FEAST NIGHT

This feast night. Candy floss
by the plastic bag and hot dogs. Onions.
A swig of vodka
round the back of the Waltzer.
Scream if you want to go faster.
I touched his hand
on the twister and he touched mine back,
I think. Dangerous lights.
Someone is raging against the autumn dark
with bareknuckles.
A gang of lads
menace the dodgems. They swing
mallets. He fingers
her against the caravan. His breath
is hotter than whiskey
in her breasts and neck.
She notices
his fingernails have not been cut.

ANTHONY MARTINEZ BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Anthony Martinez
23 years old
Auburn CA
$30

Met at Pink's
Blew him in the restroom
Fucked me

he said he was going to go
get a hot-dog
with extra mustard
and some blow

Had been with women
Get checked November
Call Nov. 13th

MIKE MILLER BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Mike Miller, 24 years old
ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA, $25

One of my games -
two telephones
in an abandoned diner
and he picks
the left receiver.

I whisper
him undressed -
his shirt, his jeans, his socks.

From the hotel across the street
I watch him work
his soft cock hard
through Eschenbachs.
I talk him off.

And he hangs up on me.

He'll find 25 bucks in the coin return slot.

CHRIS BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Chris, 28 years old
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, $30

As I learned early
to draw the dollar -
an 's', 
some numbers
and two vertical lines,
with Chris it was simple

It was like he had rehearsed.
His small hands
unfastening my button fly,
reciting a four times table
by rote.

We met no more than seven times
according to my diary
when he 'disappeared.'

Afterwards, my journeys west
grew short. I felt
his breath behind my neck the one time
in the car and saw his shadow
in the parking lot

lengthening towards me.

DON SPINELLI BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

His white sox. His post-soccer,
post-baseball attire. He removes his shorts.
Don is the captain of the football team
and I am the same nerd I ever was.

I start at his upturned toe,
lifted to make it easier to take in my mouth.
I am squeezed to the floor. His spit.
I am told I am worth shit. I pay extra for this.

Sometimes we never go further
if that is his wish.
I perform to his insults and fists. I am trained.
We meet in derelict factories.

His gay for pay eyes. His girlfriend at home. 
She counts my dollar. His dick.
His will not love me so I will not love him.

IKE COLE BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Ike Cole, 38 years old
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, $25

On aisle 3
you can buy milk
and you can get butter
and cream and cheese
and yoghurt

On aisle 9
you can buy Frosted Wheats
and you can get Corn Flakes
and Nutrigrain bars
and Coco Pops and Lucky Charms

On aisle 2
you can buy plums
and you can get cabbage
and spinach and thyme
and habanero peppers

On aisle 15
you can buy frozen peas
and you can get fish fingers
and potato waffles and swede
and oven fries

On aisle 7
you can buy vodka
and you can get Bacardi
and tequila
and Napoleon brandy and bourbon

On aisle 4
you can buy kitchen towel
and you can get toilet roll
and bin liners
and make-up and sterident

A moment where you forget
what you were doing with your life
and you've left your wallet in the car
and you are holding bread and beers
and you are meeting Ike at 6

On aisle 10
you can buy peanuts
and you can get pretzels
and crisps and Mini Cheddars
and Pringles

On aisle 6
you can buy lemonade
and you can get Coca-Cola
and Pepsi cola
and cherryade and bottled water

MAJOR TOM BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Major Tom, 20 years old
KANSAS CITY, KANSAS, $20

He'd scratch at the track marks
on his ankles and arms.
He never looked at anything anywhere
for more than a second
and made me nervous.

I think I loved him like a movie star,
like anybody you'd see in a gossip column.
He kinda reminded me
of the corpse of River Phoenix,
as if he'd been laid out for the tourists.

I tried to see him less and less
and each time he shrank.
Last time he was bone
and when I stroked his skin
I swear it came off in my hand.

He only wanted to see himself in a magazine.
He thought he'd be astronaut by now.

ANDRE SMITH BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Andre Smith, 28 years old
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, $30

Dusk. The coin falls drip.
A plastic palm frond shivers in the breeze
of an opening door that closes
on a scuff of dust.

Outside on the parking lot, Andre,
a black youth, muscle gilded bronze
in sunset, waits
for somebody to get lucky.

The drawers glide out and in.
Silver stacks and slips.
It's a well oiled machine.
In a motel, lubricant prepares the skin.

ERIC HOLT BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Eric Holt, 19 years old
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, $25

I'd call Eric on Fridays, some time
after midnight when the news
and a bottle of Jack grew stale
bedfellows.

I first picked him out on the Boulevard.
Drove him the cool night road
out of town in the convertible
with the roof down.

I think of Eric. The smell of his hair.
The way he sipped his water. His cock.
I feel shame, but never stopped
him coming.

MICHAEL GOMEZ BY PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

Michael Gomez, 34 years old
CHICAGO ILLINOIS, £30

Hello Michael, it's me. Is that you?

Could you come over tonight,

I'm feeling pretty scared?

No, don't turn on the light.

Don't turn on the light.

Turn it off.

What is it you're smoking these days?

Would you like to bum

one of mine? Don't turn on the light.

A bust heater stuck on high.

White cotton. Sweat in his elbows.

Please Michael, don't turn on the light.

CRUISING

for SM

The two of us, here, playing thugs.

Let's get roughed up behind the bank.

We'll bruise ourselves with shame and lust.

You can leave your wedding ring on

and I'll play pussy. Drop these masks

like trousers. Now we are real men.

Afterwards, you'll tuck your shirt in

to your still damp crotch, wipe your hand

on the brick. I'll rub the bite mark

on my cheek and worry what I'll...

We never exchange names, just shrugs.

We melt to life, anonymous.

Image taken from this excellent blog: here

ROCK

You did pillow talk,

keeping your voices low

so the kids couldn't hear

the sex. There was none.

No breaking of your vows

of silence. Doris Day,

marvelling at your straightened pinkie,

was in on the joke.

Nobody heard the sex.

In the darkness and the silvered hush

hands, fumbling under shirts

and projections, find a gasp.

Denim, forced tight, springs open

like a man trap. I have never felt

such excitement. The man in front

says keep it down, but we've come

and it is all over the screen.

THE FAMOUS JOKE

after QC

I don't like peas
and I'm glad I don't like peas
because if I liked them I'd eat them
and I hate peas.

THE LONG ROAD TO KENTUCKY

for GR

It was a long road back to Kentucky
and I did not know the landscape,
if it was all scuffed, mud-frost fields
with the occasional white clapboard church
or if it was oil towns. I do not know the States,
by capital and flag. Some gasoline was drumming
round the trunk and I was filled with hatred.
I'd heard the Bible belt was tight here,
heard that blacks and fags still swung from rope.
I tuned the radio to catch the sermons
between the static. This was Leviticus
and I was nervous. There is no religion.
The sunlight is wide and unforgiving,
no shadows, no soul that hides, no man in the sky
to shout his truths. Just us. Let us be reconciled. 
And here I was, in God's own country, alive.

HOTEL

It was a family room with four made beds
and three light bulbs that didn't light, a fuse
that had blown in a silent hairdryer.

It was home for the night. The choice of beds
whispered hints of sex. I'd never refuse
boys on the phone, hot–breathed as hairdryers.

It was a family room with four made beds
and three light bulbs that didn't light, a fuse
that had blown in a silent hairdryer.

POSITIONS

Do not assume the positions 

of tops and bottoms 

based on their physique and age.

You are not the magazine editor.

Don't think twinks are all the same,

that a lithe body naturally bends 

to the pressure and weight

of muscle hammering down.

These are non-tessellating shapes.

Not all bears aggress their otters

in the wood that masks with leaf 

and twig their transformations.

The Muscle Marys can receive

from tall or short or give it raw 

like tenderised steak on a chopping board.

Some men flip-flop. And some,

who once thundered like showers of gold

onto submissive TS's, now retreat

to murky, watery holes in the guise

of lobsters who have lost their claws.

BONES

for LA

I'm not sure if I love Booth

or Hodgins or Sweets the most,

but I think it's Sweets.

But I think it's Hodgins

when he id's beetle excreta.

But I think it's Booth

as he shoots bad guys
and looks hot with guns.

But I think it's Sweets

who reads minds with lips

like a pursed heart.

But it's Hodgins, if only

for Angelina who is amazing

and his baby. Sweets

for his eyes and piano

charm. Booth when his tough

hide sheds with a bourbon

and Bones comes through.

IT WAS

for H B–W

It was failing at maths, sweating outside
exam halls, aching for sex, a faceful
of acne that wrecked my fumbling attempts
at boys. Some idiot said, your school days
are the best of your life. It was blind fear
in corridors and changing rooms, hunted
by richer, fitter, prettier kids, who
had the right brand of shoe and designer
jackets. It was the friendships I fostered
among those shadows I hid inside. It was
playing it straight for the gallery, while
dancing another life under lasers
and spotlights. It was Cossack and Freedom,
a lie that I told. It was my first kiss,
the first time I shaved and wore cologne.

HOMOSEXUALITY

It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate.

We have taken our masks off, or so we are told.

It is known that we habit dinner parties in Chelsea

and the Tory party conference. This is acceptance?

The reds too will tolerate the odd fag indoors

providing she doesn't raise the prospect of enemas.

Douching is clean! Put on your masks and put fingers

in arseholes and the creme–freche, double dip nachos

and do filthy on the hors–dourvres. Here comes the thrill.

Welcome to the long slide into alcoholism and mortgages

and children.We can get one in Africa for pittance

and raise it as white and straight. God forbid we promoted

our own sexuality on impressionable youths!

As long as we rip out our souls to capitalise

on our lack of family commitments, the Kingdom

of heteronormity is ours. Welcome to Straightsville!

Get pensioned off with an affable partner who received

the Victoria Cross in Iraq. Live your heroic life with a hero

and may your marriage be showered with white feathers.

— Or we could creep off to the shadows, where slime

encourages lichen and silverfish. A single bare bulb

is removed with a rag by a hand that is fresh

from holding a slashing cock and is eager to be illegal.

ON POPPERS

Inhaling molecules of ecstacising death

begins the necrotization of the flesh.

An oxygen thief that paints tell tale signs;

the lips thinned to two navy blue lines,

and the crescents of ash at the base of each nail

where once was white and healthy. All

for a rush of blood from the heart to the head,

thumping in the neck. A cock, soft, lolled

and bouncing in time to each thrust. An arse

that opened easy as a tub of meat paste.

Orgasms that bump up against one another

like fantasies mixing with acts in the ether

of dreams that smoke from these brown bottles.

The final tautening muscle. The screams. The wobbles

that tumble us from sheets onto floors

where we gaze into a gasping air pierced with stars.