Monday, May 9, 2011

Countee Cullen and Queer Theory III




Countee Cullen
and Queer Theory III

Snake Moan

“The lily, being white not red,
Contemns the vivid flower,
And men alive believe the dead
Have lost their vital power”
—Countee Cullen,
“Epilogue,”
Copper Sun

Lily-white cute boyz—
They’re cool & reserved young studs
Except at the end

Even then restrained—
Always holding something back
Some whiteboy secret

Getting them loaded—
Only makes it more intense
The way they hide it

Whiteboyz reluctant—
Their smooth masculinity
For sale but that’s all

Their vital power—
I can taste slave master cum
It screws me up bad

Getting one in bed—
A hot young Italian
Puerto Rican prick

They can be tres hot—
But a black man when he cums
I hear a Snake moan…

Proud White Boy

“The prey is caged
and walked about
with no way in or
no way out”
—Countee Cullen,
“Advice to Beauty,”
Copper Sun

Of all things most proud—
The false pride of a whiteboy
Such a waste of time

Nobody but us—
Pays him any attention
What a living waste

But if we do gaze—
Too much at young male beauty
Things get ugly fast

One must woo beauty—
In the haunts & dark night streets
Where it hangs out proud

Beauty beating off—
What a waste of rare delight
We suffer the loss

So in dead cities—
On certain dim street corners
Known to the in-crowd

A lovely face there—
Exists with caveat emptor
Slim, caged, no way out

No way in except—
One pays for the inner grace
That male thing most rare

Poets gaze & sing—
How radiant haughty pride
Cheap for a few bucks

Then getting him off—
Even his gangly naïve
Awkwardness is nice…

Knots once neatly crossed—
Unravel like rubber bands
Releasing the jizz…

Edward Perry’s Song

“To symbols strange to us
May reckon clearer to his love”
—Countee Cullen,
“More Than a Fool’s Song,”
Copper Sun

I looked for beauty—
Where I least expected it
That’s where I found love

For an honest view—
Seek out a young male hustler
The feast in his groin

For masculine truth—
Consult the liar in jail
Bail him out & thrive

Court young male pleasure—
In crypts of grief where tears flow
That’s where cum flows too

A youth’s worth impearled—
Virgin chastity best known
To hide harlot’s sin

If you suffer pain—
Think crucified there in bed
Fucked by a young stud

A riddle plays games—
You aren’t hurtling down to hell
You’re climbing back up!!!

It may not be chance—
But rather coincidence
That transports us here

The Organist
—for Emerson Whithorne

“False-faced amid
a pageant”
—Countee Cullen,
“Hunger,” Copper Sun

He played the organ—
At the local Harlem church
By day but at night…

He played another—
Organ straight out of Sodom
And rude Gomorrah

It filled the lonely—
Emptiness deep inside him
Lotus languid juice

It cooled desert thirst—
Swooning him away from that
Anodyne restlessness

Sunday services—
All the dreary funerals
Sad artifices

But back home at night—
No impotent truce with the
Hunger of his dreams

He gave lessons to—
A young teenage handsome doll
On the piano

With Louie Armstrong—
Playing in the gone background
“Why Am I So Blue?”

He Was My Rosebud Boy

“For a mouth is the best
of sweets to suck;
the oldest wine’s on
the lip”
—Countee Cullen,
“Youth Sings a Song of
Rosebuds,” Copper Sun

I need sweets to live—
To survive the diffident
Difficult long day

A pair of young lips—
To blossom above the mire
The shitty old world

“Growing old isn’t”—
Like Bette Davis once said
“For sissies, my dears.”

I may be just a—
Querulous old queer queen bee
But I’m no dummy

I still get turned on—
When a young guy squeezes me
Gives me a French kiss…

I aint got no time—
For that Old Dame Thanatos
She can just Fuck Off

Gimme Rosebud Lips—
A guy blooming in the Spring
And his Brother too!!!

Imagist Soiree

“All flesh bears:
Made to die”
—Countee Cullen,
“Advice to Beauty,”
Copper Sun

I dreamed late one night—
I met Amy Lowell & Pound
A cocktail party

I looked at them and—
They looked back at me as if
I were an old friend

“Basho?” they both said—
“We thought you were away still
On your Journey North?”

So I shrugged & said—
“Fukushima fucked me up
Future Japan’s gone…”

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