The men shout at me as they drive by
“******, walk like a man!”
They hoot, shout, and laugh
As sunlight blinds their white-trash getaway.

I look around and think
How ridiculous to be unable to walk
How insane for me to think that these legs
Move on their own.
How silly for me, the queen that I am,
To think that my kingdom was
Any place I was welcome.

To be queer and visible
Is to challenge
The stained muscle shirts
“wife beaters,” strung across
Tattooed skin and handlebar
Mustaches of the “real men”
Whose siren calls
Police my step.

Most men hate us
The Children of Naomi Campbell
Men, YES MEN, too unafraid
To straighten our walk
Loosen our pant legs
And be invisible.

To be properly gay
Acceptably gay, to be
Tolerable is to be invisible
To hide, to be “real man”

My manhood is ghostly
Terrifying even
My walk so dangerous that
It is unsafe to even drive by

My community is still
Dangerous, unreal
Waiting for the next truck to drive by
To beat me, tie me to a fence and leave me
Like Matthew Shepard
A ghost on a fencepole

Unwanted, dangerous,
My people are a threat
Legs too long threatening the ability of
“real men” to have simple desires
They will do whatever it takes
To keep it easy.

Walk like a man, they yelled.
I yell back the names of my family:
Tiffany Edwards,
Zoraida Reyes, Kandy Hall
Yaz’min Shancez

Bodies that didn’t walk the right way
These ghosts were once threatening too.
Simply existing means threatening
"real men" and their women

Swinging my hips is literally deadly
To be flirtatious is to be threatening
To invite violence, attention
To get what I want, to be made a man

Real man, I am not real
As if my only job is to
Show others how to walk,
As if the rest of me
Is simply fake, fantasy, irrelevant

See how easily queer people
Are watered down to something unidimensional,
Something that is only a fragment of
“real” people – we are ghosts
Moving among you

Threatening, ******
Never just going to work
But always somehow
threatening, challenging
And forcing fantasies onto the world

Why do we always challenge
What is real? What is normal?
Why can’t a man strut? Why isn’t manhood
Something other than what swings with my
Legs?

Real. Ghostly. Fake. Invisible. Dangerous.
What I hear is powerful, noted, interesting,
….maybe even desirable. (GASP!)

When I walk now, I walk with an army of ghosts
Led by the fallen, queens, and divas
who threatened the men of the past.
I live their lessons and proudly
swish my hips in honor of my adopted
****** ancestors.

We Sashay however we want
Because we've realized that
a "real" men is always
Just a step away.

The music of life, at times, is a raucously *** concert
of ominously monotonous melodies sung sirenically
by voluptuously ugly monsters.

Curvaceous enough to flaunt the fact they’re actually ****.
Which makes you feel like an *** but that’s just the way
it was meant to be.

Then the chorus bombs in, and the song starts to get sweeter
since the tune becomes a lot like Bob’s album: Street-Legal.
But as quick as you can nictitate, the ****** you anticipate

flicks away like a spark that was never gonna be lit-to-flame.
And so revert the monsters, their obnoxiously off-key verse,
somehow being, paradoxically, still acceptably heard.

And I almost forgot to mention how horrifyingly awkward
the gawking audience dances! Watching it is honestly
the most awful part of this non-senseness.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye *******, and not sons.

9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:

20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be ******, or ****** through with a dart:

21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)

22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:

26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

29 For our God is a consuming fire.

the sailing stones
were thought to be
a phenomenon
it was incomprehensible
that a rock
the inanimate
     of all inanimates
should show signs
     of movement
here was mystique
here was mystery
perhaps a message
left by
cosmic energies
or
higher beings
undecipherable
     unexplainable
there could have been
beauty
in never knowing
in letting
     the idea remain
pure
untainted
restorative

alas
we cannot bear
the unexplained;
where the miraculous
is founded
   in uncertainty
we must probe
and pry
until an answer
is found
whether for benefit
betterment
or
hindrance

perhaps a balance
can be found
between the known
and what remains
acceptably unknown
before
the intrigue
and enchantment
are marred by
the bland
     the sterile
          the prosaic

acceptably buried,
color: drab
effectively furrowed
gray.
heather, iron
jutting knife
lead, mousy
nearly opaque,
powder
'quisitively rugged
smoky
terribly unnoticed
verily withdrawn
xenon
yesterday's zeal

He was the kind of boy that wore sweaters
and had a blog about music you've never heard of.

And he was cute
in a socially-acceptably-awkward kind of way.
The kind of way that was charming.

He had quick wit and clever quips.
And he stayed up until 5 A.M.

i.

Mine ecclesiastical adamant, amiss I am
With thou not close, I stareth from mine
Window, as an old lost ghost; needing
Thine hand on mine.

ii.

Agin, I needeth thee, next to me,
Warmth of the age's, an unaging
Recipe; for a king and queen,
acceptably.

iii.

I feeleth as a man
Locked in a cage,
The steel to heavy
To breaketh through
To thy face, though
Stuck through this
Glass, beyond the
Other side, I canst
Only hopeth, for
Ourn day, ourn
Time, I knoweth
We'll meeteth.
One day we wilt
Shine, one day
I'll connect to
Thine glim, one
Day thou shalt;
In mine arm's
Be mine.



©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley ( Filipino rose dedicated)

Oh, we’d talked of other lives in other places,
But where would we have gone, anyway?
(It was rural Pennsylvania in the thirties,
And being well-off meant you ate three times most days
And could afford meat every other Sunday)
So we carried on in anguish and guilt as old-maids-in-waiting
As there were dinners to cook and cows to strip out,
Fireplaces to stoke, any number of chores to do
While our mothers and fathers waited patiently for that day
When we would, each in our turn, don a grandmother’s wedding gown
And march steadfastly down some acceptably Protestant aisle
While Gert Bauer, default church organist
Though she was past eighty and nearly blind,
Tortured the wedding march, flubbing notes and stomping pedals
The tune lurching forward at an inconsistent
And unusually adagio fashion.

As it turns out, Tojo and Adolph Schicklgruber
Interceded on our behalf,
For, as the young and able-bodied men of Elk County went off to serve
(Farm boys from Wilcox and Kersey, pool sharps from Ridgway,
Fully half the production line from the paper mill in Johnsonburg)
Someone needed to man punch presses and die casters,
So we were able to find work making propellers
In a windowless and airless factory
Which didn’t have women’s rooms
Until we’d been there for three months
Allowing us to set up house together
(We told our parents
It would allow us to save up toward our weddings,
And still let us give them grocery money each couple of weeks.)
Eventually, Johnny came marching home again
And back into his old job,
Which left us somewhat at sixes and sevens,
But, like Blanche DuBois,
We came to depend on the kindness of strangers
Who believed in the value
Of strong backs or the primacy of civil service scores
And so with our steady if unspectacular incomes,
We were able to carry on keeping house, as it was said,
(Our parents sadly unpacking hope chests.
Sullenly gifting us the linens
They’d purchased for our marital bed at Larson’s,
The hand-made quilt stitched and fussed over
For nine months by Aunt Jenny)
And maintain an uneasy truce with the good people of the town;
Indeed, we were all about “don’t ask, don’t tell”
Long before it was somewhat fashionable.

When it became apparent that she would not carry on much longer,
Or, as she put it, Now I’ve got an expiration date,
Just like a can of soup,
It was as if the populace had decided, after some sixty years,
To take their revenge upon our ******* of the natural order,
As if they were a pack of wolves,
Having identified the lame and the sick among a herd of whitetail,
Tightening the circle before moving in for the ****.  
In truth, I shouldn’t have been surprised,
But the pettiness and the tight, self-satisfied smirks
Were no less painful in spite of that.
And what was your relationship to the deceased?
They would say with their half-knowing, half-offended smiles.
I’d wanted to shout at the top of my lungs that for fully six decades
She had been the love of my life,
Without question and without deviation,
Not like the banker who dallied with his fat secretary,
Or the claims rep who, taking a personal day when her pipes froze up,
******* the plumber right on the kitchen floor,
But years of secrecy and compromise exact a toll,
So I simply, quietly, matter-of-factly would reply
I am the executrix, thank you.

We had talked of perhaps heading west
To make honest women out of each other,
And, later still, of burying her in Paris or San Francisco,
But tight times and walkers and wheelchairs
Made such plans unworkable;
It’s only parchment and granite, she said,
What do they mean at the end of the day, anyhow,
And so when the time came
She asked me to take her ashes up to the top of Bootjack Hill
And scatter her to the wind.
Make sure to go all the way to the top, she insisted,
*I want to get good and clear of this place.

*** tha **** outta’ hea

There’s no set way to elate
it’s all relative
we know that

(Thanks Einstein)

What makes you happy
now
make it a noun
persons places things

‘Being happy makes me happy’
is an acceptably weak answer
what makes my face glow?
have a reason
hold onto it’s grip

some days, I wish I could peel off the plastic
the polymer god of our modern world
some days, I wish I could digest my food
or strip off polyester suit and tie
some days, I wish I could turn off the screen
constantly feeding me the thoughts I need
our consumer world moves like elastic
bouncing from product to product, and sold!
I don’t ever object; that would be rude!
rule number 1: producers never lie
I trust the market, none can be so keen
and I trust the contracts I’ve never read
the things that make the world fit comfortably
they shape the world without a knick or kink
“to ignore the trends, or buy the wrong thing
is heresy! capital terrorism!”
still all in all I can’t help but question
“progress: something one must never impede”
progress to what? life lived acceptably?
“spend! or else the economy will shrink!”
they’re egotists that forbid questioning
so they can feed off their corporatism
and valued above all is ambition
But it's always the others they make bleed

What do theologians call a life without events?

The lights of my prison-like room dawn before sun's first blush.
I open sand-papery eyes as my AI announces the morning.

I begin the puppetry of morning routines:
I study my pale inmate face as I polish the porcelain.

I look less of a drowsy-angel than a zombie as I splash cold water
on the face with an almost determined lack of expression.

I’m absorbed in an ocean of predawn cold
as I 5-mile-walk away my sleepiness - this small freedom
- keeps me fit and acceptably sane.

Later, bathed in hot indifference,
and clothed in exhausting obligations,
I dine, at my reserved table, with my gang of irritations.

Soon I’m ready for another taxing day
of waiting for the disease to run its course.

i never imagined i'd be a poet, not
even likened to frank o'hara's
reminiscent astonishment back
when he played in the school play-ground,
i never intended to be a poet,
although i did write ****** poetry
on the sly, in books, in between
exams and lectures, but i came to poetry
in all earnest when everything else was
impossible, and because of the virtues i had
amassed prior, it became a "drug addiction;"
to state my virtues that precipitated into
poetry i'd choose three at the most:
compulsiveness for a need of repetition
(day by day, a day without a poem
makes me sick, to think of such days
as if i never made a step, made a footprint,
peered into my shadow),
love of music as greater than any kind
of diet - like a wild animal in reverse,
indeed stressed by the need for the daily
breadcrumbs, but soothed by music to
the extent of a satiated gut;
finally? i loved thinking, i don't know why,
not the sort of thinking that might exploit
others or give you things... the sort of
thinking that made my company acceptably
bearable, my own, the sort of thinking
that doesn't deserve company, friendship,
but deserves itself, to be staged for others
as if on the command of its own fleetingness,
scarcity, and perhaps qualified to be
given the adjective identifier of fulfilment,
as once noted: what's the meaning of life?
live it. in revision? what's the meaning of life?
your self. i don't mind rejections and upheavals
sycophants and lost ideals... but i'll tell you
what i mind:*

on such a dreary day as this one,
where a wintry shadow lost torso head and toe,
and settled in the air like a diluted
smoke of a fire, with auburn scents and
cinnamon mingling with ashes,
while i picked up the sunday newspaper
for the style, news review, culture and
magazine sections (the best day to read a
newspaper) - i took to sitting in the park,
bench, alone, looking south across the bulging
depths of seen but never travelled to
distances of my clever myopia,
i smoked two cigarettes, and felt the london
gloom rise, rise rise rise, above all expectation,
only because i had sunshine in a bottle
for company from dutch bavaria.

Stop telling the kids
That what you do is who you are
Stop telling the kids
That your work is the mark
Stop asking the kids
What do you want to be?
Or- start accepting answers of
‘Nice’ or ‘safe’ or ‘happy’
Stop telling the kids
What they want to do
Is who they want to be
You’ve confused the English
A verb where an adjective should be
Stop telling the kids
How they serve the economy
Is the same as their personalities
How will you make money for someone else
In your lifelong campaign to sustain yourself?
Is this what we ask at the age of three,
To know how to act socially acceptably?
Save the inaccurate labels of ability
For dinner parties and PTA meetings
And ask the kids
What kind of grown-up do you want to be
Or better, what would you like to see?
What’s it like being three and what do you dream?
What should I want to be?

The tides of life keep
coming around and I sit
on the shoreline
with my toes in the water,
eyes shaded from the sun
as I contemplate
something, everything
and nothing,
telling myself to breathe,
Woman, breathe..

Be that good red wine
that Gods dine upon,
be mellow and mature
Beguiling and demure
Acceptably unsure and yet
so able to endure
what is, for what it is.

Be you. The best You.
And remember
to make it it real.
Observe.
No more time
to make believe.
Reflect. Breathe.
Act.
Consciously.

These  tides will do
what tides must,
wash away the old,
bring in the new,
chipping away
until we break through.

I'm eating microwaved pizza with only oven directions
Cracking open a bottle of whatever is in the clearance section
Thinking over my life decisions and selections
Feeling like they spun me until I lost sight of direction
And please don't take me wrong, I don't speak with aggression.
I speak like an old man, passing advice to a child
Playing this life like a movie with a half-smile
It ain't all bad but, the bad has a longer echo
Giving you time to dissect those tragedies to death
Don't waste your breath on what can't be changed
Simply because, it can't be changed.

Remember, as you read my heart, that I'm the generation
With an entitled mind, with every door open, yet they're all empty inside.
they don't listen, no one listens, just continue to position us as victims.
I'm not a victim I just want a chance.
The same one you got, with the same promises you sought
My social security already has a plot in a grave I'll never see
So if you can explain what entitlements will I ever see?
I don't even own these clothes, my home, my life
They'll tax my mind if I don't write clear into the afterlife.

If I protest in a peaceful manner, I'm a coward
If I come violent, I'm a threat
If I keep my mouth shut they pretend I don't exist
So tell me how to exist by your terms?
What's acceptably respectable, you choose
because it seems I've learned, no matter what I lose.

Sometimes
When it's dark out
And night has fallen upon my town
I look up
Towards the sky
And can't help but notice
That the sky in itself is not dark
Like we assume it to be
In fact
It's what's beneath
That makes the earth appear dark
Which can be considered poetic
If you let it
But I've noticed that the sky varies
In brightness
Some days
It's acceptably darker
Other nights
It's strangely lighter
Which is ironic
Since the night is quite often
Associated with darkness

What is in the eye of the beholder, is it true beauty. What is acceptably pleasing to the senses? Who can define what is pleasant to look at or to be around. Does one sense define beauty over the other. If something is pleasing to see but contains filth, then is it truly beautiful? How can true beauty be defined by the mortal when each of us views a thing differently. So can anyone of truly say what beauty is?

Your gaze you fixed upon the stainless blade,
Unsheathed and raised, reflecting back the eye
Which locks itself in this impassive buy
With whispers telling how the ransom’s paid.
Confusing how the bloodshot in the glade
Mock offerings with flame but coldly lie
On altar acceptably bound to die
Like the frigid pure the Egyptians slayed
To bless the flood when cows and crops went dry,
And feed the god the gore to satisfy
The starving sense it lived to bring this aid.
You discern the image the gleam has made
As a sphere flushed in vein of rushed reply
That sleepless eye will sacrifice for trade.

You killed the heated passion we enjoyed girl lover, because it was
acceptably queer to love you as a woman before you became a man
I ******* brassieres, as I burst into womanhood like a bra salesman