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.