A poem a day by a different poet leading up to World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, 2016
Michael Broder What Would Sylvia Have Done? Daddy, you can fuck me up the ass, but don’t expect me to lick your balls after. How many poems can I write about the penetrated male anus? One for each sphincter, maybe— Two anal sphincters, the external, which is voluntary, and the internal, which is involuntary, controlling … [Read more…]
Luis Lopez-Maldonado A Cock-Filled Emptiness I am illegal snake slithering like satan. I am Fire&Ice Trojan™ condom. I am the birds bees bullets babies. I am overcooked underlooked stolen steak. I am punched and fucked manhole cream-pie. I am crystal rosaries hanging from brown necks. I am mini-mí replica of my mother. I’m a half-smashed … [Read more…]
Bob Carr G.R.I.D. Come into me unsheathed strand, little death hood between boy and man. Simmer in the warm lining of my ass. Dance as I play percussion on the empty case of your clarinet, beat that burns the blonde of loved arms to nub, the singeing stink of your match. Come over me, decade … [Read more…]
John Findura Portrait: News Broadcast, 1985, w/Me Shaking I was ten the first time I heard About AIDS and how there was No cure and how if you Had it you were going to die And my ten year-old self Was sure that I would then Get this disease because the news Broadcasts don’t lie … [Read more…]
Darius Stewart Communally Bound In the early Sunday morning drowse of the Travis County Jail, paired off, handcuffed, each to another & shuffling in our over-sized flip-flops, we make our way to court, waiting for the judge to appear in his choir robe, yawning & wringing his eyes of sleep between reading, one by one, … [Read more…]
Risa Denenberg Twenty years of dead — J (1956-1993) There’s not a lot of love that isn’t brutal, but we had our East Village dives that didn’t open for Sunday liquid-brunch until 1 pm and Monday nights at the G&L community center where all the boys were cruising and you hung out with me anyway, … [Read more…]
Debora Lidov Newborn 1. Hospital Record Patient is full-term baby born to HIV-positive mother. Per infectious disease team, Patient to be discharged home on oral AZT four times daily times six weeks. Note father is unaware of mother’s status or baby’s treatment protocol. Mother has trained in medication administration and verbalizes plan: Father to … [Read more…]
Hank Henderson We Are Not All Dead I. We are not all dead, the ejected, rejected, the blood infected. Our self-claimed self-named ghettos decimated, desecrated from the Castro to Greenwich Village between them in Chicago Denver Kansas City below them in Miami Dallas Phoenix L.A. above them in Seattle Minneapolis Provincetown New Town, Boy’s Town, … [Read more…]
Tom Capelonga Prayer of Saint Francis Or tell it to the angel there beside you in his briefs who holds you like host in the palm of his hand and asks no more than that you whisper light into his wounds— how knees split open in our haste to distance bad beginnings how we enlist … [Read more…]
Stephen Zerance Mother Madonna of material, I snapped my rosary, made it into a bracelet for you at Sunday school, sneaked downstairs to see you lit before inflamed crosses, my fingers scented with your patchouli- cassette. I get drunk, Madonna. So drunk I sneak leftover drinks from the bar. I lose myself in the mirror … [Read more…]