There's nobody home today
The fucking enemy has shown up.
— Ted Berrigan
Daniel isn't here just now,
he's gone to Montana to attend
the Testicle Festival
Bruce will be back later,
he went to the library to look
for the Sophic Aerolith
Jerome is in the hospital:
he was mauled at his PC
by a gang of stripling pixels
the kids are down
in the basement
practicing armpit farts
Doggy is next door,
increasing his drool output
in the neighbor's
garbage can
I really don't know
what happened to Spike:
he was last seen hysterically
stamping potatograms
onto his boyfriend's
buttocks
Marvin is still at
the doctor's office
getting his genitals
balanced
I'm sorry to say that
conceptual slippage
has carried Penelope
off to Santa Cruz
on a vision quest
you'll have to come back
later if you want to speak
with Arthur: he's gone to
the Berkeley Hills in search
of Ithuriel's Spear
Marly disappeared
two weeks ago after
an overnight screw
Terry has returned
to the Amazon to gather
euphoriants
God isn't here either,
He grabbed a whack mag
and went upstairs for
some quality tool-time
sadly, the Pope
has been overtaken
by spiritual crepuscularity
the President is in Sarajevo,
inspecting US shipments
of vowels to Balkan
language victims
the Underground Poets
have also disappeared:
they all got published
and moved to the ‘burbs
Social Justice stepped out
for cigarettes 22 years ago
and hasn't been seen since
4000 Aids victims aren't
here either, they died
in agony and wasted
into nothing
the squealing bearded
high-heeled queens of yore
are gone, all dissolved
in the mind's crazy
display terminal
where is Lecherous Leonard,
whose educated asshole
unpreferentially greeted
one and all in the men's room
of the Stud around 1973?
what ever became of Captain Bill,
who reportedly sucked off
US Navy personnel by the hundreds
during the Vietnam War?
or Dangling David, with
his silken pubic hair,
magnificent cock, and
fragrant golden balls?
where isMajor Tom,
who used to drive me out
to Fort Presidio every evening
at sunset and cannon off
into my behind?
or Stiff Cliff, who hustled
his butt on Polk Street for pay
and loved me only for bucks,
(I could have cared less)
what became of Crazy Curt,
the priapistic filmmaker
who tried so often to violate me
after class in the tower
of the Art Institute?
or Sister Anal Thunder, who
selflessly assisted the faithful
with their orgasms in the little
sidewalk chapel next to Grace
Cathedral before the authorities
razed it the ground?
what happened to Ranger Bob,
who disseminated his chromosomes
with ecological sensitivity
behind the bushes and trees
of Golden Gate Park?
or Rotten Rodney, who
used to climb on top of me
in the last row of the F-Bus
to Berkeley late Saturday nights?
where's Mick the Prick, whose
ejaculatory hyperkinesis
attracted an appreciative public
gathered to watch him shoot
to the ceiling of the men's room
at Macy's evenings after work?
for Christ's sake, where
did everybody go? The drugs,
the sex, the Revolution,
where is it all now?
and what for that matter
happened to that adorable physique
of mine, which everyone found
so intoxicating when I was yet
young and strong and beautiful?
my silken alabaster skin,
encircling an animated pair
of deep brown eyes, dancing
with mystery and mischief....
whatever became of that
long dark hair cascading
in a thousand delightful
curls down my back
to my hot uranium ass?
the suggestive curves
profiling the rich treasure
buried inside my tight white Levi's,
concealing the silken thighs within
with their intoxicating promise
of unspeakable delights?
my immaculate person, once
a wanton playground for every
manner of sexual ecstasy,
is now a sickening melange
of flab, fugitive hair
follicles, degenerative
cellulite and dental
vacancies
I've become a retrosexual,
the last of the queer
Mohicans, my tribal brothers
extinct because of Aids
lusty angels, little blips
that fell off my queer
radar screen, dropped
from the local event horizon
into utter vanishment
those whom I loved, and
those who fucked me over
and left me to die in some
psycho-sexual love-gutter:
I forgive you all, though
you don't deserve it
for truly, my dears,
this love of mine for you
has been a many-sphinctered
thing—
time's up, my darlings,
time to gather those boas
and cross the Rainbow Bridge
to whatever queer Valhallas
lie before,
time to zip the gowns,
hoist those titties, gather up
the wigs and pearls,
and stumble tittering off
to gay immortality, leaving a trail
of Tinkerbelle glitter behind
and to you, the unborn queers
of the new millenium,
you horny little fuckers,
hardly yet gestating
in your mothers' wombs:
please forget that we,
your fairy foremothers,
ever existed
and never forget:
to get even with love,
one must remember nothing
— December, 1999