(BLURB)~~~~~~~

things to touch. things untouched, unreachable. things touched but now beyond touching. this spring is strange. may was more cruel then april this time around. the richness has untimely chills in it. there is a bluebird hanging around my house that dive bombs my cats and makes a ceaseless racket. i don't know if i'm annoyed or pleased by a tenacity who's agenda remains unclear but not quite mysterious. this bird has odd ideas about it's place in the world i suspect. or am i projecting? i think about bush and hands and white houses and how the millennium passed without any great cataclysm or epiphany ... just another 100 years till we dream of doom or it's opposite. and yet within small moments there remains vast lands of milk and honey. it spills and we cry and occasionally whimper and i love all the sounds anyway.

 

your nipple

which you touched
was the button
on the time bomb
of our mutual
hunger
i pictured it
dark and volcanic
atop an ample curve
and saw a great temple dome
and heard a keening call to prayer
and i slept
feeling sacred and molten
nourished and peacefully drained
and hoping you will
push that button
again & again

---

our discontent

"finally the long winter
of our masturbation ends"
say i to fine pal as quip
flinching with the doubt
of what one pal ought say
to thus same gendered pal
within that flinch is memory
of crossed swords gone awry
pis streams passed as mock duel
'tween sibling of same same gender
but me over eager soaking leg
a soggy faux pas of brothered shame
quick this short shame i swallow
with a smart pull off manly pint
and a daring glance over the rim
transmits testy defiance unhinting
troubled gendersome whateverness
which pal catches with subtle nod

last sip slightly twirled ungirlish
in the bottom of his stout glass
pausing with well practiced indifference
eyes of fellow bear scan bar then extends
his foxy pause with a flowered downing
of the last suckle of a beer's end
then comes his deft pass
to piss on my meager hope parade
cold as a sword is sharp to dampen
the promised hint of a spring unhaltering
and it's a dog day afternoon in which
he deathly mutters "now comes
the long summer of our jerking off"



---

our hands

i can not count them all
this flock of recollections circling
in fluttering multitudes arcing and dully flashing
through the dust of a bleached and barren library
which is the dome of my memory and each wing
is a finger drawn across an vacant chest
weaving into the ribs of my aching
where the softness of your palms
feathers me forever



---

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     My name is yrdog4now. Admittedly it is not what my father calls. Nor for that matter what my sons call me. Not only that, but what my sons call me is not what my father calls me. This may explain why I do not have a statue of dad on my lawn.

     Recently the plot got even thicker. I bugged my "dad" to send me my adoption papers. Now I know my name. It's Frank Drake. Not Art, Otis, Alex, dog, Cooper, or any of the other monikers I've gone by. Identity crisis? Nah. To whatever extent the idea of self isn't just a provisional illusion I remain "me". As for my identity as a poet, well, that too is entirely provisional. What's in a name anyway?