I have a lot to say so I wrote an article for the The Body which you can see here. http://www.thebody.com/content/art59528.html
I thought I would post some poems about my experiences living with HIV and AIDS for the last 25 years.
Death Is For The Dead
The poem that pissed everyone off when I was named poet laureate, I still cannot figure out why!
AIDS AIDS AIDS
I'm saying it
The world looks
and sees what it wants
They have memorials written
They have you wasted and dead
skeleton in your bed
AIDS AIDS AIDS
Oliver Wendell Holmes
once said
"To find true happiness
get a terminal illness
and take real good care of your self"
real good care
pajama parties cookies and milk
afternoon naps kinda care
lots of LOVE LOVE LOVE
I see angels flying
above everyone's head
I see miracles all day long
in oranges
brown fat crawly bugs
on the big time journey across the towpath
ducks in winter
Ginkgo trees raining yellow
GINKGO GINKGO GINKGO
my dog smiling and wagging its tail
to the rhythm
of three sweet altos
"knock, knock, knocking on
heaven's door"
lint and dust dances in the afternoon
toy Buddha’s on 202
talking to wild things
toothless old men
who caught wild fish in Finland
who keep youth in blood
pumping flowing free
Rivers are always miracles
they aren't stopped by rocks
bridges boulders beer bottles
old tires dead bodies
or even dead refrigerators
they go around over above under
embracing all they touch
they never go back
to the beginning
to get it right
changing forever
seeking accepting expanding being
We have
mortal worlds
filled with gods
Buddha Christ Vishnu Mohammed
and Henry
the hitchhiker's God
they walk us through
to the end
shedding our named coats
our finely pressed out laid out
figured out
fitted in life suits
no expectations
no more mundane earthly matters
9-5 skull famine
weight loss facelifts fashion statements
free to go home
the early release program
do the mambo till dawn
safe sex erotic safe sex
free of judgment guilt and shame
Death is for the dead
and living is for every one else
AIDS AIDS AIDS
Hey I said it
don't memorialize metaphorize hypnotize categorize or sanitize me
its hard enough living with an illusion
no more definitions of my death
no more sympathetic death sentence eyes
I'm not dead dying
no siree bob
I'm living
just thought I'd let you know
DR
to Donald Ray Huston
On the second day I cried
I could not hold it in any longer
I was strong, brave and courageous
on the first day
On the third day
morning is too bright
I wanted to talk to you
pick up the phone hang up
remember you’re gone
The fourth day I read
the Bible felt corrupt
On the fifth day I walked
looking for your crucifix
there were thousands of them
with men just like you
singing on the river banks
in the hills
against that peculiar shade of winter blood
On the sixth day
I did not want to go on
I cannot believe I’ll never see you again
On the seventh day
I went to a movie
It had a happy ending
I was angry
because I know the truth
Body Count
To the hundreds of friends, colleagues and family that have passed from this dreadful disease.
How many today?
The phone poll says five and falling;
catching bullets on Main Street,
downtown and out on the farm..
The guns have silencers on them these days,
picking them off 1-2-3...
She says she loves him,
you know... he'll save her
from Mother's not good enoughs,
can't trust you enoughs
why aren't you me enoughs.
In the darkness she dances,
spreading her 15-year old thighs,
remembering something about safety
from health class.
But this is love, baby, love.
and the count goes up one.
In the doctor’s office
Jeannie tired all the time:
rash like pain like fever like
whispers in Jeannie's ear
some dusty "Pleased to meet you" Stone's misquote.
it all gets too real.
Death gnaws at Karen with tiny bites:
takes her son away, then her mother,
then her eyesight.
But you never look too bad
that's what everyone said
Nine a.m. Wednesday morning,
you slip away without comment,
having given your voice already
to those who had none.
John is riddled with bullets
tubing the great ravine.
Keeps dragging his sorry ass back for more
spinal tap bone marrow chemotherapy more.
"Living is living" he says,
even if it doesn't seem like much to the civilians.
“Let go,baby”'
they utter so lightly.
Lou wears a scarf around his hairless skull
like warriors do
until it flies off his head on a Sunday.
Lou rips tubes from arms and nose;
floats like an angel past ceiling to (only) sky.
Wounds close. Lou rises
There's a devil facsimile in virus form
clicking his hooves across my ballroom,
dancing over the bones of the dead.
my friends, the dead.
I want innocence again.
The kind without memorial services, casket lining
funeral marching parade.
Black on black ripped sleeve
sitting shiva, burning pyre,
votive dripping wax
musky incense choking
hair and flesh.
Therapist asks me
"How come you don't cry?"
I reach for the door
"I am detached," I say,
turn the doorknob,
let the door shut behind me.
In my dreams I swim in pure bloody rage
that never penetrates.
I can never move toward safety.
There is a man on the shore with a net.
He is calling to me.
When I open my mouth to reply,
it fills with red nothing comes out.
Awake I'm safe
for a while
as rain whips up the dead leaves
I take the pills
that save me from a stanza
about imminent death
and other things
but not you my dearest loves
always with me
in some form or another