should i be worried if my poem is a little gay for your poem...

sometimes two poems are looking at each other and thinking about each other while they are standing at a bus stop waiting for immortality. then possibly one of the poems says something to the other poem, or the other poem thinks it has said something to it, and asks, and then one of four things usually happens: 1) the other poems states that it didn't say anything and conversation ends or 2) the other poem states that yes it did say something, and how are you doing? or 3) the other says it didn't say anything, it was the wind, but how are you doing anyway? or 4) the other poem says yes i did say something but, in the immortal words of robert palmer, i didn't mean to turn you on.

so in certain of these scenarios a play-date may be arranged between the poems.

in a foreign bedroom sitting on the bed together, surrounded by plush stuffed animals representing African beasts and other exotic creatures, in an atmosphere of true permissiveness, who knows what these two young poems will get up to? in the immortal words of a very schizophrenic annie lennox, i'd love to know, wouldn't you?...

there is nothing wrong with the frottage play of these two young poems on the bed in that room with the closed door, surrounded by colorful and plush beings which seem to smile with a lascivious and encouraging permissiveness.

in fact, it is quite natural.

lying side by side, telling secrets to one another...this type of behavior can be quite salubrious...the two young poems can even benefit from this relationship, learn to model future behaviors which will be useful in the hunt for strange.

because poems do need to hunt for strange. it is their innermost nature.

the only possible damage may come if one poem is shyer and the other poem has some slight (or extreme) dominating tendencies, in which case the frottage may move towards conventional literary missionary positioning, or the conventional flipover. in which case, as Mother says, somebody's gonna get hurt...

usually this is dangerous to the poem on the bottom, the poem which has submitted itself so beautifully to the brazen, blazing dominance of its new poem friend.

while this might be a positively reinforcing experience for the dominant poem, this may lead to excessive pining on the part of the submissive poem. the poem may even be mocked later in public by strangers for not getting into a fight with other poems the way it should when, say, one gets into an argument at Burger King about whose ketchup pack that was, or whether Milton was a better writer than Eileen Myles.

this poem might go its polypropylene molded chair and think about catsup versus ketchup.

it might choose not to demonstrate its healthy desire for immortality and risk being seen as a minor strain of poem.

in that case, this poem will indeed probably end up a catsupper of the worst variety.

but this does not mean, as the poem's Mother will undoubtedly remind it later, that this poem is any less immortal.

our greatest libraries are filled with catsuppers.

but are they truly consoled by this? who knows.

in closing, i would like to say that there is nothing wrong with a little young poem play in private (it's even healthy!) but sometimes these merry tussles end like this: one poem is living a glamorous cosmopolitan lifestyle, fucking other poems of all persuasions and orientation in confidence, learning a new martini on every continent, and always accreting more glamor and prestige in the process. and the other poem is still in its bedroom with the stuffed giraffes and hippos, naked in its socks, and pleasuring itself to images of the jetsetter poem as a young poem, lying atop it, with merry, sparkling animal eyes, talking about immortality while it does stuff to it, and possibly crying while experiencing the throes of ecstasy dying away even as they are born. (the way poems do this.)

in which case, this is a tragedy.

but what is a little tragedy between immortals?