How I Discovered My Homosexuality

A flash of light in the dream landscape.
The surreal phallic symbol:
the penis-shaped apple in my lunchbox
exposed
when Aaron hypnotized me.

In the 3rd grade
Watching movie-of-the-week with Marlo Thomas as the mother,
and I saw myself in the role of the gay son 
who meets men in parked cards during rainstorms.

The poster of brooding River Phoenix that I hung in my closet.

Watching Richard in his red shorts as he chewed on his toenails
at the slumber party. 

Watching Greg at his soccer practice
from the sidelines
with my cat Munchy Crunchy
inside my sweatshirt like a baby.

Seeing the ninth-graders in the shower after wrestling practice,
imagining a remote control eyeball of desire
that floats through locker room like an invisible Tinkerbell.

Removing the overalls from my Mr. T doll
and puncturing the rubber head with his toy earrings.

Luke and Han action figures kissing beneath the couch.

A comic book panel with Superman shirtless.

Climbing into the inner tube with Johnny on the sled hill.

The fantasy of Johnny sunbathing.

Smoking Benson & Hedges Menthol 100's with Jeff at Denny's,
noticing the rings on his fingers and the part in his hair,
kissing Jeff in the Kmart parking lot as the blizzard concealed us.

When Brian showed me Playboy centerfolds in our secret fort,
and we found the dead squirrel,
cut off its leg, buried it beneath the hedge, 
and swore a pact of secrecy.

Pretending to look at the women in the Playgirl action sets
as I smoked Camels with Mike in the dorm room.

Jeff gave me the marble heart cigarette-rester
as a gift from Mexico,
and he told me about rim jobs
as we smoked barefoot in his bedroom,
but I didn't believe him.

Confessions

Confessions of a Recovering Cannibal Princess;

Confessions of a Blackjack Maniac;

Confessions of a Mama's Boy;

Confessions of a Spoiled Brat with a Hatchet;

Confessions of a Midnight Grifter;

Confessions of a Back Alley Bottom Sniffer;

Confessions of a Wall Street Wannabe;

Confessions of a Trained Seal;

Confessions of a Cotton Candy Man; Confessions of a Lisper; Confessions of a Caboose Chaser; Confessions of a Hirsute Ballerina; Confessions of a Television Junkie; Confessions of a Loose Stool; Confessions of a Bibliophile; Confessions of a Verbose Greeting Card Composer; Confessions of a Rat Hacker; Confessions of a Toenail; Confessions of a Battlefield Janitor; Confessions of a Frontline Florist; Confessions of a Yellow Journalist;

Confessions of a Presidential Eyebrow Plucker; Confessions of a Celebrity Glass Eye Collector;

Confessions of a Puppy Killer;

Confessions of a Baby Stealer;

Confessions of a Mole;

Confessions of a Swollen Appendix; Confessions of a Junkie Babysitter; Confessions of a Quadriplegic Dog Walker; Confessions of a Clerk at the Dead Letter Office; Confessions of a Mafia Tart; Confessions of a Pernicious Dishwasher; Confessions of a Blackhearted Bombardier; Confessions of an Opposable Thumb;

Confessions of Pirate;

Confessions of a Bitch;

Confessions of a Dungeon Plumber;

Confessions of an Enlarged Prostate;

Confessions of a Schizophrenic Crane Operator;

Confessions of a Gay Schoolteacher;

Confessions of a Terrorist's Hairdresser;

Confessions of a Dummy;

Confessions of a Pessimistic Gospel Singer; Confessions of a Gorilla's Mistress; Confessions of a Dead Flower Delivery Boy; Confessions of a Mud Wrestling Referee; Confessions of a Reluctant Serial Killer; Confessions of a Prank Caller; Confessions of a Cocksucker;

Confessions of a Portabello Mushroom Sandwich; Confessions of an Apathetic Underdog; Confessions of a Victorious Vermin; Confessions of a Parallel Parker;

Confessions of a Closeted Poet;

Confessions of a Dreamer;

Confessions of a Gin and Tonic;

Confessions of a Schemer;

Confessions of a Green Bean;

Confessions of a Fighting Machine.

Closet and the Werewolf

body of folklore
literary fairy tales
genre of the horror film
wolfish bestiality signifies
profound anxiety over
male sexuality

traditional versions of Little Red Riding Hood portray
cross-dressing sexual carnivore
Big Bad Wolf of folklore
unredeemable wolfish other
filmic incarnations
Lon Chaney’s iconic 1941 Wolf Man
werewolf protagonist torn between
human and the bestial
a sympathetic protagonist
despite unforgiving conclusion when
the werewolf must be destroyed
for the sake of ideological normality

a predictable pattern

anguish of the protagonist
dualistic model that mirrors
the struggle of closeted sexual identity

mutability of the werewolf
torn between
heterosexual normality and
bestial otherness
the conflict of the closet
the metaphor of the werewolf
a signifier for identity
exists in the context of a society
proliferating the horrors of homophobia and
homosexual panic

transformation into a beast
leaving a gap of meaning that
enables the viewer to attach meaning
to the signifier of the werewolf

split between lofty intellect and baser
bestial desires
monstrosity in film functions
to alienate
the ubiquitous symbol of the werewolf
multi-faceted symbol
possibilities for interpretation

anxieties of puberty
coming out as a werewolf
fuse the open signifier of the werewolf’s duality
with the double-life of the closet

formation of identity
emerging awareness of adolescence
viewing from within the shadow-world of the closet
unspoken hunger for identification on the screen
the closet
like premature burial
requires a precarious and dangerous escape
fraught with panic
alienation
denial
pressures of societal conformity

overturn the negative messages of the horror genre through
self-reflexivity
pastiche
alternate conclusion

the feel of fur against your chest
a warm tongue lapping at your center

Coffee Sits with Bill at Perkins

and wouldn't it be cool if
my bladder were a small dog I kept
inside my waistband
and let it out to unload in the urinal
but of course it would suck
if someone stole it
for black market bladder adoptions
or let it out the front door to get
run over in the street

but at least I wouldn't have to get up
to pee every five minutes and
I drink more coffee
with one creamer two sugars
and will the waiter ever bring the creamers
and I smoke another cigarette
in the smoking section with an imaginary barrier
between the nonsmoking section

and we invent strange black magic OCD illnesses
like the man with the compulsion
to pull out his penis every time
someone tries to shake his hand

and we try to talk over the blabbering of the
Rocky Horror Picture Show zealots
reliving the show over in the giant round booth
in the corner

and the vagrant sitting across from me falls dead in the aisle
but hooray I got my CPR certification that day

and I tell Bill about my latest horror idea so there's
this maladjusted adolescent archer who vents revenge
on neighborhood kitty cats

and we plan out our quasi-musical masterpiece about
the schizo who keeps a moth-god in a book of matches
and we call it Matchbox Songs

we talk about our favorite movies
and would we pull out the pin on the grenade
or face the horrors of the alien hive
and does the boy really want to stab his sister
with the knitting needle
or is it all just a sick fantasy

and we leave our tip in quarters
after four pots of coffee and
a pile of cigarette carcasses your
Camel Wides and my Marlboro Lights

and there's a new song you're burning for me
to hear all queued up in the Honda
and we're gone

The River

This is the opening poem from Pop-Up Book of Death. The first seven poems of the book describe the surreal and horrific pop-up book that I witnessed in a nightmare.

Find out about the nightmare that inspired this poem:
Listen to my radio interview

"The River" from Pop-up Book of Death:

A group of mourners,
standing on the riverbank,
rise from the page like
flowers in time lapse photography.
Even if the page is opened quickly,
the paper figures emote bereavement.

A clever optical illusion:
the lines of the river trick the eye into seeing
relentless current, which
continues to flow in a blink
like the echo of a flash bulb.

Pull the tab:
A pursuit of crocodile and corpse ensues to the right.
The paper body and reptilian scavenger ride on a track,
bobbing up and down through a cut in the page.
At the end of the track, a crocodile jumps from the left,
nipping the thumb of the reader with a sharp cardboard edge.

A fun activity:
The Crocodile Death Roll Game for the bathtub.

Get your copy of Pop-Up Book of Death