On Days When I am Too Queer For This World

By Susan Wolf

there’s no place to run
except back to sleep where they can’t look at my papers,
search and confiscate the simple parts of myself
the parts that show
parts they say don’t ring true
because I am not a bell, a homogenous object
vibrations do no travel across me unchanged

I am not pure metal, ripped from pure earth
refined, forged, beaten smooth
smooth touch, smooth sound, smooth talk about smooth gods
makes the feel all of a piece

I am a child of rougher gods
I cut their fingers and make them bleed

grinding crunch
becomes earthquake vibration
odd harmonics cascade
as I collide with this world where I wake up
alarm clock bell
drags me into clattering hum of this sleep waking drone

there is no place to run
except back to sleep
in search of a better waking, better place
though no place rings any more true to me than I do to
guards, soldiers, police
they can see, hear, feel it right down to their boots

dark skinned women
who don’t say the words the boys yell, MARICON
but think it
as they pull their children closer, away down the aisle

pale skinned women push their lips together even more tightly
stare right through me

boys, man-boys still sweating from the gym
wait in the check-out line
bulging bodies make the motion of elbowing me out of the way
they are standing still
breathing hard
impatient waiting
as the cashier addresses me by two different pronouns in the same sentence
calls me ma’am and sir before handing me my change

my leave to go out
home
up the hill
door slam

there is no place to run
except back to sleep
when this world is a swimming silver mirage
I can see right through it all
clear through to nothing
not like other spheres
that look surreal, like paintings
but are solid if I touch them

everything bends away from me here
so that I can never connect
the illusion of my anti-gravity bends the illusion of this world
distance is always maintained
pretense is always preserved

in this worst waking place
there is no place to run
except back to sleep
in search of a better waking.

SPEEDING PAST THE I-40 EXIT TO BASCUM HE BEGINS TO THINK ABOUT TACKETT’S STATION AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND PEGGY HOOPER

By Miller Williams

Where the Woodrow Wilson School was once

squat blocks of pastel siding
slap back at the sun.

Why should it be there? Who was Woodrow Wilson?

We had a Dodge. When we hit a chicken
we had chicken.

Milton Tackett fixed tires and sold the rubbers
you had to have in your wallet
like a badge
You’re under arrest. Take off all your clothes.

Milton gave a package of rubbers free
for any pair of panties.
When you told him her name and he believed you
you got a dozen.
No sir I said I guess not.
Well he said if I said
pussy I could have one anyway

A woman off the Titanic
talked Sunday night.
She said that all she heard them play
was a waltz.

I bought a Nash
for 97 dollars.
Sunday afternoons
cotton rows running up to the road
flicked by like spokes.
The cropdusting plane put down its pattern
back and forth across the field
like a shuttle.
I was drunk on speed
and metaphor. The world
was a weaving machine.

But on the other hand
said Alexander the Great
bringing down the sword on the Gordian knot
fuck fate

Didn’t you used to live here?

Don’t do that you’re going to tear something
Look if I take off my clothes will it make you happy

I’m sorry. What did you say?

Nothing. Never mind.

Order

By Rachel Barenblat

Breakfast on kosher macaroons and Diet Pepsi
in the car on the way to Price Chopper for lamb.
Peel five pounds of onions and let the Cuisinart
shred them while you push them down and weep.
Call your mother because you know she’s preparing
too, because you want to ask again whether she cooks
matzah balls in salted water or broth, because you can.
Crumble boullion cubes like clumps of wet sand.
Remember the precise mixing order, beating
then stirring then folding, so that for one moment
you can become your grandfather.
Remember the year he taught you this trick,
not the year his wife died scant weeks before seder
and he was already befuddled when you came home.
Realize that no matter how many you buy
there are never quite enough eggs at Pesach
especially if you need twelve for the kugel
and eighteen for the kneidlach and another dozen
to hardboil and dip in bowls of stylized tears.
Know you are free! What loss. What rejoicing.

Little Red Corvette

By Prince

I guess I should of known
By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last
See you're the kinda person
That believes in makin' out once
Love 'em and leave 'em fast

I guess I must be dumb
'Cause you had a pocket full of horses
Trojan and some of them used
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say what have I got to lose?
And honey I say

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much too fast
Little red Corvette
You need a love that's gonna last

I guess I should of closed my eyes
When you drove me to the place
Where your horses run free
'Cause I felt a little ill
When I saw all the pictures
Of the jockeys that were there before me

Believe it or not
I started to worry
I wondered if I had enough class
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say, Baby, have you got enough gas?
Oh yeah

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much to fast, yes you are
Little red Corvette
You need to find a love that's gonna last, ah huh

A body like yours (A body like yours)
Oughta be in jail (Oughta be in jail)
'Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene
('Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene)
Move over baby (Move over baby)
Gimme the keys (Gimme the keys)
I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine
(I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine)

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much to fast
Little red Corvette
You need to find a love that's gonna last

Little red Corvette
Honey you got to slow down (Got to slow down)
Little red Corvette
'Cause if you don't you gonna run your
Little red Corvette right in the ground

(Little red Corvette)
Right down to the ground (Honey you got to slow down) you, you, you got to
Slow down (Little red Corvette) you're movin' much too fast
(Too fast) you need to find a love that's gonna last

Girl, you got an ass like I never seen
And the ride,
I say the ride is so smooth
You must be a limousine

Baby you're much to fast
Little red Corvette
You need a love, you need a love that's
That's gonna last
(Little red Corvette)
Babe you got to slow down (you got to slow down)
Little red Corvette
'Cause if you don't, 'cause if you don't,
You gonna run your body right into the ground (Right into the ground)
Right into the ground (Right into the ground)
Right into the ground (Right into the ground)

Little red Corvette

In Response to Kobe Bryant's Suggestion that I'd Choose Him to Take the Last Shot if My Life Was on the Line

By Sherman Alexie

Here's the thing,
Here's my end-of-life plan
(And I know I risk the condemnation
Of the Kobe-ists who love the isolation):
To save my soul
I'd choose the pick-and-roll
With a ball-handling assist-freak
And a big man trucking from the key
While a great shooting trustee
Waits on the wing.

I am

By Benjamin Giroux

I am odd, I am new
I wonder if you are too
I hear voices voices in the air
I see you don't, and that's not fair
I am odd, I am new
I pretend that you are too
I feel like a boy in outer space
I touch the stars and feel out of place
I worry what others might think
I cry when people laugh, it makes me shrink
I am odd, I am new
I understand now that so are you
I say I "feel like a castaway"
I dream of a day that that's OK
I try to fit in
I hope that someday I do
I am odd, I am new.

Benjamin Giroux is 10 years old. This poem was published by the National Autism Association's Facebook page after his parents shared it, and it was picked up by the Huffington Post. 

Bereishit

By Zohar Atkins

Before God could separate the upper and the lower worlds, light from day, earth from water, he was sitting in a tiny room, unable to move. Whenever his mouth would begin to open to say “Vayehi,” he would be overcome. Each day, God would wake up, intending to create the world, and each day, God would be unable to. Sometimes he’d find a physical reason. His hands were too shaky. Other times, he’d find a distraction. Other times, he’d just stare off into space or turn on AngelNews. God surrounded himself with blueprints of his world, but the execution was not something he could bring himself to do. Perhaps on some level God understood that the Creation of the World was also his goodbye, the inauguration of a world that would grow not to need him. Was he ready to write himself out of existence just yet? So Gabriel came before the Lord and said, “I know you are afraid. I know the world you’ll make will not be perfect, that it will only be one possible world and not the ideal world in your mind. But if you impart to it all of your love, you will find peace.”

Oh have you heard

By Shel Silverstein

 Oh have you heard it's time for vaccinations?
I think someone put salt into your tea.
They're giving us eleven-month vacations.
And Florida has sunk ito the sea.
Oh have you heard
The President has measles?
The principal has just
burned down the school.
Your hair is full of ants
and purple weasels--
APRIL FOOL!!