Poems by Gerald Carlin

Here are the three poems I submitted to The Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest.  The winners were announced at a dinner this past Saturday.

Algebra

An expression

has no sum, a+b like

a married couple, an

expression until they’re

an equation: EX:

c = (a)(b)

Until mom (a) and dad (b)

get it on they’re just another 

collateral couple easy to

recognize.

Strangers visiting the prolific

(a)(b) = 14 equation at the bottom 

of the culdesac, might formulate

this driving by our rambler, its

dahlias & pinks our neighborhood’s 

oldest residence: EX:

interior + exterior = c + d

c (wife keeps house) + d (husband mows) = a + b

The variables are wrong.

We’re (-x + -x), the neighborhood

negative integers who won’t ever 

become an equation even if a sum, law (l)

is penciled out inside storied rooms 

off hallowed halls or the stork drops

a y on our front porch.

Despite an l = -x + -x

(a)(b) will forever equate

instantly of positive numbers, easy

like one skillet cooking, just add water.

So imbedded that tongues

stumble having to recall which

-x is which, so hard to tell us apart.

Standing On Line at the Ikea Cafe

waiting for the meatball plate with

lingonberry preserves on the side

my dermatologist calls to confirm 

a cluster of bumps on my right forearm, 

crimson like the preserves on my plate,

is a Kaposi’s Sarcoma lesion.

AIDS Cancer, we used to call it.

He can cut it off, if I want, at his 

First Hill high-rise office-suite where 

affluent women come for peels and

dermabrasion. I like this young, mod-ish 

skin doc, his GQ cool, the wide rep tie,

its fashionable double Windsor.

He bounces on the balls of his feet

dropping sterile things onto a paper-lined 

tray, instruments he will use to eliminate

proof  I’ve exceeded expectation. Stretched out

on a padded table I feel a jab-sting, he’s numbed  

purple spots that stayed put, didn’t decorate 

my jowls, claim a lung & kill me. Kill me

like my nameless fuck buddies their

glamourous bodies, testing, toying with 

risk, until tell-tale dots on limbs & torsos 

claimed the gentlemen of disco and bath houses.

I swallow a daily handful of penance.

A wicked cocktail, inhibitors & anti-virals 

keep me a relic of an era when tidal waves

landing in-slow-mo, receded taking,

taking. A sea change leaving agony & years 

waiting for a day to know why I am.

General Lee

Would he ever lean down

gently brush his lips over

mine while we wait for lattes?

He’s the Southern Gentleman I 

wanted, manners for charming

ladies, mothers--mother may I

come around to visit your son

with his bushy silver hair, like the

light from a full moon illuminating 

the yard on a clear autumn night?  

My heart hears collards, ham 

hocks, barrel-aged bourbon when 

he tells me Pat Conroy is real smart. 

I melt like fat back on a hot, seasoned 

black cast-iron skillet waiting for

his move. We’re men meant for 

each other I’ve decided, but we 

won’t be kissing if his wife 

has anything to say & I’ll wait for lattes

with my silver head man tomorrow

and tomorrow after that, never

a sufficiency to cool my jets

A Poem, First Draft

I'm writing poems hoping I'll have a themed collection; experiencing and surviving The Seventies to present day, the poems focusing on HIV/AIDS. Few men of my generation survived to experience the stings of middle-age or national shifts in attitudes toward homosexuals. I'll also write about my abondoning the gay ghetto to assimilate into the general population of a suburban, bedroom community, Bainbridge Island/Seattle,Washington. I want young people and my heterosexual counterparts to know this history and how it sometimes gets lonely out here.

The poem I've just posted here is sort of a lark. Over several months I followed on Craig's List, postings under "Missed Connections" m4m (men for men).  I understand this activity is big fun for editors of independent publications who publish odd, funny, and sad items as entertainment, usually posts from African-American-Puerto Rican Catholic 25 year-old homos desperate to marry Anderson Cooper.

My poem is a compliation of half dozen postings over a period of a year. Certain lines are verbatim. Others are stuff of my imagination to connect the diverse stories.  It might be safe to say this poem is a hybrid although, in the poem's title, I call this a riff.

As with any of the stuff I write, portions reveal tiny bits of my reality, anxiety and sense of humor.  I hope you enjoy it. Tell me what you think or send questions. I might answer them.

CL Missing Connections: A Riff Upon a Posting

You said I needed to lose twenty pounds.
Secretly inside I thought, he’s right,
doctor’s been bugging me about it,
threatened cholesterol meds if
I didn’t step up the cardio. I said
you talk too fucking much. You seemed
majorly pissed when you rammed
your shopping cart into my Ford Ranger,
howling like coyotes hiding in the wetlands
behind my house while they eat hens
stolen from my geek-neighbor’s yard.

You’re no idiot savant yourself  I shouted
immediately realizing the total misuse of the term
making a pathetic public scene more
tragic. Staring at you, I wondered could you tell
I was having a hard time getting boners?
That I’ve been taking anti-depressants
blaming them for my ED---my artist neighbor
said, when we met, that his paintings are in
Drew Barrymore’s collection. I decided then
never like anybody who didn’t like me first.
Well adios artist neighbor, so long parking lot.

Uhm, regrettable choice. I thought
what if that douche ex-bf was the love
of my life? Maybe he was my Bouvard
& Pecuchet, Rosencrantz & Gildenstern,
Paul & Barnabas, Kurt & Karofsky
all rolled into one. Stopping to get my mail,
thinking I might go home through the parking lot,
maybe to find you waiting, for me---
unlikely besides the cops told me
like thirty-two times stay away
from that fucking store---

I have almost four years now, trying
to clean up my act, truly trying.
It’s not like anybody cares, you don’t
but, it’s true.

Sometimes, This is What it Takes

I didn't have a productive day and I felt guilty, ashamed. This evening, to shake off  feeling like a lazy slob, I mowed our lawn which takes two hours to complete. It got my heart rate up, I got all sweaty and totally congested from grass stuff that's like pollen I suppose.

Paul planted the dozen plants we picked up at the wholesale nursery yesterday. Our housemate Chuck (he's totally straight) spread Emu topsoil over the perennial beds. As it began to get dark, about nine, Chuck and I went to buy burritos to bring home.

The three of us sat at our tasteful kitchen counter chowing, me sneezing snot on my glasses, and talking mostly about people who perpetuate silly stereotypes about homos; we all have great taste (so not true), are terrific cooks (again a big old lie) and give better head than chicks (true and if you need proof...).

So here at the end of a lousy day I wanted gospel music. This group sings an anthem.  It is rousing and refreshing as a delicate passion fruit sorbet, miraculous like Robin's eggs, tiny, perfect-blue shells inside their tiny twig-nest just before they're eaten by a pack of coyotes.

Happy Friday. Jesus loves you. So do I.

I Stand By My Statement.

I suppose I ought to make a statement.
Jello is tasting good, not just for
special diet persons living in retirement
villages. I know an old whore
who quit making Puttanesca,

ingredients became too pricey
he had to turn double the tricks
to afford dry peppers to make the dish spicey.
Pleasuring straight guys' dicks
for a bowl of pasta with anchovy?

Jello, orange, cherry, strawberry,
the old whore developed a habit
his pimp named him Gelatin Fairy.
Jello made him hump like a rabbit,
artificial flavors & colors did their job.

Now this whore works a Safeway store
stocking the Jello shelves nightly.
Pineapple, lemon, & lime is now the core
of his life as he takes credit rightly
for saving humanity with recipes, Jello ingredient one.


I recently learned that I am a Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest Finalist in the poetry category.  (PNWA.org)  So it seems fitting that I re-open my blog with a poem for your reading pleasure.

Thank you in advance

The next few days I will post three reviews of films that will leave you wondering, what happened to the old Gerald?  Why has he eschewed musical comedy to watch such interesting, diverse and disturbing subject matter?  Oh and I'm going to post the cassoulet pics for my non-Facebook friends.  Then I'll post updates on  my talk show development.  We will have a "name that talk show" contest.  Nice? Yes indeed, very nice. 

Two Music Clips to Ease Back Into This Thingee

Saturday Night Sunday Morning

SATURDAY NIGHT

My pal JAB sent this video clip.  The performance took place during the second Bush's second term, 2007.  It is VERY FUNNY and QUITE PROFANE.







SUNDAY MORNING

Dahlias from our garden, picked Saturday evening just as it started to rain.

SUNDAY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME






The congregation came together at the onset of the first Gulf War to worship.


Preston Sturgis, in his film Sullivan's Travels presents an interesting juxtaposition. Here is a scene depicting oppression. But does it? If so who are the oppressed? For those who don't know the film, it is a classic screwball comedy. A great movie for a Saturday night curled up on your sofa with your best friend, a bowl of popcorn and a joint. I mean juice, glass of juice. (JAB made me write that. It's her fault.)

Thank God for eighth grade music teachers. Do you remember Mrs. Hampton? She taught us the word doohickey as in, "Gerald, please bring me the doohickey from the thingamabob." Well she was probably pushing a hundred years old and she loved Leonard Bernstein. We watched those black and white films from 1961 of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert at Lincoln Center. While I sat in the music classroom at Pleasanton Elementary School I envied those kids in New York City who attended those concerts.

As an adult I went on a couple of dates with a homo from a prominent San Francisco family. (If you haven't figured it out I dig older men and this guy was old.) He was Lenny's bud who procured young boys for the maestro whenever he was in town. Mystery Man-date had a swimming pool in the courtyard of his mansion that was built astride the steepest of hills in San Francisco. The parties for Lenny, held at the mansion, were epic. The stories of talent, lust, and power, I heard but can't share for fear of being sued.

Then Lenny wrote his Mass. Her is a popular song from Bernstein's Mass, Simple Song



Shot in San Francisco, around the neighborhood/parish where I lived before meeting Paul, Sister Act, as silly as it is, has moments of joy. I watched this clip and thought here is the precursor to Glee.

Praise Jesus.



OOOOOOOOOOOPS. How did that get in here. Lord, I'm a sinner. I've fallen and I look to you to lift me up.....

Happy Sunday. I will hold you in my prayers--really I will.

Friday. Yay?

I was in court Thursday. (Don't ask.) We're happy that Friday is here and my little soul has been strengthened, like a muscle after a zillion work-outs at the gym, it is toned, ready for the next stretch of life. Here is a prayer, composed by Miles Lowell Yates, an American theologian, 1890-1956:

Oh God, It is good to feel the disciplines that school the spirit: I thank thee for the trials and troubles which have wrought in me some hardihood of the soul.

Check that out. Thanks for the literal hell I've been through 'cause it has wrought--love that word--some hardihood----hardihood. I could look at this prayer as some sort of masochist's mantra. Rather I synthesize it down to "no pain, no gain."

The Omaha Nations (injuns, redskins, the locals whom the pale face obliterated, see: Manifest Destiny; How!) have a similar prayer:

I thank you for the suffering and trials of my life,which are also gifts and which, together with my mistakes, are among my most important teachers.


This workout of the soul made me hungry. Paul made this:

Blueberry Thing. Yum.

Blueberries are easy to grow in The Northwest--we have huckleberries and raspberries nearly ready to harvest here at Lightmoor Manor. Blueberry pie, normal as, Nellie Forbush, Rodgers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, my Thursday morning in Court=All American. For the week-end here are reading suggestions, American writers.

America. Oy. America

Huckleberry Finn is the bomb. I've recently read it for the first time as an adult. Its themes are contemporary, it is silly and serious, kinda sexy, and brilliantly flawed. The conclusion is is disaster but hey, who am I to dis Samuel Clemons?

Ginsberg might have been border-line pedophile,obsessed with his feces, but if you can look beyond that...he can make you weep.

To Kill a Mockingbird sings and soothes with the warmth of Southern Hospitality, flies buzzing around the porch on a lazy sot and humid afternoon. Atticus kills the dog and kills the dog and protects his young ones.

So, you're not feeling like reading. Well, here, this is an alternative to reading.

Francini is a sincere, humble, and kind 23 year-old Costa Rican woman with family values.

Church. She ( see above ) attends every Sunday. While you are getting ready to do your Sunday whatever listen to this excellent reggae-Jamaican-pop sound from 1967, The Gaylettes.




Whatever you all do this week-end I'll leave you with a poem by Walt Whitman. It is titled Thought.

Of Justice---as if Justice could be any thing but the same
ample law, expounded by natural judges and saviors,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to deci-
sions.