I cared not for consequences, but wrote.
          —Blake¹

                    *

Visions radiantly true
Don’t change with age. Those that have had them do.
          —James²

                    i.

Believing in your love is a risk. To • make whole our broken heaven from what we • stole of their crippling abyss—to keep our • pledge—we hide our grudge. Imagine instead of • give kisses too much for them to witness. • How unforgiving the blindness of the unwashed public. • Eyes against which oblivion oppresses. This window itself • gossip smashes. Rumour wields a sledgehammer. Thor’s immortal • protection vanishes in moments flesh inhabits. Hedge between • both hands—my right, your left, as I • guide and guard you from this path’s edge, • shield your boots, your pants, your jacket, shared • time which watches from your wrist from the • filth of passing carriages—hands which cannot be • held, not unless we invite unwelcomed death, hedging • between palms one wish the width of a • single breath we together exhale, sighing patience. Two • kids whose tourniquet this personal experience ever is, • always tightening its grip. Always public. Perpetual how • the coming-out persists, never ceases, refuses respect. Nobody’s • business to begin with. Reasons why hearts are • shaped like fists write their lists in clenched • lips of silence, akin to how “violins” sounds • like “violence.” “Sublime” and “bloodline” are slant-rhymes. Pedigreed • parrots, our legacy is the inheritance of misfits. • We are bardic artists embargoed by reluctant audiences— • punished for what we express, life lived as • it is—committed to distancing from our sphere • of existence those whose talking heads are blocks • dropped atop bodies enslaved by the world of • form to take on the shapes of unfinished • pyramids. Capitalism is the last religion and failing. • Materialism is a myth. To make panties drop • and pussies drip, we do this. Poke bears, • stroke dicks. For men who—in the form • of books—arrange themselves like us, in libraries • of Selves fortified against a world we distrust, • this practice of being at once alienating and • enlightened allures those most in need of our • smut. What we publish we know masses will • pass-off as rubbish, but true wealth consists in • •

                    ii.

its worth’s acknowledgment by the few deserving of • its lush. Riches of wisdom hidden in provocative • passages engineered to repulse with their unapologetic extravagance. • Performative secrets resist analysis by the uninitiated. Time • to go on. How immortal one moment spent • on stage—wasted on persuading strangers’ faces to • change—becomes this, becomes us, one’s fatal taste • of eternity before erased. Illusions fade. Nitrate film • explodes, celluloid only deteriorates. Youth never escapes, no • matter the frame rate. Now, wait. Pause not • to hesitate, but to divine what prey on • which to predate. Meditate. Mediate. Masturbate. Repeat. I • will be thinking of you, of course, during • my own Sadean exertions and whilst scribbling, now • that my hand’s strength has returned again! Of • all serpents—vile servants of verboten words, those • vindictive, chaotic, Satanic, sage scribblers of squiggled sigils, • magical creatures of old every culture fears, wriggling • wizards writhing in rites none dare defy by • describing as declining lest, in their unwinding attempts • at dividing the twined pythons, render useless the • caduceus they climb, robbing of significance the sign • and the signified, denying those original, primordial, tribal • magicians, those jewelled shamans writing oracles weighted in • shimmering scales, their ancient right—whose own calligraphic • tails a mystical meal theirs in eremitical famine • make fasting feel fated, feel full, taste real. • Take, for example, the green anaconda—dear, revered, • reverend trickster Eunectes murinus—who carries a name • which, per the faulty synthetic, arrhythmic, Romanticized Neo-Latin • of Eighteenth Century European taxonomy (then only a • burgeoning field of inquiry, applied even when colonizing • both sides of the Atlantic’s imperial coin of • war-minted shores, joining in its indefatigable reach two • incompatible sides of history, for worse), in its • ambiguous coinage means, simply, in a strictly poetical • sense (permitting your forgiveness, of course, of my • own choice of Englished words—this bastard’s language— • of an abundance of literary license in my • licentiousness), “strangler of mice.” (My work is a • chore, to be sure—no prison of short • •

                    iii.

sentences but extreme verbosity to endure.) A gift • of a maxim (from 1748) which bears unraveling, • for we—who are called weak—eat our • critics, you see. Pariahs who prevaricate as piranhas • do those fools of barracudas assuming too little • of our abilities too late. Swallow them whole • since they are all so small-minded. Searching for • El Dorado’s luminous pleasure when—already on the • treasure’s trail—cannot even find it. We who • need most the benefit of the doubt should • seek-out the meaning of these prejudices against us. • Greet each lie lined-up like criminals—fugitives piled • side-by-side, plying their pouts—to be treated to • a better mind’s more masterful disentanglement. For all • would reap much reward to see, in due • course, it is our ithyphallic divinity which threatens • manufactured masculinity. Too liberal, too libidinal, too liminal, • this power of our preference over what their • shame cannot take—that every trouser snake we • charm disarms in its wake their sleeping arsenal, • forces foes to retaliate for having exposed raw • their latent want of the same damned, dangling • thing. Tumescent, too present, too prescient, for those • whose ideas are yet too puerile, too pubescent. • Those for whom acceptance is yet nascent, repression’s • victim, since their denial is as obvious as • it is depressing. Moving on, then, from these • bottom-feeding adolescent man-children, how we go about growth • might be letting show this love we hold • close and in abeyance. Instead of treating it • and our Selves as an abhorrent abnegation, perhaps • the most challenging act will be the most • impactful, tracing out paths to destinies through exits • no one knows. Empathic dramatics opening curtains and • dressing-closet doors unforgiving herds want kept closed. Writing • our own script and living it, instead of • doing as we are told. Picking our own • clothes. Throwing-off childhoods of useless roles no longer • good for us anymore. Obliterating expectations by not • giving a shit about unsolicited opinions. This, then, • is my gift—if I may be bold.

__________
¹William Blake, “A Memorable Fancy: Plates 12–13”, the Biblical prophet Isaiah in dialogue with the author, dining together with him and Ezekiel in Hell, from “The text of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: with an Introduction and Commentary by Geoffrey Keynes, published at Oxford by Oxford University Press in association with The Trianon Press, Paris in 1992; page xxi.
²Clive James, “The Buzz”, Stanza 3, Lines 23–24, in Nefertiti in the Flak Tower: Collected Verse 2008–2011, published at New York by Liveright Publishing Corporation in 2013; page 45.