Whit Fuller
For The “Pretty Boys”
pretty boys sleep on beds of roses
catching tongues between their teeth like fish on a line
scribbling words on their wrists and kissing with coffee stained lips
they have never tasted wine
or breathed smoke into a lovers mouth
their diet is solely words and cynicism
one kisses girls and the other is left to die
pretty boys drink holy water
right before their world falls apart
pretty boys are empty headed
falling asleep in each other’s arms
pretty boys are sacred creatures
god spares them no harm.
morality et masculinity
Is he a good man?
I do not know what a good man is
I myself am not a good man
Is a man made good by his touch?
By the way that he whispers words to lovers,
Laughing at the corruption of their faces with blush
Is he enough?
I do not know what makes a man enough
I myself have never been enough of a man
Is a man made enough by his body?
By the way that it moves against another’s,
Reveling in the revelations given to them from his hips
Is he a lover?
I do not know what makes a man a lover
I myself am not much of a lover
Is a man made a lover by his words?
By the gentle timbre of names on his lips,
Acknowledging that there have been and will be more
Is he a man?
I do not know what makes a man a man
I myself was never christened as a man
Is a man made a man by feeling?
By desire of a body and a fitting name,
Wanting only to be recognized for stubble and sleepless eyes
If this defines a man,
Then we are two foolish men
Who will never see the sun again
Queer Poet(x) : There are flowers everywhere and I have not lived
I pick flowers for someone from the side of the road
Yellow petals and brown centers
Looking on one another
Like friends or parishioners to god
Sun flowers
I steal them a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet
Think of their cabaret
Dramatizations of everything
It is bittersweet
To see them in skirts or a dress
When neither of us would address
The wrong boxes we’d spent twenty years living in
‘Til now
The poet will speak of this somehow
He’ll think of them when he picks
sunflowers
from roadsides
or steals
a sip
of whiskey on a cold night
Him in a Sunday suit with hair dark
and short lived
Them in unquantifiable plumage with eyes bright
and nine-lived
All effigies for something they have always been and
who they never were