M-Day/MMXIV

I was in the Army
and now I’m not.
They were in the Army
and are not.

I am a vet
now and forever.
They were never vets
and are gone forever.

So I memorialize
those I cannot see.
And a photo I see
is a memory.

What can I do?
I served and left.
Now I wear a Poppy
on my right lapel.

Ave atque vale.

TP.

Seven Steps To Hell

Berlin boys and barracks buddies
and G.I.’s in tight twink bodies,
between drills on hills
and maddening marches
in green garb of macho men
from boys with toys
and bullets in weapons
that maim and kill in anger
or accident or vengeance,

there be I,
with secret loves and desires
and teenage bodily fires,
locked and loaded and
closeted and confused,
words not spoken
except in jest or anger,
whispered or shouted,
“Homo, Faggot, Gay”
from sergeants
in sinecures and those
in-secures,
and all the while,

I, a soldier,
with my “A”
pyramid patch
on my shoulder,
and the epigraph:
“SEVEN STEPS TO HELL.”

©TP/MMXIV

Birthday in the Park

The years fly-by like “line drives.”
The “K’s” still haunt me and
the “RBI’s” are few in this
bottom of the seventh game.

I try hard to even the score
with my lovable nemesis, Nature,
by tieing the game and
going for extra innings.

Oh, yeah, I am up there swinging
in this twi-light game.
Going for the fences,
and when I round third
and get Home, I will jump on it
with both feet.

TP/MMXIV

At the Tea Dance

Poppers and musk and
bulging biceps and bellies
and bubble butts.

The crowded un-dance floor,
waves of torsos.

Furtive glances from across the room,
sparkling eyes that mock age.

Gay disco, Christopher Street and
The Castro of an earlier un-gay America.

Free and care-free at the Tea Dance,
with like-minded and like-gendered.

Oh, Tea Dance, this un-dancer
is free to be gay and lovely and loved.

All baubles, bangles and beads
to beckon a boy home to bang.

Couples and partners, honeymooners (?),
dewy-eyed, hands held, happy (?).

Snow Whites and Cinderella’s
escape witches and mean sisters,
that populate their world outside.

Primitive beat of DJ disco,
battered by sound
as waves in the surf.

Alone, I leave the Tea Dance:
“Good night, sweet Prince.”

©TP/MMXIV

On Reading "She Called Me Girlie."

“I came into her life . . .”

What an opening line for a poem,
and a book of poetry.

At the beach in Fort Lauderdale,
with soft, almost silent surf.

With “Girlee,”
I fantasize that I am in Trinidad.

The words bring me there,
the waters show me where.

An afternoon consciously,
living a dream.
An afternoon that will fill my
sub-conscious dreams.

Do I take that boat to Trinidad?
I think not.

The tourists can relish the
geo-Trinidad.

I will live in the poetic Trinidad
reading, “She Called Me Girlee.”

(for Zorida Mohammed with affection)

TP/MMXIV