Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Soul is the finest feeling body feels without peeling peels.

I am going away to Provincetown, Mass., for four days tomorrow. Looking forward to art walks and beach reading. Here's another poem, before I hit the road. Tell me what your pain is like. When did it begin? In the ear of bone or muscle or the eye of skin? Does it flicker, pulse or beat? Burn or scald or sear? Pinch or gnaw or cramp or crush? Does it disappear? Is it black as love’s rejection in a lovers’ park? Is it accidental as a throwaway remark? So tell me what your pain is like. Please articulate. No doctor, I’m your auditor and your advocate.

To be an irresistible force, light entering the eye, abstract from things without a loss, simplify: the planet is a sphere; peace is a wish; and in a body of water here soul is a fish.

"The Connoisseur Inspects the Boys" has just appeared in the spring issue of Crate , published by the University of California, Riverside. That issue was edited by Neil Aitken and Adolfo Meija. I went home to Queens this morning to collect my printer, and discovered that The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide has published "Glass Orgasm" in its July-August issue. Happy discovery! Based in Boston, Mass., thr review aims to "provide a forum for enlightened discussion of issues and ideas of importance to lesbians and gay men; to advance gay and lesbian culture by providing a quality vehicle for its best writers and thinkers; and to educate a broader public on gay and lesbian topics," according to its website. Nice to be considered one of gay culture's "best writers!"

[Removed for submission to journal] Village Voice article on Kevin Aviance and others

What can I purchase with my body, this gift certificate, yellowing but not invalid till the expiry date? Pay for me , commands the trophy in the twinkling mall. Leave with me , sighs the token, outside the capital. I long to hear what the grave speaks for tokens or for trophies. It has already spoken what the body certifies.

The body carries in each hand a black bag or a white. A liter of clear Poland Spring weighs down the right. In the left hand, in the black bag, age and bottled Rhine demand uncorking to release a run of wine.

I have no courage to leave my body, its panic and its pain. Why I conduct this thought experiment is to ascertain if I live daily with the body solely out of choice, the soul's hypothesis of love, or cowardice.

The cause of pain is cruelty, concentration’s wire. Bodhisattvas disagree; they claim the cause, desire. Biologists explain that genes are really quite germane while bombers show just what it means. The effect is the same.

The body is an authority on heartache, burned or slashed. The bottom of an amputee drops like a bottle smashed. The empty-chested veteran, decorated with dread, crumples like a soda can. Despair, don’t you trash my dead!

It is enough for one to lose all trust in nature's truth, that one so anatomically Rob should answer solely to Ruth.

My body breathes, a glass of wine tasted once or twice, and teaches spirit to define mineral, fruit and spice. My body rises, leavened bread of water, salt and yeast, and sets before the soul the spread, the sacrificial feast. Uneaten bread will change to mold and wine, by chance, may spill. No maitre d’ on call to scold, nor waiter, for refill. Before the closing, drink and eat, soul, learn to breathe and rise singing of wine, on wings of wheat, before the body dies.

Cut by an edge, the body hurts another with its knives. The second spears the third who shoots the fourth, and none survives. There is no safety in distance, in diamond or decree, no sanctuary within the fence of anonymity. Give me your name, beautiful Stranger, though the hearts misgive, come closer to the bodies' danger, cut me and cry, forgive.

Holding my body in reserve, like a firing pin, I meet in a bolt-carrier group love's magazine. Thirty shells of passion, each a silver kamikaze, I, ballpeen and hammertoed, kiss and kick to the sea.