D. A. Powell

D. A. Powell was born in 1963 in Albany, Georgia, and grew up in the rural South and California’s Central Valley. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English from Sonoma State University, and received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His poems have appeared in such journals as American Letters & Commentary, The Canary, Chicago Review, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, and Pleiades, and have received awards from the Academy of American Poets, Boston Review, the James Michener Foundation, the NEA, the Poetry Society of America, and Prairie Schooner. His three books—Tea (Wesleyan, 1998), Lunch (Wesleyan, 2000), and Cocktails (Graywolf, 2004)—form a trilogy, partially autobiographical and partially elegiac, chronicling life in queer America. Powell has taught at Columbia University, Harvard University, Sonoma State University, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Presently, he lives in San Francisco and is part of the English faculty at University of San Francisco.

[when you touch down upon this earth.little reindeers]

when you touch down upon this earth.     little reindeers

hoofing murderously at the gray slate roof: I lie beneath

dearest father xmas:   will you bring me another 17 years

you gave me my first tin star and my first tin wreath

warm socks tangerines and a sloppy midnight kiss

I left you tollhouse cookies.    you left me bloody briefs

lipodystrophy neurosthesia neutropenia mild psychosis

increased liver enzymes increased bilirubin and a sweater

don’t get me wrong:   I like the sweater.    though it itches

but what’s the use of being pretty if I won’t get better?

bouncing me against your red woolies you whisper:     dear

boy: unzip your enormous sack.     pull me quick into winter

[sleek mechanical dart: the syringe noses into the blue vein marking the target of me]

sleek mechanical dart:  the syringe noses into the blue vein marking the target of me

haven’t I always looked away.    don’t want to see what’s inside me.    inside me or coming out

older than balder:   older than I’d planned to be.    aliveness jars me.    what’s sticking what sticks

in my dream the haruspex examines my entrails.   glyphs of the ancient  chitterlings transcribed:

highballs.  speedballs.  chirujos.  chickens.  lues.  spora.  blasphemy.  butter.  bitters.  epicac.

highrisk behavior posterchild: come reeve.    a thousand happy tourists in-&-out me. I matterhorn

how much frivolity does the hypodermic draw away: does it taste men waferthin who blest my tongue

does it know knees I’ve dandled on.    I feel taken in:    darts in the waist of a coat  I’ll bury in

for I have husbanded recklessly:  wedding daggers.    holes in my memory of  holes:   danaidic vessels

the needle quivers.    sickens.    I spill names an alphabetsoup of hemoglobin.    someone cracks the code

in a fortnight of waiting I draw up a will.   develop false symptoms.   how will I survive surviving

I’ll throw parties where death blindfolded is spun:    won’t someone be stuck.    and won’t I be missed

[tall and thin and young and lovely the michael with kaposi’s sarcoma goes walking]

tall and thin and young and lovely the michael with kaposi’s sarcoma goes walking

and when he passes each one he passes goes “whisperwhisperwhisper.”     star of beach blanket babylon

the sea washes his ankles with its white hair.    he sambas past the empty lifeguard tower

days like these who wouldn’t swim at own risk:   the horizon smiles like a karaoke drag queen

broad shoulders of surf shimmy forth as if to say “aw baby, sell it, sell it.”    he’s working again

towels lie farther apart.    the final stages:   he can still do a dazzling turn but each day

smiles grow a little sharper.   he blames it on the bossanova.   he writes his own new arrangements

[writing for a young man on the redline train: “to his boy mistress”]

All the bodies we cannot touch

Are like harps. Toucht by the mind

—Robert Duncan, “Fragments of a Disordered Devotion”

writing for a young man on the redline train:     “to his boy mistress”

first to praise his frame:    pliable as hickory.   his greasy locks waxy ears

I’ll stop the world and melt with you brustling through a nearby headset

if I had time to ride this monster to the end I would:     hung by handstraps

jostle through the downtown stations.   each stop bringing us closer

to what?  gether?  perhaps:    or that exit of the tunnel where I look back

and poof:    no lover.  men have led shameful lives for less proportioned fare

tossing greetings thick as rapunzel’s hair:     “anybody ever told you that you

[ugh, here it comes lads, stifle those chortles]    resemble a young james dean?”

why fiddle-dee-dee, he bats his lids:     the fantasy already turning to ruin

what if he debarked at my destination of pure coincidence?  followed

through the coppice of the square:     fox and hound, fox and hound

I’d lead him on a merry chase:    pausing every few:    admire a fedora

check the windows of the haberdashers and cruise the sartorial shops

until I felt his winded breathing on my neck:    yawned and departed again

we could while away the afternoon just so.  but at my back, etc

fresh and sprouting in chestnut-colored pubes is how I’d want him

not after the dregs of cigarettes.  the years of too many scotch sours

why, I wouldn’t even know what to say to one who drinks scotch sours

except, “sir.”  and “tough luck about those redsox” [which it always is]

now I’ve spent myself in lines and lost.  where is that boy of yesteryear?

let him die young and leave a pretty corpse:    die with his legs in the air

[coda & discography]

a song of paradise

to enter that queer niteclub, you step over the spot:    sexworker stabbed

reminds me of the chalk outlines on castro street or keith haring’s canvases

missing.  beaten.  died at the end of a prolonged illness.  a short fight

phantoms of the handsome, taut, gallant, bright, slender, youthful:    go on

the garment that tore:    mended.  the body that failed:    reclaimed

voyeurs, passion flowers, trolls, twinks, dancers, cruisers, lovers without lovers

here is the door marked HEAVEN:    someone on the dancefloor, waiting just for you:

so many men, so little time [miquel brown]

calling all boys by the flirts.  patrick cowley’s menergy

only the strong survive [precious wilson] or I will survive [gloria gaynor]

the flirts’ passion and roni griffith’s desire

the boys come to town [earlene bentley]

gloria gaynor’s I am what I am.  eartha kitt’s I love men

runaway [tapps].  seclusion [shawn benson].  helpless [jackie moore]

eria fachin saving myself and the three degrees set me free

goodbye bad times [oakey & moroder].  keep on holdin’ on [margaret reynolds]

oh romeo’s these memories and the heart is a lonely hunter [bonnie bianco]

real life’s send me an angel.  earth can be just like heaven [two tons of fun]

yaz:    situation and don’t go.  and why by bronski beat

give me just a little more time [angela clemmons]

unexpected lovers by lime and mercy by carol jiani

let’s hang on [salazar] and maybe this time [norma lewis]

vivien vee’s give me a break and her haunting blue disease

ashford & simpson’s found a cure.  doctor’s orders [carol douglas]

sylvester singing body strong.    sylvester singing stars