“Un-washed”
I don’t smell like soap. I smell like whore steam motel carpet beer, not imported, domestic, and stand a man to watch you walk in.
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Trick
Is there a trick, some magical flick, to that condo way up high? A wave of the hand that clears streets to sand for more than a moment by? Maybe a way (I'm afraid to say) to skip this world and my shame? To live where I'm rich, escape this poor niche, trade up to long-sought-for fame? Yes. A warning: People starved for that condo. And your rich-world, buddy? It’s all paid for with blood. (Fuck. Rhyming seems so stupid now.)
Gawain
In old tales, men entered the forest alone, cut their own path through darkness. No guide but belief. No ancestry but thought, a word -- walk -- as thorns became home and light, theirs.
Heroism.
Watch “Joe Biden angrily BLASTS Trump for allegedly calling Marines who died in WWI ‘losers’ and ‘suckers'” on YouTube
I know, I know. “Fake News.”
Atwood: the Tale that keeps on giving
Trump’s Audience and the RNC
One thing I think is true: nobody spends money on putting a message out into the world unless there is an audience to hear it. (Except for poetry writers, and even we want someone to read our words.)
So Trump’s convention is not spitting into the wind. It has purpose. And its purpose is connected to an intended audience.
Another thing I think is true: People with nothing to lose are the most dangerous people in the room (or in a nation). People who have nothing can’t have anything taken away from them. You can’t hold anything over their heads — which might feel like freedom, but it produces something else: anarchy.
This is where my thoughts converge.
Trump knows his audience. It is a clan that has nothing to lose, nothing to hold up as their own, so they don’t mind napalming civilization. Many Americans not in Trump’s camp don’t want anarchy because we’ve worked hard to make something of ourselves and don’t want that blown up. We have houses and bank accounts and loved ones we care about. It’s why I can support Black Lives Matter and hate looting. I have something to lose, something I don’t want to see destroyed.
Not Trump’s militia — and he knows this. Trumpers don’t care if the nation catches fire because they don’t have anything that can burn. Nothing important to them. They want the fire. It’s Holy Fire anyway, right? God coming to strip away…everything they don’t have.
What I think what we’re seeing in the Republican National Convention (for those watching, that is) is the activation of people who have nothing to lose. I think the Republican party has found a way to speak to failed, small men and women in a way that makes their failure and their smallness the fault of others, and then encourages them to actively hate anyone who might challenge that perspective. Or say, “Hey man, it’s not the democrat’s fault. It’s yours.”
If I didn’t care about the effects of Trump’s rhetoric, I’d say his course of action is brilliant. I’d say he’s filled a void in the lives of people defined by emptiness. It’s stupid to think the RNC’s message isn’t effective; it’s being heard by a very important audience, loud and clear — those who want to think they have honor even as they blame everyone for their lives. It’s saying out loud what they’ve longed to hear.
I think it will work. The problem, of course, will be that once those who have nothing to lose have been activated (Trump’s audience), it will be impossible to govern them (napalm is hard to direct). They will, eventually, go after their makers; it’s in their nature. It’s why dogs that kill have to be put down — once they’ve tasted blood, and all that. The only question to me is how much will have to be destroyed before they turn on themselves.
(Originally published in The Washington Post)
Cancel-Culture, Politics, and Sexuality
From the New York Times: “This is the concern around a trigger-happy cancel culture, as it gives undue credence to the initial allegation without due diligence,” said Julian Cyr, a state senator in Massachusetts who argued shortly after the accusations surfaced that withdrawing support from Mr. Morse would set a bad precedent for progressive candidates, especially gay ones.
Beginning Middle Man — Poems
Beginning Middle Man. Its poetry is surprisingly straightforward, honest and strong, adult without apology. All gay-eros, all the time, a way of remaining true to what I’ve known since I was 17: if we’re not talking about sex, then we’re not talking about ourselves.
These poems are like most men I know and love, rough around the edges and awkward in the extreme. But still beautiful.
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