Poetry in Motion

On my velvet couch reclining, Ivy leaves my brow entwining, While my soul expands with glee, What are kings and crowns to me? Read more

The Beat Goes On

James Franco is no stranger to playing gay roles in films which may be one reason why he’s so well suited for his latest upcoming portrayal of Allen Ginsberg in “Howl“.  Read more

Contemplation

To make much of time!

Yes, you’ve got it right, it’s another posting from me, Jason Shaw, that mad English guy who writes a blog about going from one midlife crisis to the next!

I gazed out the kitchen window waiting for the rain to stop so I could nip up the shop for the paper, but an hour later I was still there, in the kitchen, not gazing out the window, but wondering just exactly how many shreds of orange peel there was in my jar of expensive marmalade!

You kind of know you have to much time on your hands when you‘re thinking about marmalade in such detail. I even pondered the possibility of buying four jars, extracting the shreds with tweezers and calculating the average from the assembled mass of shreds of peel. (would it be a mass of peel? Perhaps it would be more a collection? Or indeed a multitude? No, I think mass is better, you’ll possibly agree, after all it does have mass-a-peel) You see, I may have a full time job, working four on and four off, but I still have way too much time to contemplate such things.

I don’t know why I do it, I just do, there is something inbuilt that just forces me to stop, consider and contemplate things like the meaning of life, our cosmic position in the universe or thick cut orange marmalade as the case may be. It‘s not something I always did, no it‘s just a recent addition to my personality, something that I‘ve noticed doing more and more since I hit the big 4-0 earlier in the year. It‘s as if, turning that age has made me less of the young hip and happening man about town (I‘m not sure I ever really was, but stay with me here – just a while longer) waiting for the hat to drop to be at the party. Now, I sit, stand or just stare and contemplate, consider and mentally ruminate and rummage. I can‘t help it, it just happens, I try and stop it, I try and move on from it, get on with life and things of meaning.

Just the other morning I was contemplating and I said to myself, “Now Jason stop that this instant, you are not going to count the number of frozen peas in that bag, get on with something useful!” So in to town I was going to head, I got out the bus timetable to plan. I was still there, an hour later, contemplating if the No1 actually did just go all the way from Whitehawk to Mile Oak, kick everyone off, turn round and come back. Or did they stop there at the end, have a little rest, so the driver could open his lunch box and have his sandwiches, which then lead on to a whole new sphere in my contemplation – what did the bus driver have in his sarnie, or perhaps it was a Panini, after all why can’t bus drivers be pretentious middle class consumers as well!

Anyway, I‘m off now, I‘ve got far more pressing things to do with my time, like consider how many broken paving slabs there are down North Street between the clock tower and the bus stop ! And just what filling the bus driver would have in said Panini, for example!!

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

Ganymede Poets One!

The New York Based, high quality literary magazine is back,  but this time with a rather impressive collection of poems.   Ganymede Poets One,  is the first annual anthology of the poets published in the quarterly Ganymede,  ONE features all 38 poets from the last 6 issues spread over 172 pages. Read more

GLBT Poets: Marilyn Hacker

Something about white space on a page used to make my brain shut off, as if it was a warning: “Brace yourself, concentrate, this is going to be profound.” In retrospect, I think I blame the sparseness of poetry in my education. Read more

What Do You Aspire to Be?

What do I aspire to be? A part of the declaration that starts with We…We too are the people of the United States, yet part of this country so many hates.

They carry banners that say we should die, no wonder so many live in a lie.  As long as I remember, I have been gay.  Yet so many insist, we’re not born this way.

What do I aspire to be?  An equal citizen in the land of the free.  No harm have I cause to the world or mankind.  If you took the time to know me, a good man you would find.

It is  not my right, to judge or to hate, yet you think yourself fit, to decide my fate.  If I were to die in my sleep tonight, by law my partner would have no right.  To decide matters as your spouse would, a right you take for granted, I wish I could.

Read the rest at Gay Aspirations!

The Kiss

I want to discover you inside me, within the heat of my breath, despite the onrush of madness: a kind of
vertigo that thrives in mysterious places-—if ominous, then elaborate. Read more

HomoEroticPoems

This is really a literary blog–a poetry blog–not a journal, and not pornographic! Convinced that it is possible to have homoerotic poetry of real literary value, I will be posting poems on this site from time to time. I hope that some readers will see them and agree. And if you would like to comment, please do! It might lead to a worthwhile exchange of ideas and a real friendship….

Check it out at homoeroticpoems.com!

Strange Times

Somehow the trampling of the Wal-Mart employee, over the holiday weekend, epitomizes everything to me. These strange and trying times we live in. Read more