New York Write to Pitch Reviews, Algonkian Writer Conferences, and Poetry Forums

Saturday Afternoon

“Is that the Empire State Building you’ve got in your pants?”
Well, I thought it was funny, and this was Greenwich Village,
so there was at least a fifty percent chance he would laugh
and, hopefully, stop to exchange numbers. But no —
I wasn’t showing a big enough building of my own
to give him the long ride he sought, so he kept going.
I watched his muscular buttocks bounce as he strode away.

This was at least better than the man who shouted out
his phone number to every rippling hunk who crossed his path.
Desperation started for me at an early age, fueled
by an angry/distant father who had no use for children.
(Why are fathers always angry and distant at the same time?)
“Love” was something a man did to his wife in the bedroom,
not to be shared with needy kids. I’m not saying that

my father made me gay — my five straight brothers were not
loved by him either — but for some reason I took his loathsome
indifference more to heart. To this day a man’s arousal
is a powerful symbol of acceptance to me, and if
he lets me touch it, that’s love; but how did those things conflate?
Enough introspection for one day! A handsome honey
is coming to my house; someone else will figure this out.

☙

Once before when I posted a gay poem, I commented that I wasn't sure a forum of straight guys would either like it or appreciate it. I still feel that way, but this happens to be my latest effort. Either I post this or an older poem.

I never intended to write so many poems on gay themes, but they seem to come to me naturally.

It’s interesting to read how a gay man thinks. But I find the poem too telling. It isn’t one of your best.

Thank you, Bob. I do think, however, that gay men who were promiscuous when they were young will find a lot in it that they can relate to. Nonetheless, I trust your judgement, so I'll keep working on it.

There are many mags looking for gay writers, gay themes. I think you’ll find success publishing it as is. It has a lot of accurate observations. I don’t doubt that gay men will find much to relate to.

We’ve talked about telling vs showing. I fall heavily on the showing side. A bit less telling and a couple similes or images instead of explanation might tighten up the poem. You disagree… that’s fine.

I liked Michael’s comments about your previous poem. Lovely comments, lovely poem.

Thank you, Bob! I agree that "showing" is better, but it's also true that I am a natural story-teller and most of my poems have a narrative element, and you can't really narrate without "telling". I also do a lot of prose writing, and that filters into my poetry. One more thing also makes my poetry prosaic: I often write when I'm not feeling inspired. My best poems seem to stream out on an inspiration -- those poems always have more images and more creative language.

Thanks again for the praise of the other poem.

Hi, I was going to post a poem, but New Topic button isn't allowing me to post anything. And the send messages function isn't allowing me to send a message to Michael or anyone. Are you experiencing this problem of posting something new(not adding to an existing message)?

I just managed to get back on. I wonder what the problem was. I want to see that poem.

Have you tried posting something completely new? I’m unable to. I can only reply, as I’m doing now.

Sorry, I was napping, as old folks are wont to do. I'll post a poem now. When I DO post new poems, I always get error messages, but the poem always gets posted.

One thing that has happened in the last day is that my light-gray theme has turned to all-white, and now the screen is harder to read. I can't figure out how to get the light gray back.

Give me a few moments to select a poem.

I'm not able to post a poem. If you can't reach Michael, I guess we'll have to wait until Michael tries to post something of his own and isn't able to. This is certainly annoying.

https://www.proleartthreat.co.uk/forum/

If you want to try the forum I came from. Same software. The default theme is all-black, but you can get a light-gray them if you prefer it (among others). There are not a lot of people there, but several of them are very good poets.

I can't edit my last post. There's no doubt that this forum software has suddenly become corrupt.