6.13 / Queer Two

Queer Two: From the Special Issue Editor by Tim Jones-Yelvington

As I looked back over the pieces I chose to include in this year’s Queer issue, I was struck by how engaged many of them are with the body and its surfaces, the body and its orifices, the body and its functions, the body and its fluids. What the body [...]

Comb City by Michael Graves

I am not…

A)  Black.

B)  Good at Donkey Kong.

C)  Living at the Argyle Hotel any longer.

D)  A stick like my sixteen year old brother, Timmy.

E)  Jewish.

F)  Afraid of Gargamel.

G)  Sure if I’ll find any cool friends around here.

I’m Philip Winston.  I’m almost ten.  I have blonde hair, I have two birthmarks [...]

Where We Left Her by Jackie Wang

start with the t no the s the s comes first but maybe the s i cant start anywhere because it feels-is someone looking over my shoulder? this is not the real thing. this is just the warm up. there are only going to be warm ups from now on [...]

Self-Portrait as a Cubicle by Nicholas Wong

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Keep me clean –

that microbial oval toilet seat,
overused, turned

ivory with occasional
drips of yellow,

a Jackson Pollack
on periphery.

*

Keep me sanitized -

says a sign – laminated
with ripped corners,

narrating how to spread
sterilizer evenly

around the curve.

*

Unbuckled, pants
down, knees
bent. Starts

the waiting for enclosed
ongoing.

*

On my body,
there are words, drawings,

phone numbers. And
a [...]

Excerpt from In One Story by Colin Winnette

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In one story, the two sisters were Shel Silverstein and they wrote a book about a Giving Tree, which was the old man they were both in love with.

In their book, the old man was giving and kind and befriended a young boy, in whom the two [...]

Three Poems by Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal

Pussy Fucking Fingernails
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My nails were no longer pussy fucking nails, so I bit them off. Then I put on red lipstick. I shaved just one side of my head and let my hair down. I wanted to construct a half three-piece mod suit, half body-con bunny dress, [...]

No Relation by Thomas Kearnes

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Luke stares into the lot through my bedroom blinds, telling me Ted will track his ass down. Must be good to know some man wants you bad enough, you feel the thirst thirty miles north. Thank the good and wonderful Jesus I’m so fucking plain. Every weekend [...]

I Invest In Elephants by Paulus Kapteyn

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he has a wide body. it could crush an elephant.
i’m 42.
he had the need to reveal his age. his hair is thinning.
he sells commercial real estate. it is interesting talking to a man
you know can kill you with his hands. you would like to be fucked
by someone [...]

I’m Really Quitting This Time by Antonia Crane

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(1993-1994 San Francisco)

“I look at you, I am unable to stir, I struggle, I am unable to reach you monster.”
-Monique Wittig

Bianca was a dapper girl-boy: tall and lean with fine brown hair and Colorado snow skin. Sad grey eyes that pulled me home when I curled around [...]

Three Poems by Jai Arun Ravine

from Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera, Season Two, 1965-1966 by David Trinidad

115

Joe’s death may have dashed
the party, but the cast at
last begins to act.

116

“You’re a sucker for
punishment,” Stella says to
Rossi. So am I.

117

John Kerr’s hotness is
seriously undermined
by his goofy grin.

118

“Look,” snaps Rod, “I signed
a statement. End of sonnet.”
End of haiku, too.

119

Allison gets Kim
to talk. Trust me, so not [...]

Seven Photos by Kevin Simmonds

MuddyEstuary.com: Women’s Forum Topic: Normal Relationships by J.R. Ramakrishnan

Kidd_O posted at 19-11-2008 01:16
I am a pengkid. My age is 21 now but I have been this way since I was 12. At first, I was just a tomboy but since I started working three years ago, I met Juli (not her real name, of course), my sweet, beautiful [...]

Sucking Famous Dick on the Rooftop of the Omni Hotel in Downtown Austin During SXSW 2011 by Tommy Pico

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I really want some smoked brisket on the stroll. Some soul watering pulled pork tacos, BBQ beef sandwich, a Frito pie from Stubb’s, meat sticks on the street corners, deep fried skins with melted cheese and chili, grilled stuff from the food trucks. Wide eyes, it’s my [...]

SH+JW 1881-1914 by Julia K. Patt

And what are the Adventures the Cases the Studies if not love letters if not odes to his remarkable friend his extraordinary friend his wise friend Holmes and what is Dr. John H. Watson if not a dyed-in-the-wool romantic-“you worked a love story”-so isn’t the whole damn thing a romance [...]

Five Poems by Daniela Olszewska

items will have shifted

my eardrums pop
whilst my solar
plexus aches
w/emergency
situations.      i am chewing
tobacco + finding all
these dead pigeons
in yr travel-
sized dead pigeon
carrying case.
the flight attendant
squiggles at us-
but you are too busy
trying to make me feel
boring. eh, anyway,
we’re both such prudes-
               something, something,
               something, das kapital!
look–here i am, my stiff
upper lip barely [...]

Dionysus by Megan Milks

Age matters little for immortals. When I met Dionysus, I was twenty-four. She was old.

We met at an after-hours club. She caught my eye or I caught hers. Her eyes were glittery and wise. She came over and laughed. I felt good.

When Dionysus laughs, it’s an all-devouring laugh, [...]

Stitching by Joshua R. Helms

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John’s body splits open when I squeeze him too hard. I stitch ceremoniously and he watches me work. He asks if I remember how we used to live in our house and sleep in our bed and never worry all the time about his body splitting open. [...]

Five Poems by j/j hastain

Dear secondary umbilical,

A slowly opening camber for the zygote that is also the antiquity.

If I make documents that are truly beautiful, is that enough to have mattered to the earth?

To have mattered to the ether as earth?

Or is it necessary that I find ways to be held here [...]

Mother Friends by Casey Hannan

I tell my grandmother I’m gay, and she tells me I’ll live a lonely life if I don’t get out of town. I tell her I’m going to Lexington, and at least that’s something, even if Lexington is only 15 minutes away and still full of men with jeans so [...]

Mirrorball by R.W. Gray

Ben used to call me only late at night, blurry drunk, too drunk to go home but not so drunk that he couldn’t operate a phone if he had one eye closed and said the number over and over. I don’t know how he managed to always remember my number. [...]

From Odes of Opposition by Nancy Flynn and Lisa McCool-Grime

Gertrude Stein’s Objects

Nancy Opposes Gertrude

EVERYTHING ORDINARY.

A fact a single fact was certain. Then the said did fall and where was a fence inside it, then outside was sent out and here people stayed when doubtfully nothing was lowdown. It was frivolous.

A SAID SUN.

A pale, a slightly pale sun, an ever [...]

Five Poems by Ezra Dan Feldman

THE ARROGANT MAN (MY MAN)
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In which it was half habit then half necessity to crowd the middle: the tent walls brayed in the wind.

In which I believed we’d staked everything down or if not locked half in the trunk.

In which we collided in half sleep.

In which God, [...]

Poem and Short Fiction by Emma Crandall

Poem for the Apocalypse
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Everything’s cute these days
like that Liz Taylor stencil shirt
at Houston and Broadway I want

even though the artist has completely
disappeared, or like discovering Jack Spicer’s
detective novel in the library stacks

Why don’t you people tell me
about these things? Why can’t it all be
like Nadine and The [...]

Tonight, Tonight by Chris Emslie

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I still hate the song. He fucked me
on the comedown
from his Boston ‘e’ party, quick
and neat as a well-done

execution. His young stubble
grazed my shoulder,
he feigned sleep when someone
knuckled his door.

The most romantic words he knew
were all right, let’s go
but I drew them in like his soft
imported smoke.

Later [...]

Six poems by Gillian Cummings

Amie
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Clotilde found me in the hayloft, sticking straws under my nails. She saw where I’d scratched a broken cross on my wrist where veins sketch a blue delta. And she shrieked, the cuts smeared with blood. Qu’est-ce que tu fais? T’es folle, Fernande! What could I say? [...]

Femme Body Bop (Become) by Tamiko Beyer

1.

Into and entered I bend,
just-discernible shape.
Features something to comment on: eyes small, small
nose, the mole on the left breast.
Was a body.

2.

Streetlights trembled
as we marched back the night
trembled! we were so fucking fierce.
But couldn’t shake
my traitorous
yearning for pink
eyelet smock.
Where under lights
could there be and also?
The stunning curve?
Longing
penetration,
I painted my face
in a [...]

Out Cleaning Up The Scene by AJ Atwater

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We settle at the bar, our eyes hooded, hard-ons rising behind suit coats.  A shot a Johnnie, we say to the barkeep.  We’re sweating.  We’d stopped to admire half-slips made of lace on plastic male torsos at Slipwreak.  Then quickened to the bordello, hurrying past Pearls, a [...]