Beside the crowded café brothel
dogs fuck to the thud of disco
pumped from broken speakers
The man with the withered leg
begging on the sidewalk is faking it
but I drop him money anyway.
There aren’t enough good actors in this world.
A little whippet of a boy
tilts his head and chants
‘hello, hello, hello, hello, hello’
until the word is smeared into nonsense.
So much for cultural imperialism.
The small wooden altar
nestles companionably with other abandoments
by the side of the stinking canal.
Glanced by streetlight, it invites me
to give it another chance.
‘I could be lucky for you,’ it whispers like a whore.
His mop of black hair jerks up and down,
the rentboy’s sucking cock by the wall of my dimly lit alley.
The owner smokes and watches, feigning boredom.
He crushes out his spent cigarette and fishes another
from the pack in his shirt pocket. ‘Got a light?’ he calls.
I hand him my lighter and he uses it,
ejaculating a thick stream of smoke.
My cat came home missing part of his right ear.
But he seemed alright with it.
Perhaps it’s a mark of manhood
or a rite of passage
in cat society around these parts.
It’s not like he can lose his balls;
I removed those already.
He’s never really forgiven me.
now I’m thinking of seductive altars.
Hi there RG,
Thats powerful stuff, were you having a bad night when you wrote this?
That’s so evocative. It makes one feel one’s there in the street. It makes one want to be there, smelling it, tasting it all in real life.
Brilliantly evocative. Ever since I read your essay “Setting &Theme”, I’ve been thinking about it with reference to my own writing and to other erotica. This poem paints a very vivid picture, and repeats the same point. Thank you.
o.g.
Dark humor…*Smiles*
I think I I like the part about the cat best. “He seems ok with it.” “He’s never really forgiven me” I love it.
Wow! I can see that street. You do an awesome job at describing it. The part about the cat made me laugh.
I dig it. The part about the cat is soo true, my cat hasn’t forgiven me either.
I like the part ‘ejaculating a thick stream of smoke.’