I spoke to my boyfriend
and three of my exes….
I broke through the wasteland
of various sexes…
Left message for fourth
with no one inside me…
Saddled and spurred
with no one to ride me.
Written by Jason Wright
August 2, 2019
Ex-cised Ex-citement
Allowances
I want to kiss him
and taste of his lover.
I must abstain
if I want the other.
All taste the same;
the lie that I tell.
I know desire
will send me to Hell.
I want to read
and weep through the diction.
Allow me to breathe
and keep to the fiction.
Allow me to feel
all the lies that we tell.
Allow me to heal
and despise what we sell.
Allowances given.
Allowances taken.
From what is allowed
we may not awaken.
What is allowed
may infest us inside.
What is allowed
would best be denied.
Written by Jason Wright
August 2, 2019
Counterpoint
There
at night, in the illumination
of contrasting partnership norms,
be it the seemingly liberated,
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies
of sadly beautiful Palm Springs marriage,
or sexless lesbian bed victims
who either choose to deny their ghostly existence
or claw their way back toward sensation…
There
in the power bottom afterglow
of newly confirmed relational status
and haunted by parallel love lives
which will echo
and color the weeks that follow…
leaving overstimulated,
near madness, hyper inspired
unanswered inquiries
and nearly celibate nightmares…
There
under the weight
of all that came before
is where we must truly define ourselves as WE – as I
reverate all possibilities
and all combinations.
Written by Jason Wright
July 24, 2019
Depth Before Estrangement
Holding him up,
bare chested,
helping him piss
with as much dignity
as we could manage
in his drunken confessional state…
“Is that guy really your type?”
His dream was an unsuspected plot twist
which he felt had ruined his character;
an angry embarrassing accusation
which left me flattered, confused
and deeply protective.
His dream inspired a jealousy
that I couldn’t have fathomed.
He never told me the details
and I never asked.
This early stumble,
an unexpected crucible
which allowed for nothing less than
hot hard facts
inspired by revelatory dreams
which haunted us both.
My ego suggests his version of the truth
might have been why
he drank to such excess that night…
but who am I kidding?
That’s what alcoholics do.
And yet his light of day
honesty united us more than
any nighttime weaknesses
could have shattered us…
transforming anger into respect,
confusion into admiration…
and an unexplored threatening lust
into the building blocks
of a friendship long shadowed by
an insistent innocent eroticism.
Written by Jason Wright
May 23, 2019
For Bryan
Dancing Past
From January 1994 until September 2012
I used to go dancing once or twice a week.
Well, there was about a year in there
that I didn’t go as often.
I was in a relationship and I felt like going dancing
was like stepping out…
because the way I danced
usually led to men dancing with me.
Later, I realized that dancing gave me joy,
and I resumed my weekly routine.
But in the last 6.5 years I’ve only
danced a handful of times.
The change happened when I moved to New York.
My mode of transportation changed from private
to public…
and getting around all dolled up
became a slightly more frightening
experience.
In 4 months I’ll be 45 years old
and maybe 45 year olds don’t go dancing anymore.
People always tell me I look younger,
and usually I feel younger too…
but lately I’ve been feeling old.
Death has taken far too many friends and idols
in the last several years for me to pretend that
the time I have left won’t just continue to dwindle.
I tell myself I can decide to change.
To change back.
But I remind myself that I need to be out tomorrow
and Monday
and I should take things slowly.
And I know that I’ve somehow gotten old,
or at least that my thinking has changed over time,
that I think in responsible bursts
before everything blurs
and diminishes…
fading away into dust.
Written by Jason Wright
April 14, 2019
DECADENCE
Ten years ago
I slept with the devil.
Ten years ago…
not that it’s special.
Ten years ago
and my God was a prince.
Ten years ago
and so hard to convince.
Because I was a fool
and was falling apart.
He was decadent cool;
addicted to dark.
Things left in darkness
beyond my discernment.
Things left him heartless
before our adjournment.
Bereft of his heart
mine own did desert me.
Bereft of the darkness
he could not still hurt me.
Except to destroy himself
by his own actions.
Expect he’ll deploy himself
through his transactions.
Kept in the shadows
with seldom a light…
I wept in exposure
that held him in spite
of all that he’d done
and what he’d become:
We give love forever
but will accept none.
Written by Jason Wright
April 1, 2019
For Michael
Flesh & Blood Dreams
Waking in slumber
I drift outside to carnival
located in field between
my grandfather’s destroyed garage
and my great-uncle’s abandoned home.
Excited, I turn and run (naked)
to inform my sister.
The fairground sideshow thrill rides
represent the lake park
visited by John Calvin Culver
in his New York State childhood.
The hot sand beneath my feet
is like Fire Island beach
that would make Casey Donovan famous
before I was born…
and deny him the legitimate work he craved
before dying of AIDS
two days before my thirteenth birthday.
44 years old and I’m older now than he ever was,
having died in Florida at the age of 43,
days after flying from New York City home –
a home that, ironically, I now haunt.
42nd Street is a different shade of sleaze these days;
the tourist trap theme park crowd mills daily through
that tired old bitch under a new coat of sparkle.
The bramble still exists….
although I’ve never stumbled through it.
I seek out new places to get lost
only to learn that there are no new places…
everywhere I go there are ghosts of films,
of novels, of family living here long before me
and having left long before I arrived.
Almost 20 years ago I moved
to Longshore Drive and Wright Street,
thinking it new and odd,
only to learn that my father,
David Wright had lived in the same location,
and that the cemetery up the road
cradled the remains of his father before him.
It’s like that now, here in the city
and here in my dreams
which are filled with the dead
in a world long buried.
Written by Jason Wright
March 31, 2019
Word Play Catharsis
Scrapped with your script
as the prankster descends,
Trapped with your shit
and your gangsterly friends,
Who all know the queer in
reckless abandon,
Who all disappear in
strangest of fashion,
Transactions
implicit
are
trans-normative of
passions
eliciting
transformative love.
Written by Jason Wright
March 21, 2019
Tick Tick Tock
My ears – they are bleeding;
my mind is asleep.
My thoughts run in circles;
I try not to weep —
Can’t eat
though I’m hungry –
Can’t think
of retreat –
Sound of life:
sickening –
The clock keeps on
ticking –
No soul to keep
and no pills to take.
The clock
keeps on threatening –
The clock –
it is deafening –
And if I could sleep
it would be time to wake.
Written by Jason Wright
March 17, 2019
Ghosts & Demons
The rules were laid clear
before you splayed me bare…
The tools of trade queer
now flayed by despair…
But the truth is I want this
despite contradiction.
I want what I want
despite crucifiction.
I want you to take him;
betrayal provokes me.
The lies in your eyes
between thighs
start to stroke me.
I’m hurt and I thirst
for our innocence lost…
But my lust says to trust you
no matter the cost.
Vlad leads me on
and tells me to trust him.
Daddy come on!
I want you to thrust him!
I want you to prove yourself
more than a pseudonym…
Want you to lose yourself
deep down inside of him!
I’m nothing, remember?
I’m tiny and useless.
Nothing is better
and trying is fruitless.
Be cruel to the child
who wants you to scold him.
Remember I’m wild
until you will hold him.
Remember I love you.
Remember the game.
Remember the truth
and our lies are the same.
Remember that you
are both sexy and wanted.
Remember the truth:
I’m a ghost to be haunted.
Remember you need this.
Remember I care.
Remember beneath this
I’m needing to share.
Remember as night ends
that demons controlled me.
Remember that I will then
need you to hold me.
Written by Jason Wright
February 27, 2019