I meet them face to face & it is the face in their photos. I don’t even fully believe what they’ve said in our chats, or in their profile. It is easy to flirt, overstate interests in text. Meeting moves things to the next level of negotiation. Which may require proof of identity 🙂 


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

Sober Sex 2

topoetLeave a comment

An experience that shows up frequently in recovery circles – gay or straight, male or female – is being trapped in a using relationship – using because one’s partner uses & expects them to do the same – fear of losing that ‘lover’ keeps them using out of what is essentially, to me, people pleasing. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a relationship – even casual hook ups can have the same ‘people pleasing’ context.

Saying no to booze or drugs offered by a possible hook up often means that door closes. Booze & drugs lower some inhibitions which supposedly leads to wilder & better sex. But Shakespeare says something to the effect – it enflames the desire but cools the ability. Often booze or drugs become the focus of, not the lubricant for, fun. I’ve had men decline play with me because I didn’t have poppers.

When I first got sober declining social offers of a drink, or a toke, wasn’t easy – I wanted to fit in, to be accepted – saying ‘no’ might hurt someone’s feelings – looking back, my sense of self-acceptance was based on conforming. The example of guys in recovery helped me get over some of that & over time it was easier.

The first few times I had sex sober were interesting. I was also coming out & being held by another man was nearly a spiritual experience. (It still is). Being held by another man who can’t wait to get his next drink, toke, line isn’t all that satisfying. I wanted sex partners not drinking partners. When the guy on Disability After Dark said he’d never had sex sober I totally identified with him. Substances can lower our inhibitions but also impair the ability to give consent & also kicks the shit out of the immune system.

Today I lead an active sex life. Sober. Dick is my drug of choice.

heart of hearing

one from the hard

my hard was in my throat

the hard of darkness

a hard attack

I left my hard in San Francisco

hard of the dark continent

open hard surgery

I hard NY

talking hard to hard

places in the hard

don’t keep breaking my hard

hard harded hanna

the hard of the hard of the country

hard healthy

change of hard

hards of fire

open your hard

wearing my hard on my sleeve

deep in my hard

the hard foundation

I gave you my hard

when hards collide

my secret hard

the hard of the matter

like a stake through the hard

a little piece of my hard

tore the hard right of his chest

gotta hide my hard away

take it to hard

the bleeding hard

my hard skipped a beat

queen of hards was baking some tarts

hard on a platter

you gotta have hard

falling hard first in love

cross my hard

hard in my hand

the hard is a lonely hunter

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

every Tuesday 2019

July

Stratford Festival – Nathan The Wise

August 2-13: getting back to my roots in Cape Breton
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

September

Shaw Festival – Sex (Mae West)

Stratford Festival – Little Shop Of Horrors

June  – Capturing Fire 2020 – Washington D.C.  capfireslam.org 

Hey! Or you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

 

Fault Finding

topoetLeave a comment

Fault Finding

what I let you to believe

isn’t necessarily true

you allow yourself be lead on

by your willingness 

to fill in the blanks 

with your own expectations

 

that resulted in this

misunderstanding

sure I could have pointed that out sooner

but you were so sure of yourself

contradicting you

seemed pointless

 

you can’t blame me

for you making it so easy

to lead you on

once I started

I couldn’t stop

you made no pause for me to stop

you took the wrong hint

ran with it

before I could stop you

and when I did

you were dumbfounded

refused to listen

you thought I was joking


now you know

I wasn’t to blame 

even if it was my fault


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

The Right Entrance

topoetLeave a comment

The Right Entrance

the girls

had their own school

a Catholic separate school

we’re talking 60’s – 70’s

Cape Breton

 

I don’t know if there was one

for Catholic boys

but the girls had their own

to protect them 

from the unruly attentions of boys

 

schools I went to were mixed

but there was

boys’ manual training

girls’ domestic science

separate entrances for boys for girls

mixed classes

but boys’ gym

girls’ gym

 

the best way to control

those masculine urges

was segregation

guys who got laid were men

girls who got laid were easy

girls who didn’t were teases

guys who didn’t 

bragged about doing it

or salivated endless about pussy

boobs

because they were men

 

never once

never

was there a sense

that the guys were in the wrong

it was only the girls 

who need to be protected

guys weren’t taught

to think differently

in fact

we were encouraged

to get a little

get laid

get into her panties

 

find’em

feel’em

fuck’em

forget’em

 

this was masculine prerogative

entitlement

a natural urge

that resented any attempt

to curb it

do you want your sons

to grow up to be fags

yeah sure

free and easy access

to pussy

is the cure for queer

 

yet I grew up

gay queer a fag

full of fear

yet sure of who I was

& who I wanted to have sex with

 

I tried dating

getting a little

getting a little wasn’t enough

to cure me of anything

so I forgot’em 

but I did learn 

which entrance

was right for me

This piece is a documentary. All of it is my high-school experience though some of the facts go back even further in my history. When my family moved to Cape Breton I was enrolled in a nearby school with a mixed gender & to a degree religious population. Entirely white as well I might add. Protestant with a scattering of Jewish students – who we knew were Jewish because of the many holidays they had.

It wasn’t until I got to high-school that I realized there was a separate school system for Catholics, particularly girls. Rather it was a high-school run by a teaching order of Catholic nuns. It wasn’t limited to Catholic’s as I think one of my sisters went there because it offered better secretarial training. A class that was never offered to boys – we did get an introduction to basic accounting though.

Beyond this religious segregation there was a gender divide in the rest of the school system for sports, non-academic vocational options – boys got manual training & shop; girls got domestic science & shopping. Most of the academic classes were mixed but there was separate entrances for grades & genders. 

Sydney did have a sizeable black community, as well as a large Native community – but we only saw them if our teams were playing against them. As best as I can remember there was no racial mix in my high school except for one, lone Japanese girl.

 

The four f’s ‘find’em’ was a real mantra usually used by ‘guys who didn’t but bragged about doing it’ The piece also reflects how gender doesn’t equate sexuality – that even though I had all this male behaviour example I turned out queer, having no queer male behaviour example to lure me into the unnatural side. 

The ‘entrance’ that was right for me? I’ll leave that to your imagination 🙂


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

Sober Sex 1

topoetLeave a comment

 

On a recent Disability After Dark one of the men Andrew interviews admits that he has never had sex sober. That was the story of my sex life until I got into recovery. I needed more than a few drinks in me to engage in sex with men (or, in one case a woman). The guys I drank with in Cape Breton were ‘straight’ & after drinks, many drinks things could happen. Booze was ‘excuse juice.’

 

 

I can’t speak to their story but I know for me the fear of being out was enough to keep me in – trapped in crushing crushes on some of the guys I drank with, most of whom had girlfriends, wives. None of them talked about being bi or gay. But I wasn’t so deep in my closet that they didn’t know of my interest.

Those opportunities were rare. I knew things were going to happen when one of them would show up with a case of beer or bottle of scotch. There was no real affection involved beyond ‘that feels great.’ I figured that was what sex was supposed to be. Get drunk and mess around.

Being a drunk was part of the downward spiral of being queer, a compulsive, liar, thief, depressed, misunderstood etc. At the time I’d read a psychology book that outlined various mental issues – homosexuality was then classified as a psychosis, a disease. It also talked about alcohol as a depressive drug – I knew the book was wrong on both counts as booze was the only thing that made me happy – yet I was suicidal by the time I left Cape Breton.

When I arrived in Toronto in the late 70’s getting sober was not part of the plan, but it was one of things that happened. Here I was a sober kid in the boozy candy shop of gay discos. Sex without booze was a terrifying concept. How would I build up the nerve to even approach someone? 

Luckily for me there was a solid gay/lesbian presence in recovery so I had examples of that possibility but even they complained of how hard it was to find a good man. I saw the connection between my depression & alcohol. A connection that wasn’t made in the Disability After Dark conversation. 

Andrew, if you read this, think about doing an episode dealing with addictions & disability.

Male – White – 27

Charge – Public Urination

our plan was to have a last draft

but when one of my buds made a joke

about the country-western song just ending

I started to cover my laugh 

with the hand

that was bringing the glass 

to my eager lips

the jerking 

jolt flung the sweet amber suds

into a perfect arc over my shoulder

the sweat slippery glass darted

from my loose grip

 

Oh for a photo of that glorious 

go-for-the-gold momentum

beer escaping with glass chasing after it

me turning in my seat

eyes agog   mouth agape 

stunned amazement 

at 

the 

slow 

motion 

ballet

I didn’t realized how much energy 

I had in my arm 

to lift with such ballistic force 

that the joke was so freaking funny

to give an extra dash of dynamic energy

 

the beer flew    spread    lost perfection 

splattered wetly on the table behind us 

splashed on food    faces

there was a dismayed shriek

anger   fucking assholes

the glass came tumbling after

hitting someone on the shoulder

bouncing  smashing on the table 

 

I was no longer laughing

no one was laughing

 

my chair tipped as I stood

it fell in the path of 

the bearded biker guy whose girlfriend

got the beer wave in her food

his furious fists punched empty air 

as he stumbled over the chair

 

next thing I knew 

my buds and I were outside

in a bitter ten-below-zero wind

I was pissing a steaming amber arc

on a car door handle

while one of my buds was up chucking

a police cruiser pulled over

I turned to get out of the way

slipped in vomit

spun in an imperfect circle 

tumbled ass-over-tea-kettle

landed on my back

in a snow bank under a street lamp

fly down   limp dick chillin’

boys in blue hauled me to my feet

 

and that’s one of the many many reasons 

I now chose not to drink

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

every Tuesday 2019

July

Stratford Festival – Nathan The Wise

August 2-13: getting back to my roots in Cape Breton
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

September

Shaw Festival – Sex (Mae West)

Stratford Festival – Little Shop Of Horrors

June  – Capturing Fire 2020 – Washington D.C.  capfireslam.org 

Hey! Or you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

 

Not Relevant

topoetLeave a comment

Not Relevant

why I lost interest

wasn’t relevant 

neither of us was that invested

or at least I wasn’t

he was a good technical fuck

he made it clear how much he enjoyed

the time we spent together

but as much as he filled me up

he never fulfilled me

he was chatty enough

but conversations went his way

he listened to his voice

his point of view

would ask me the same questions

give his answer

talk over mine

so I lost interest

 

I blocked him on dating sights

rather than go into why 

I lost interest

why I found his paranoia

around identity theft 

made me distrustful of him

he knew too much for the innocent

his racism couldn’t be confronted

as he’d merely repeat his view

as if I had said nothing

to call him out

meant that I was the racist

 

that was a few years ago

I heard nothing from him

then one day there he was

on my door step

having changed his online identity

he’d made contact with me

never let on who he was

did a few things differently

gave me his email

which he’d never done before

though I still didn’t know his real name

the date was set

and there he was

with a slightly smug smile

 

I wasn’t flattered

but was amused

he was still a good technical fuck

friendly enough

not a listener

talked over my replies

to questions he’d asked 

when he left

I blocked him again

somethings don’t change

and he was one of them


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

Sleep Over

topoetLeave a comment

Sleep Over

no

I am not sleeping over

yes

I had a good time

a great time

I dig you

but to sleep over

is more of a commitment

than I’m ready for

besides

I don’t think I could sleep

with you so near

with you in bed

beside me

it’s challenging enough

to sleep with someone in the same room

let alone in the same bed

 

no

I doubt if I’ll ever sleep over

not if you expect

to get any sleep

I’ve tried to sleep, & by sleep I mean sleep not sex, with sex partners. I could doze off but it was not a deep sleep. When my partner & I first meet we did try sleeping in the same bed but after a week or so of crappy sleep we gave up. It wasn’t an issue for me – my parents had separate bedrooms for years. My mother was an owl – worked around the house at night, usually getting up around noon. My Dad was a sparrow up every morning. He would get us off to school, & when I was old enough that duty fell to me (but that’s another story).

I was involved in pharmaceutical drug testing for many years. The studies were always on location. There could be a group of up to 40 people, sleeping in the same room, usually in bunk beds. At one location there would be other studies at the same time so there could be up to 100 guys bunked in a room. (Women had their own sleep quarters). I did learn to sleep okay under those conditions.

I developed sleeping strategies – ear plugs, lavender infused handkerchief, restful music on my iPod. Sleeping whenever we weren’t being fed, or giving blood samples. Trust me the pay was good & the eye candy was always a bonus. But after a weekend or week or even, in a few cases, a month of a study I longed for the privacy of my own bed.

Traveling isn’t too bad. My first night in a hotel bed can be a bit restless but the rest of the nights I’m out like a light. I also use the above sleep tactics to help on that first night. 

None of the guys I am seeing have indicated that a sleep over would be welcome. Some of them would find it hard to explain a night away to their wives anyway. Others work shifts. None of them has the same sleep pattern as mine. Being in bed, to sleep, by 10:30 strikes them as puritanical. 


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

Men In Underwear

topoetLeave a comment

I’ve been working through the Gayish podcast backlog (or should that be logs as there are two hosts). Besides listening the the most recent I’ve been going backwards & forwards – or is it top to bottom? Listening to one oldest, then the most recent. This past week I heard their podcasts about Undies & then the one about Voyeurism.

These two meshed together when one of my regulars set up play date & asked if he should wear the undies I gave him. I said ‘sure’ more because they were a memory for him of a past play session & now served as foreplay for him as he travelled to my house. He couldn’t wait to show them off for me. He isn’t the only one of my regulars I’ve given undies to – the others sometimes just show up wearing a gifted pair without warning. I find their pleasure in dressing up for me very hot. I like to look at men in underwear, whether I gave those undies to them or not.

I’ve written about my affection for undies a few times. Most recently Nice Undies https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3q2. I’ll also add, my undies have improved my sexual self-confidence & since I invested in my collection my sex life has increased. One tip for any underwear fan out there – never put them in the dryer – always air dry. Dryers are too hot for the elastic & will cut their ‘shelf’ life by 50% or more.

Voyeurism? The male of many species are aroused by visual, input hence the allure of make up etc. I enjoy porn, but not as much as I once did, & not the sort that I once enjoyed. I can remember looking at the male underwear pages in Eatons or Simpsons catalogues with great pleasure. Did they airbrush them groinless? Ditto album covers. Before I moved from Cape Breton I was ordering pay pinup magazines from Toronto – Numbers, BlueBoy – I was ‘educated’ by the nude men. Flaccid due to the law. Magazines like Penthouse could show a women spreading her labia lips, but an erection was forbidden, ditto the anus. Now porn has become so pervasive & available thanks to the web, I’m mostly bored.

 

The older I get, the younger the men seem to get, it’s to the point where I feel like a pedophile if the models are too hairless. Watching sex isn’t as appealing as having sex 🙂 One of my regulars insisted on a 3-some so he could have someone watch him as he topped me. It was more fun for him in that sense than for me. The third guy? Well, he loves the undies I gave him.

A Walk in the Park

I was walking though the park

eyes open for dog shit

I turn a corner and there is this couple 

female splayed on a picnic table 

a man on his knees between her legs

she moaning pushing his head deeper 

his hairy ass bare in the sun

 

her eyes catch mine

I can’t tell if the expression

is pleasure    invitation    dare

or what the fuck are you looking at

he stands and half turns

hard cock flashing in crisp light

she licks her lips 

 

I keep going   that image in my mind

his jeans crumpled below his knees

her panties around one ankle

their faces gleaming    beaming

 

what brought them 

to that place and time

were they walking along 

so aroused they had to have each other 

was she a working girl 

and didn’t care where she made a buck

did they need an audience

to take them to another level of orgasm

 

when I doubled back

they were gone

all that remained 

was a pair of panties

          pink

damp

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

every Tuesday 2019

July

Stratford Festival – Nathan The Wise

August 2-13: getting back to my roots in Cape Breton
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

September

Shaw Festival – Sex (Mae West)

Stratford Festival – Little Shop Of Horrors

June  – Capturing Fire 2020 – Washington D.C.  capfireslam.org 

Hey! Or you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

 

June 2019 Sneak Peek

topoetLeave a comment

 

First the May recap 🙂 My fan base continues expanded slowly but surely. WordPress is up to 320, Twitter dropped to 214, & Tumblr is at 226. Coal Dusters continues to grow as I get nearer the end with 106,500 words posted so far, about 30,000 words to go. Finally got to the mine cave-in. Exciting finish to that will play out in June. 

Entertainment highlight was the start of our Stratford season. The costume warehouse tour was amazing & playing dress up was a treat. Henry VIII was a good solid production. The weather for the day was good though we did drive though a thunderstorm on the way home.

 

I read an amazing book Roadside Picnic by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The book inspired  Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. The book is as amazing as the premise: aliens visit Earth, refuse all attempt to communicate for years, then depart. They leave behind garbage which contains technology which humans don’t know how to use but try to adapt. Add a layer of Russian philosophic angst & you have success. See the movie, read the book.

I spent a several morning working on my long neglected garden, raking, weeding, seeding & cutting back, Once that was done fresh annuals & herbs planted amongst the perennials: alyssum (wonderland white, wonderland deep purple), basil, begonia (bada boom bronze leaf white, cosmos (sontata mix), coriander, dianthus (ideal select mix) impatiens (dazzler merlot, dazzler white), lavender, lobelia, marigolds (bonanza yellow, bonanza gold, super hero harmony), parsley, petunias (dreams red picotee, pretty grand white, yellow madness, pretty grand rose), rosemary, sage, snap dragons (snaptini mix), sweet peas, tarragon, thyme. Green, colourful & edible.

 Other than tending the garden June brings – nothing 🙂 No spoken word things scheduled, no plays booked to see. Plugging away at Coal Dusters edits & I hope to have the final chapters published by the end on July.

Desire

once upon a teenage time

I wanted someone like an ocean

to sweep me off my feet

I wanted to be a tidal wave

that would find the right someone

to cover with the wet wildness of my desires

 

looking back at those surface struggles

that sought some physical release 

for a spiritual urge

it was no wonder 

I became frustrated and disappointed

each time I thought passion 

was the point of love

frustrated and disappointed 

when at each attempt 

to smother love into my life it escaped

seeped out of the edges

 

that sweet emotional context 

that didn’t fulfill enough 

had to be my fault your fault

I suppose in a way it was my fault

for wanting that physical solution

where only the perfect kiss

from an adoring lover

could take this lonely pain from me

I didn’t realize 

it would take more than one kiss

more than one adoring lover 

in fact there weren’t enough kisses lovers

money music sunshine rainbows

to take this separateness from me

 

those were ideals

designed to be enjoyed

not as a cure for anything

adding the weight of expectations

always left me frustrated and disappointed

when I expected a physical rescue

from a spiritual ocean


Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet

Out With The Bathwater

topoetLeave a comment

samprules2

Working through the  227 Rules For Monks.

Who knew the simple life could be so complex.

Out With The Bathwater

he wanted to drink

my bath water

or so he said

I never did take him up on it

if he had said that

after a few dates

I might have found it

appealing  almost flattering

but to start with that

was a bit much

 

it was the sort of

coming on too strong

I call ‘a red flag’

similar to sending a phone number

in the first message

or as the first message

not even ‘a call me’

or ‘I liked your profile’

I’m not going to call that number

 

he wanted to drink

my bath water

when I asked him why

he said that it was pretty obvious

the water

was something that had touched

every inch of my body

the way he wished he could

 

I was amused

intrigued

his pics were blurry

close ups of his nipples

what I assumed was his dick

no face pic

I asked for a face pic

never heard back from him

Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee on my trip to Cape Breton – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet 

Like my pictures? I post lots on Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/topoet