Poems, thoughts, and stories.
Today this body looks good.
GymBro taught me “goatee is good”
in Alpha-Russian, and pulling a button
off this short-sleeved shirt showed
him, yeah, I can grow hair there, too –
but no rocks call, or sky, or ocean,
no words in waves, no windy voice of
God. My bones don’t sing to me.
I eat myself day after day,
mate myself night after night,
make little puppets out of skin –
as the earth, musical home wide-open,
waits for the sentence to end.
*
In early July 2026, Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady, chartered by Atlantis Events for an LGBTQ+ Mediterranean cruise, faced back-to-back port denials from the governments of Turkiye and Egypt. Turkish officials declared the passengers “incompatible with the fabric of our society and our moral values.” Egypt offered no explanation.
This piece is my response.
Sailing to Turkiye, or Egypt, or Port Canaveral
Searching the on-board closet,
bell-bottoms and rainbow tanks
for 70s Nite
next to a dusty suit I nearly forgot
(a tie? not if I can get away with it).
I’m proud the college pants still fit,
mostly. Reminds me that I’m not done yet.
But there, and here,
it’s important to keep old clothes handy.
It’s fun. It’s strategy.
You never know when the costume will
get you laid or save your life.
Religious folk are funny like that.
Ravenous in the bathhouse,
ready to string you up after prayers.
So I keep both sets, hoping for the party
but ready to tie the noose tight
around my neck. Again.
Play my part. Again.
Make them feel right at home.
Because as long as they’re at home,
all those believers in God,
and this ship dancing its way to Greece,
or California, we’re all just a little bit
safer.
For a time.
A bit.
*
Spirit says: “Your words create
your world. Shoot for the stars.”
I say: “I’m 17 again...
only this time, this time!
I’ll go straight to the SavOn
(remember those?)
and buy hair-clippers to
shave my back and chest and arms
(I can handle the chest and arms
but I’ll have to find someone to
do the back – maybe Grammy,
she always seemed to know
what direction I was headed).
I’ll work out and run with my shirt
off, and then when I see Jason
at the Dales Jr. liquor store
and he gives me those eyes I’ll
ask him if he wants to go to
Carney’s to get food and he won’t
take his beautiful eyes off my
hunky arms and chest.”
Spirit says: “Don’t say will. Say Am.
BTW, he was already into you. Why shave?”
So I say this: “Okay, wait.
Maybe just the back.
Maybe that’s the way Jason and I
become friends because he is already
giving me those deep blue eyes
in class, so I don’t think he
minds clipping my back as we talk
in French and he tells me I’m
smart and I tell him ‘Let’s go get
food at Carney’s’ because I’m an
idiot, but then I see I’m being an idiot
so I give him a kiss and we roll around
for an hour or two until his Dad gets home
and we race to get dressed before he
comes upstairs laughing because
he already knows.”
Spirit says: “Don’t say MAYBE.
If you’re sure, it’s happening.”
Happening?
What did happen?
Forty years happened.
Life happened. Death happened.
Dave. Hmmm.
So I say this: “I’m 17. I’m at
Dales Jr. I’m skinny and hairy and
think I might be gay but I don’t know
because I’m scared of all the prostitutes
over in Santa Monica and it’s 1986 and
there’s AIDS and no one to talk to.
I’m buying Jim Beam for my Dad and
run into Jason. His hair is perfect
eighties, swooped back and free.
We talk. We’re shy. I want to kiss.
He leaves after waving goodbye.
He doesn’t want to go.
I float home and have a drink with
my Dad. He says there’s something
different about me. I say nothing.
But I know how I feel.”
Spirit pauses: “That’s what happened.
Those were terrible years.
Jason broke your heart. Badly.
Why go through all that again?”
I can hear hope in his voice.
He only wants me to say what’s true.
So I speak truth.
I say: “Why mess with perfection?
What I want to know is:
will I remember any of this?
It’s been wild so far!
Wait!
Don’t tell me!
I don’t want to know!”
Spirit says: “Good answer.”
He laughs as I fall asleep.
Such a bastard.
But a good bastard.
*
Just a suggestion: check out more in Poems. Tap here.
Think of your favorite porn star,
the one with the big pecs and fabulous
smile (you know the one),
wiping his ass after taking a shit.
Way more than four squares,
more like forty because
it was a messy morning,
what with the viagra and
laxatives.
Think of him getting off the toilet
and jumping into the shower,
frustrated, behind schedule,
because it’s just easier to let the
water wash all that shit down.
Suddenly, do you see his flat feet?
*
Shadowed carpet, stained
dark baseboards hiding behind
stacked silent pages,
dusty lamplight warms marred paint
and softens the wizened cat.
*
It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
When you’re nearing 60, escaping sounds good.
A quantum jump, not the other kind.
They tell me not to think about it, but
I keep hoping I wake up in another life
so relieved there are tears
and a huge smile, reset.
It’s happened before. I was being convicted
of a crime I didn’t commit. Then I woke up!
I need it to happen again.
Maybe it will again.
It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
One of them is might be good.
They tell me to focus here:
wearing underwear again in the locker room,
or walking naked, flexed. “You got this!”
To get there means hope,
but every permutation is a possibility,
most of them breath-taking.
When am I going to wake up,
relieved I’ve escaped, a smile on my face,
reset but somehow, still here?
It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
I’m told there is no future, not really.
“It might never get here.”
The past can’t get here either.
“Not if you don’t let it!”
Nothing to plan for,
nothing to run from.
Just this Now. Always capitalized.
A typewriter. Music. Peace.
Maybe a frozen fruit smoothie.
I should have a frozen fruit smoothie.
I’ve always liked those.
It’s exhausting preparing for every future.
*
Before land
ranged his sea-storied heart,
ensnared dancing feet with steady
anthems and fence-post church:
Kaliope conjured love with spells,
doused promise with heroic truth –
onward, always onward,
worshipped and feared –
never sure, never more alive.
*
How
are we spotted
rubes, mediocre moles,
rheumatics, lazy-eyes, to
yearn advance rebel
strike against earth’s gross design,
this festered indignity, when
you, unaware,
lay on a couch,
eye your stunning
sex, and smile?
(For My Policeman)
*
He’s not mad, your maker.
Not angry in the least.
This was all predicted,
every bit expected –
the rebellion, the fall,
temptation, surrender –
until finally,
finally,
you took his hand
and more.
*
They put a pencil in your hand, a big fat one
made for little fingers to copy out
letters drawn around the edges of the
ceiling.
They look pretty, so you draw them again
and again, over and over,
pages and pages of letters,
and get awards for how perfectly they
fit together. Everyone is happy.
You are happy. All those letters
copied over and over again –
everything should be that beautiful –
copied until you can spell out:
"There’s no escape."
Words that belong to someone else,
generations of else’s,
carved with your fat pencil onto every
piece of paper you can find.
That’s when you stop winning awards.
*
Want to see more strange beauty? Take a look at Landing. A new novel available here.
Greg Beckman 