from Sermons and Lectures by Matt Hart

"I believe in desperate acts, the kind that make me look"

Both ways when crossing my fingers behind my back in the street

where the traffic's terrific, and I'm making a promise

that I know I won't keep to talk with you soon about

Kant's metaphysics   One reason after another in a multitude

of classic styles and miasmic colors   Stop and go emergencies

for any occasion and every budget   Vroom vroom vroom

See ya later, alligator   All I want's to write more poems

to be a good husband and a father and a teacher   This lecture

brought to you by anxiety over an interview   Heading home

from my current position/employ   I think about the people warm

and sleepy in their houses   The icicles dragging all our gutters

to the meadows   Snow or linoleum   Is anybody happy  Is anybody

torn in the talons of an eagle, a red-tailed hawk through the eyes

of a storm   And if anybody is, then can anybody fix it

Is anybody willing   The situation's lonely and I'm already forty

Weirdly, the whole world's right here with me   Right here

beside me, but nobody's home   I walk to the store for a twelve pack

of something, or light bulbs or toilet paper, coffee for the morning

Orange marmalade, English muffins   Tonight we'll think

our faces off, and then I'll do some sleeping   Longer than I can

remember I've wanted to amount to more than me, significantly

and anxiously, and not to be a negative and not to wear a mask

This message directly to you is a plea to hear back YOUR message--

any message you want   To hear you in my headdress   To see you

on my doorstep   3127 Manning Avenue, Cincinnati OH 45211

And when I pull your strings, you can set me on fire

And when the Jawbreaker's finished, you can

put on my shirt   We'll blow each other's covers

then we'll walk the red carpet   into the rapture

we will dance on the escarpment   our arrival

a surge of inter-mangled re-connection

Poem by Ben Gulyas

slowly
what is left
is cast upon the last star--
in long walking wishes,
legs of running water
they are dreams, really
shifting from face to face,
a commotion of voices...
oil lamps of flickering eyes
set to near boiling
far and away...
a strange old dream,
a bridge of birds...
the farthest storks
with translucent wings...lifting...
between mesmerizing moon
and mesmerizing earth...

a hint of crossroads...
a hint of boxwire...
the intransient dust of the mouth
slowly lifting
above those trans-Mongolian bones...
with horses standing on the grass
waiting so far away...
you can barely
sleep...

broadside by Ben Gulyas

Directions / Seaborn Jones

The wind sharpens itself

on a man's face.

A woman brings rain

in wooden bottles.

He gives her a fist

full of flowers.

She eats them

one by one

then exhales petals

that take the shape

of a child.

The child sits

on the man's knees

while the man

tells a story

that he cannot remember.

He is drunk on rain.

The woman

sings a song

that she has never heard.

She is drugged by flowers.

The child wants to know

which way

the world is.

The man points

in one direction;

the woman, another.

Detached / Kathy Prescott

 

I dreamed I was decapitated,

all the while reminding myself

to relax my shoulders,

so as not to interfere

with the cutting.

Not so bad, really,

only the guy holding my hair

would describe where

the blade was heading,

being helpful.

The cutter - another gentleman

(historically correct, 

so preferably French)

did the work. Inch by inch

he made it to bone.

And I could tell, but it was not

that bad - just a little weird -

after countless birds prepared,

more Julia Child than

Mary, Queen of Scots.

I think we were standing

at the ocean - yes.

My body, left with

faculties and sight,

watched the fellow with

his sheathless sword stride

down the beach with my head,

swinging both.

No one said anything about me

being headless.

Surrounded by the

sounds of surf and

attracted by the smell,

I played at the edge

of the water. Seeing

small shells and creatures there,

I picked one up

and washed it off,

taking care not to spill over -

more Manet than Bergman, really.

Charmed, more than I ought

to have been (considering my plight)

by every aspect of the place -

grains of sand and vast

blue sky. I experienced the

scene as permanent -  

fleeting - not at all. A kind  

of odd sensation, really,

(more feeling than a thought)

like matter over mind.

asl / Jay Morris

Hey, how are you?

I'm good how are you?

Fine, just chlling ASL?

19/m/usa

Cool I'm 18/m/usa

Nice are you white or black?

Black

-Logs off-

Hey, what's up?

Not much just hanging around.

Cool, ASL?

20/m/usa you?

18/m/usa. Gotta pic?

Yeah hold on. Sent. Do you?

Yeah, gimme a second. Sent.

I didn't know you were black.

Is that a problem?

-Logs off--

Hi.

Hey, ASL?

18/m/usa you?

22/m/usa what are you here for?

Whatever comes my way

Yeah?

Yeah.

Here's my pic.

Hot, here's mine.

-Logs off-

Logs back in

Looking for a masculine, young athletic preferablly white guy to talk to.

Message me...but please no dirty monkeys.

Are you starting to notice a trend?

That these seemingly isolated instances of events

Are nothing more than coincidences

Based on preferences bound up in different colors of skin

And as hard as it is not to sound like I'm complaining

And trying to wring some guilt out of the last vestiges of racism remaining

You can't help but notice a trend

AllAmericanBoy26's profile says I'm blocking more Asians than the Great Wall.

TanDream18 says if another one of those black gays comes up to me on the dance floor

I might just have to lock myself up in a bathroom stall

And puke because there is nothing more unattractive than a black gay dude.

JockBro26 says don't even get me started on those Hispanics.

Don't even get me started on how they make me sick.

Are you starting to notice a trend?

A preference.

An affinity whatever you wanna call it.

It's pervasive and no matter how many ways you wanna call it out

It shifts gears and reacclimatizes itself until it's as mundane as the weather and says I'm here to stay.

Just look at the It Gets Better campaign.

What faces do you see?

Because when I look I don't see many faces that look like me.

And you know it gets really scary when the subliminal message is

That it does indeed get better but only for a select few

Not for anyone who looks like you

43% of black gay youths have thought about committing suicide.

And how many have you actually heard about that did in this wide

Net of information that we call the media.

Because I could count for days the number of

Tyler Clementis, Jamie Hubleys, Ryan Halligans, Bobby Griffiths, and Jamey T. Rodemeyers

Who ended it because they felt mired in the unyielding hatred of a small number of small minds

But what about the Raymond S. Chases, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoovers, Jaheem Herreras, and Joseph Jeffersons

Whose stories were confined outside the limits of the mainstream

Who decided that their deaths weren't important enough to be screened.

Were they the same people who decided that my people's only role in their community

Was as a vector for HIV

For AIDS

Have you ever wanted to waive a birthright?

When those oh so subtle stares that

Say you don't belong here

Drive home the screws that reinfornces

The locks

You feel locked in your own body

Bound in your skin like a book

No one has the time to read like you

Were penned by an author on the side who lost the war

Like instead of Mary Magdelene you were just some common whore

That Jesus laid his hands one once or twice

In the testament and if you ever try to testify

They'll silence you and every practiced line

That's the cultural atmosphere

The social enviroment

Plants are at an advantage when it comes to growing because when they are raised

In an incompatible environment they just die

But people are not so lucky

They find any way to grow

Even if its crooked

Even if its with their heart growing inside out on their sleeve

I'm sorry

I can't be another Raymond Chase, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, JAheem Herrera, or Joseph Jefferson

I can't be part of that 43

I have to try

Anyway I can

Boulevard! / Charley Seagraves

Boulevard!

You broad-shouldered beauty—

You’re an avenue with a point-of-view,

And you’ve seen it all:

   The movers and the shakers,

   Catholics and Quakers,

   Matchmakers and heartbreakers,

All have lived here,

Now they’re gone with the wind;

   Yet, they always manage to reappear again.

Boulevard!

You broad-shouldered beauty—

You’re an avenue with a point-of-view,

And there’s nothing you can do

But suffer silently until winter’s foul ways

Slowly surrender to spring’s welcome breeze

As it sweeps through your tunnel of trees

Carrying the sweet aromas of honeysuckle and jasmine

Past dogwood blossoms suspended like

Swollen snowflakes patiently waiting to fall,

Past clusters of lavender wisteria

Clinging bravely to ancient garden walls.

Boulevard!

You broad-shouldered beauty—

You’re an avenue with a point-of-view,

And you’ve heard it all:

   The salesmen with all their gimmicks,

   The heretics with all their polemics,

   And a host of politicians and holy men and academics,

All have been here,

Now they’re gone with the wind;

   Yet, they always manage to reappear again.

Boulevard!

You broad-shouldered beauty—

You’re an avenue with a point-of-view,

And there’s nothing you can do

But suffer silently until the dog days of summer

Slowly surrender to autumn’s umbrageous surprise

As it paints its’ outrageous feast for the eyes

On hickory and ash and oak,

A raucous explosion of colors,

Of  yellows and golds and reds

That all too soon transform your well-worn sidewalks

Into multicolored feather beds.

Boulevard!

You broad-shouldered beauty—

You’re an avenue with a point-of-view.