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John Compton lives in Kentucky. I met him on Facebook where I first read his straight-forward-what-you-see-is-what-you-get poetry. When you are gay in Kentucky there are yahoos who think it’s funny to tie you to the back of their pickups and drag you down the road. John tells me that if anyone would threaten him in such a way, he would get in his car and run them over today. And that is exactly what his poems do. They run you over, but in the nicest way, and when the stars in your head clear, you are often left with a stunning honest unpretentious poem.
No one is far away any more. I got together with John on Zoom and recorded him reading from his newest book, my husband holds my hand because I may drift & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store . You will find him doing just that on the Vimeo below.
I include of a few poems from my husband holds my hand because I may drift & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store that I’ve just typed out. Enjoy.
(third person)
we’re at
the end
& fraying:
collect
me in your
fingers—
slide me
through
the eye
to mend
us
or release
me
so that
i do not
dangle
i play with the hatter, mad
we drink tea, play sane,
…………..& spoon.
i study the outtake of your masturbation
wet lines—
like rose of maggots
in transition
you worshiped beautiful things
summoning them from hiding.
i pretended that he liked me
his smile created a fissure.
thoughts streamlined.
i need intimacy,
but his lips never moved—
i contemplated being alive;
the fulfillment I caused in another.
we spoke but he didn’t understand.
i could never be naked in his sight;
yet all I wanted was to be naked,
bared in the most beautiful way.
when he stretched
i read the elastic band on his underwear,
a brand I didn’t know.
the simplest things are erotic.
i’m trying to learn love,
but no one will teach me.
i curled up in bed with the cold.
it touched my cheek,
leaving marks
like bruises i couldn’t hide.
to a young poet
let your palms be fingertips
that maneuver from their eyes
to their mouth
& sit on their lips.
make them recite poetry
they could never fathom.
a conversation
i’ve got shoes inside my head.
shoes?
yeah, you know—
they say i’m crazy.
oh, you mean issues.
no! not his shoes,
my shoes.
we wear them.
the thread that has sewn
two earths together
the spiders
at the corners of the edge
of her world—
slightly above my windowsill.
contently sitting in her web
she studies two distinct planets:
the natural & mine created.
she is the equator.
sleeping with buddha
in a dark room
my sight focuses like cat eyes.
my hands mimic the haze around the moon.
something fleeing bumps my neck.
the window is a moth
flown open & the air bites
at its wings. I sit like buddha:
patient & waiting for day to break.
the pregnancy of flies
the yellow-bellied dead
have soaked up the sun.
their stomachs are pregnant
with maggots & dressed
in flies: their wings
glint in the beams: hundreds
of tiny mirrors. the corpses,
heavenly creatures rotting.
my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store is published by Flower Song Press. You can check it out here:
https://www.flowersongpress.com/authors-ah/john-compton