The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 4/8/08

[BlueIris]

"Two Whores"

His neck was stiff
from watching the street
for me
who'd buy him.

I came by around
4 a.m. "No luck?"
"It's been slow
all night," he said.

I couldn't see why.
He was blond
and maybe twenty
with eyes you would steal.

Not like the ghosts
on most corners,—
guys so bored
they beg to be beaten.

I'd have bought him
but he needed
more than I had
for less than I wanted.

We stood all night
approached by no one,
while creeps were
snatched up like teens.

I smoked his cigarettes.
He leaned back,
and the sun crept up
on our weight and our ages,

Until cars wouldn't slow
and heads didn't turn—
we turned and walked
home, to our darkness.

—Dennis Cooper

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BlueIris...

Such a dark poem...

Very sad...

Esp. these lines:

...we turned and walked
home, to our darkness.

It seems to me that the darkness was inside them...

Thank you...

:cry:

[BlueIris]

3. Yeah, that last line is a killer.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Reminds me of my teenage years

Mid to late '70's, streets of Seattle. Most of those young men are all dead now from AIDS. We didn't know. Lord help us we didn't know. I remember the first time I saw Kaposi's Sarcoma on a friend. Thought he'd been "picking" his skin from bathtub crank.

And all the "straight" businessmen, cruising those young boys and men. One was murdered by a angry young man, and I later happened to go to school with his niece. She refused to believe he was out there looking for boys.


Many of those boys had been rejected by their families and literally had no other place to go beside the street.

[BlueIris]

4. Oh, gosh. I'm sorry.

I wish more people knew the true stories of America's young GLBT citizens. Too many still lead frighteningly unsafe lives as the result of rejection and marginalization by our broken society.

[ismnotwasm]

7. So many sad stories.

It amazes me, although it shouldn't, the true extent of damage homophobia does. I have a lot of stories from those days, and I know where the "corners" are kids work in the city today. (We used to call it "Penny's Corner" back then in Seattle)

The faces are the same somehow.

[BlueIris]

5. Kick.

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.