I remember the morning Tuesday was invented—
how gleeful we sang across the streets—
forgetting that the day after tomorrow would be Thor’s day
and that one we didn’t own, too.

I remember the bathroom stalls, the sins of Leviticus
we survived
comforting our confusion with the indulgence that God too
love man, kind.

Let the purgatory full of half good men sing about their sins
with pride and laugh at the moons and stars for being without limbs
and tongues to protest their innocence and Idontgiveadamnisms;

For I remember being fed the tenets of heterosexual history in elementary school
yet wondering why queer gods are the ones named after the planets.

We sipped boulder rock from refrigerators doors
and watched the heavens hand out food stamps with IBM logos.
“ode to Mehmet” we sang, and licked the Mossberg—
fixating on the blue collar philosophy that lived in our empty wallets.

Trash cans filled with water bottles stared at us to find our essence—
the one we had lost while being fed quintessential American idioms
in state-of-the-art classrooms sponsored by slaves and Popol Vuh blood.

Six million years of human existence trivialized down to a single sentence—
* Man loved God, man wrote, man conquered God, and now man loves science* —
scribbled on SmartBoards afforded by fire burning from Prometheus’ female liver.

Trees sing with oxygen no more for the sake of making paper,
and eyes soak in the words on paper for the sake of making paper.
Trees make the avenue but the future holds an Avenue of no trees—
… for in the land of the free, anything but freedom ain’t free.

I find myself in the crowds of Central Park
The trees look taller than last time I was here
I’ve never been to New York

I’ve shed at least 54 tears in the last 12 minutes
I count them as they drop
Like seconds ticking off my clock
I can’t wait for tomorrow because
Maybe then I’ll feel better

The grass is green under the snow
I dug down to make sure
It took me 33 minutes to touch bottom
The grass was dead
It hasn’t seen the sun in at least 3 weeks

Maybe it is safer to be alone
I know for sure it’s easier to be alone
At least it was when I didn’t know what good company felt like
Now I can’t even read without feeling eyes over my shoulder

I don’t fit in here or there because of my odd mentality
I’m not mental, but my thoughts will soon be detrimental
I take a shower to feel better – it didn’t work
I go on a run - I didn’t make it back

I finally wake up; still crying
6 feet under and my heart finally calms
The dirt is fresh on my palms
I dig my own grave over and over

O stony grey soil of Monaghan

The laugh from my love you thieved;

You took the gay child of my passion

And gave me your clod-conceived.



You clogged the feet of my boyhood

And I believed that my stumble

Had the poise and stride of Apollo

And his voice my thick tongued mumble.



You told me the plough was immortal!

O green-life conquering plough!

The mandril stained, your coulter blunted

In the smooth lea-field of my brow.



You sang on steaming dunghills

A song of cowards' brood,

You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,

You fed me on swinish food



You flung a ditch on my vision

Of beauty, love and truth.

O stony grey soil of Monaghan

You burgled my bank of youth!



Lost the long hours of pleasure

All the women that love young men.

O can I stilll stroke the monster's back

Or write with unpoisoned pen.



His name in these lonely verses

Or mention the dark fields where

The first gay flight of my lyric

Got caught in a peasant's prayer.



Mullahinsa, Drummeril, Black Shanco-

Wherever I turn I see

In the stony grey soil of Monaghan

Dead loves that were born for me.