Before Aphrodite and Other Poems

BEFORE APHRODITE

Lightning rekindles love inside a flame;
There is no center, radii project endless
Lines across infinite planes, and we
Are lost inside the nebulae. In ancient days,
When forests echoed with dryads' calls
And there were naiads still, things might
Have been the way things were before
The foaming seas gave birth to Aphrodite,
Or not, for no one here was there back then,
And all we have are poets' gaudy lies.

MOTOR CITY

Once sex-reassignment surgery
Is performed on assembly lines,
The newness shall wear off
Of transsexuals, and everyone
Who wants one shall have one,
In any color, as long as it's black.

MAGIC LANTERNS

Midnight colors the skies;
The moon in your eyes
Hypnotizes me, and I reach
Through you, your breasts
Mere haunts of lunatics,
Your cock and balls intent
Upon demonic possession,
But I never do get through
To you, or touch the softness
Of your serene shemale soul.

Born dead, we live expecting
Miracles, most of which
Never come, and the few we see,
We cannot quite believe:
Even in a bikini, the surf at your feet,
You cannot thrive in the spaces
Left between grains of shifting sand;
There must be an oasis somewhere
Under the sun, where the shadows lie
Cold and dry as wine left inside
Exquisitely beautiful, half-empty bottles.

Yes, I want you the same way
You want me: stuffed and mounted
And hung on a wall beside magic
Lanterns shedding shadows in the dark.

Couldn't there be just one
Fairy tale left untold,
One Prince Charming
Left to hold? One garden
Of magic flowers, scented
With the joy of life
To give us delight
When we are worn and old?

EVERY INCH OF ME

I believe in the beauty
Of transsexuals, for I am
Myself a lovely ladyboy,
But do not mistake us
For shadows of yourselves;
We are high maintenance,
Cold and shallow, and we kill
Men for sport, women
Out of envy, ourselves just
Because we look good dead,
In the light of magic lanterns.

JANE DOE, D. O. A.

He said he loved every inch of me,
And I believe he did, except for
My stiff, hard cock; my heavy balls;
And the semen handwriting on the walls.

NARROW HALLWAYS

The hallway narrows;
Doors yawn, beckoning,
And I say, "I won't be long";
The sissy boys nod and grin,
Knowing the score as well
As I know each of them.

Her gown made me cry.
It was perfect and sexy
And made her little girl
Looks sultry and deadly
Like the looks of the femme
Fatale when she's on the make;
I followed her
Down
Into the briny deeps
Where the sirens make no sound,
And, even there, there were caves
And sparkling roses bright
With crimson devils' pain.

The house has a hundred rooms
With terror and joy in every doorway
And emptiness as soft as silk and satin
Waiting to humiliate and feminize you.

Grab a piano and stay a while;
Sing to me the ninety-eight-pound
Weakling melodies of unrequited love,
And I will whisper the secrets to you
I have buried to the hilt inside
My deep, dark, rich shemale soul.

THE NUMBERS GAME

There is only one of me
And thousands of you;
But you still lead,
And I still follow,
So there is no privilege
In mere numbers
Or, often, safety, either.

Sometimes you electrify
Me with your eyes
Or lips or the touch
Of your fingertips,
And I seek the soft safety
Of the salty surprise
You enclose and disclose
Between your burly thighs.

There are thousands like me
Although I am one of a kind,
And I may say I don't mind
When I really, truly do,
So watch yourself at all times
On dark highways going nowhere
And everywhere at the same time.

The scarecrow is full of flies,
And there is a worm in every apple.
Live on maxims; there's no other way,
Despite my girlish ways
And my shemale charms.

STRANGE, SWEET DECADENCE

No one cares
Really
What I wear;
Sometimes,
I'm hardly there,
But for my breasts
And my erect
Nipples, calling
A moment's
Attention
To the masculinity
Of my femininity;
My cock and balls
Promise a wilderness
Of strange, sweet
Decadence.