The Cold Ashes of Love
On Gay Pride Day I happened by Chance past the Ramrod Tavern on Boylston Street . A mock-phallic Ballistic missile: a float from the spent parade, was just outside the bar. It jutted happily skyward, mocking all machismo cultural constructions with boyant joy. On the hot summer night, from within the forbidding bowels of the dark bar, barely clad strumpets vampishly issued onto the street. Disconcerted, I only wanted to slink homeward. Then I walked a bit further just past the Dominoes Pizza and-- with fresh inspirational material--sat down with the office supplies IÂ’d just come to the area to purchase, and wrote:
THE COLD ASHES OF LOVE
Closeted today
Day of Pride
drooping by the Dominoes
young delivery men
Spring greenly
spilling gladly
on the sidewalk
Furtive
glance
vigorous boys
laughter swelling
the block
Paranoid I tense
sympatico;
deeper
joyÂ’s
neverwhen
instead only ashes;
fear
evocations of omnipressive
love
Past
manifold
promise of
ecstacy
tantalizing
heavy weighted fruit
panged me
sweet breath
hot
on my ear
Youth
Wild Sensuous
near;
desirous
boys like
you
such impossible
restraint
wanting
to gush
Despicable
we knew
Yes we knew all
it was hateable
our springÂ’s
bleak dew
desolate
The Maelstrom
swirls
the surface
flash frozen;
corpse cold
decades gone
below
the ice
life
won't
still
timid;
obscured
desire
hums
Dominoes
boys
torrents
yet unknown;
palpable shame
Vacant Delight
oceanÂ’s ersatz
vacant roar
forlorn
within a
lifeless
shell
moans
congealed
Morass
beached on
a solitary
shore
fervently battered
desolate
clandestine
flotsam
will no longer
suffice
nevermore
Postscript: A few weeks later I went to the Franklin Park Zoo with Deni and Steve. They introduced me to their friend Ruby. He and I are together often since.
