CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: of the EBook THE BULLIED, by Alan Johnson
(The Nonromantic Man is the art form most often described as a character sketch.  It falls in the realm of poetry, which I call poessay.  For it is not poetry by itself or an essay.)

The Nonromantic Man
Non-romanticism is the inability to overwhelm one’s ignorance of the opposite *** needs or desires. The non-romantic man is one who buys his non-pool playing wife a pool table and soon thereafter invites his friends over every weekend to play pool. He calls women ******* and ‘hoes. He rises late at night to fix a sandwich, leaves the spilled condiments for his woman to clean in the morning, then after a cigarette, with mustard still being on his breath, wakes her up for a *******. He gains weight and then demands that she go on a diet. In harmony with his poor values, he neglects to compliment the new sexed up dress that she is wearing but does notice that she is wearing too much makeup for him. He has to be reminded of her birthday or any other should special engagement. The result his gift is not well thought out, so he buys her a cheap necklace just like the times before. He has no taste for poetry, sensual lyrics or the practice of setting the ambiance which moistens the trail of splendor. He takes his woman out to dinner and complains about the dinner’s high prices, and work, and her in-sensitiveness to his problems, and…At least once a month, he rolls off the top of her and falls asleep while she stares at the ceiling and prays for a difference.

Bar Pickups
She had been riding pleasurably
For over fifteen minutes
And she kept asking for more
She kept making me hold back
But I couldn’t find much passion
In the eternity of fake moans
She was moving around on top of me
Head back
Yelling from a real moan
“Not yet! Not yet!”
All while routinely taking all of me
I pretended to be at a lost
And prematurely out of control
“Oh, baby, it’s good, it’s good”
And erupted
“*******,” she said. “I was almost there”
She had also said that about fifteen minutes before
“But don’t take it out though”
She was so wet with an open invitation
That it slide out by itself
She took my pride
And held up my limpness
Like a piece of meat
Before she slung it
Against my inner thigh
Poured herself another drink
And asked between sips
“How long will it take?”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: of the EBook THE BULLIED, by Alan Johnson

In between reading
I stare at you
And you notice
Even though you are watching TV
You glance (But it’s not
A what does he want glance.)
And I pretend to be interested in reading
Until a commercial break
And you rise from the sofa
And come to my chair
And from my lap
Plants kisses and talk,
Do what a woman does
When she’s glad
A man is her man.