Presenting: Shane Allison
If I Was the Editor of a Literary Magazine
I would reject anything that didn’t have the words dick, tits or pussy in it.
And I don’t mean the Biological terms like penis, breasts or vagina.
Some places don’t take erotica, pornography or gay and lesbian themes,
but I would welcome the shit. I would write the acceptance letters myself
to writers of poems entitled,
Day in the Life of My Big Black Dildo or Brenda’s Fat Cunt Speaks in Tongues.
Give a thumbs up to coming out stories
and leather wearing, whip popping grandmas.
My advice to writers is to send poems
with 12-inch titles, stories dripping wet with smelly plots.
Feel free to send in naked photos of yourself taped to those cover letters.
Double-space if you like to get spanked or like the sensation of titclamps
pinching those rose-pink nipples. Put a real orgasmic feel into your writing.
I want to be able to come with you in your work.
Send religious work only if you have had fantasies about giving God head
or ever wondered how big Jesus’ dick was.
I don’t want sweet, poofy poetry you would give to your mother on her birthday.
I don’t want shit about log cabins and red ribbons in the hair of little girls.
I want stuff about 50′s Hollywood stars doing drugs and twisting themselves in
unusual positions in underground porno films to make ends meet.
I want to read about Marilyn Monroe getting fist-fucked by Humphrey Bogart
or getting her pussy eaten out by Ava Gardner.
Stories about giving your own cousin a blowjob would be great.
I want Non-fiction work about your boyfriend’s semen tasting like macaroni and
cheese or your girlfriend’s cum tasting like lime green jello.
I’m no fickle, vague editor who sugar coats what he seeks.
I get right to the point. If I can jerk-off to it, then I might invite you into
my bathhouse of naughty literature.
I want full-frontal writing that’s not afraid to show me what its got.
The work has to deep throat my interests.
Want to feel like I’m being fucked in the butt with your stories.
It’s gotta jack me off and make me shoot bucket loads.
Want a face full of ejaculate after reading your work.
Simultaneous submitted shit is okay.
A cover letter makes for good foreplay.
Without a self-addressed stamped envelope my mind goes limp.
You’ll ruin that Barry White moment between your manuscript and me.
Don’t be pissed if you get your shit back with the pages stuck together.
Write me some meaty, tender bios.
Come on, be a little nasty. Be creative for once.
Pull up your shirt and let me see your tits.
Zip down those faded jeans and pluck out your prick
I want to know what makes you tick, what drives you to do this.
Give me Homo erotica, Lesbo biographa.
Members of the mile high club have an even greater chance
of getting in.
My advice to beginners and those emerging
from suicidal Goth and love-struck verse, make it stank and rank.
I want to feel the breath of your confessions on my neck.
Show me some nipple, a little pube.
And as for you Robert Pinsky,
good luck submitting your shit elsewhere.
Betty
is the woman who fries the chicken too hard.
For years she couldn’t make spaghetti.
Schools of noodles are clumped together
in the rice strainer.
the mashed potatoes carries
lumps as large as brain tumors.
She’s always moving things around.
nothing ever stays in its place,
have to go to the end of the kitchen
for a spoon, fork, and finger cookies.
Betty tells me stories of how I used
to pull things off tables as a baby.
She told me about the time she left me for a minute
in a room with a hot iron to keep me company
and how I pulled that iron on my
baby soft thigh.
She said it took the skin right off and they
had to rush me to the hospital.
That iron was angry,
so was the crock pot of stew
I pulled down upon the same leg.
I was seven.
I remember at age eight arriving
at Mulla’s house from the second grade,
sweating and hungry.
Karen was supposed to baby-sit.
She said she would be right back,
told me not to touch anything,
anything except for the stove
with black spiraling tops that
burned my hand leaving blisters
the color of taupe,
blisters fat with pus and burn.
Betty yells at Karen on the porch
in front of ferns hanging brightly
and plants potted: earthbound.
My hand soaks in a salad bowl of water over night.
There was nothing else she could do.
Betty wasn’t the kind of woman who sat out
cookies and milk.
She never kissed my boo-boos better
or chased away monsters.
She had her own monsters to deal with.
Black Mouth for White Cock
Meet here for cock play
Want black cock
Hungry mouth for your cock
Cock tastes good
Jason Brunner sucks cock
Want to suck a big cum-filled cock
Where are all the cocksuckers?
Let me suck your cock
Want to suck a nice cock
Want a dude that will let me just service his cock
Want to suck cock, but can never find any here
Cock rules!
Love to suck cock
White, young cock only
Want to suck hot cock and get fucked if you’re ready
Black mouth for white cock
Want a college boy with a long fat cock
This is the actual size of my cock
Where is all the fat cock?
Was here the whole summer, but no cock
I like white cock
Hispanic cock is the best
Are there other places on campus to see cock?
I want cock down my throat and up my ass
Where is summer cock?
These are lines taken from random walls of public toilets
Quatrain for David Warren Frechette, 1948-1991
When you died from an AIDS-related cause,
I was fighting to save my own ass
At Rickards High School
Home of the Redskins.
Years later they changed the name to Rickards Raiders
After protest from the Native Americans of Tallahassee.
Opposers to the change were cheerleaders in their
Royal blue & gold uniforms holding up picket signs
Instead of pom-poms. When you were writing poems,
I was dodging spitballs. Cleveland Richardson called
Me a fat faggot in woodshop. When you were doing readings,
Getting your poems published, I wanted to gouge out Eldridge James’
One good eye. The other one was as dead as a fish.
He wiped boogers on my shirt in Mrs. Bruces’ class.
He led a gang of bullies down hallways. When you were at
Parties, friends toasting your success, I was just a young,
Black gay boy tryin’ to survive my teens. I wrote poems
In spiral bound notebooks, hid out in smoke-infested stalls
Wishing I was a famous Hollywood actor. The day you died,
Steven Weber, from the NBC sitcom Wings,
Was my make believe boyfriend.
When you died, David Frechette,
I cried into my spiral bound journal.
Big Man, Black Car
For John Mattson
Dwell between your inner thighs,
Big man, soft body,
Head rests on your stomach,
In the front seat of your black car,
On the dirty sofa as you sit
Slouched in cushions
In your blue sweat shorts
And Kermit the Frog tee shirt
In front of your mother’s
Television as you force
Feed me two hours of
Rocky Horror Picture Show.
You invite me for chicken
Soup, turkey cheese sandwiches,
Apple juice on your mama’s cute
Little trays.
I’ve never seen so many
Cartoon videos.
Drowned alive by Disney’s
Beauty and the Beast.
Cinderella, Snow White
Stab out my eyes if I stare too long,
If I try to look under their dresses.
I want you on the hood
Of your black car.
I dream of giving
you blowjobs in the gray plush seats.
I thought of kissing you.
Tongue stained with apple-juice
Down your throat, past your tonsils
Into your pink belly.
I wanted you upstairs,
Alone, dark and hot in the
Projectionist booth of
A movie theater where I was
A concessionist, when I couldn’t
Control the hard ons,
Soggy, wet spots of semen
On black slacks.
I dreamt of you in my apartment,
In the bedroom, stark naked,
With nothing on but cotton
Tube socks.
There you were over a hot stove
Cooking country fried steak.
Between my Negro legs, lips at my nuts,
Tongue stuck out for a grown faggot’s ass.
I am the man who shall stuff you with a rubber dildo from Condomology.
Feed you flavored rubbers, choke white boy on these sexy edible underwear.
I’m the man who’s going to knock you out with pneumonia.
Gag your mouth and tie you to the kitchen chair with duct tape,
blind fold you with a leather bandanna,
Press my nipples to your nose, smother you with kindness,
Torture you as blood from your ass trickle to my mother’s kitchen floor.
Hey big man in your black car, take off your clothes.
Right here, right now in your mother’s endless driveway.
Strip for me under peach colored streetlights in the parking lot
Of Albertson’s.
Open wide for my kiss as I have you pinned against
The bathroom wall of Krispy Kreme.
Just relax baby as I push my hands down your blue
sweat shorts testing for hard-on and any sign of pre-jism.
I want your balls at room temperature.
I want to swing from your pubes like Tarzan,
dig in your ass for rainbows sweetie.
Shoot gallons of cum
In chestnut curls of your hair
Laced with dandruff like sugar.
Wipe cum off plush gray seats,
Off the steering wheel, the sun cracked dashboard.
Throw away the open bag of Cheetos.
All you need is bleach to get the stain out.
May Listerine swish from side to side
Before you kiss your mother with that mouth.
Bastard
I gave you the best moments of my life in apartment 311.
And to think I bothered writing down your number
on that torn slip of yellow legal paper
Copied from the toilet of Robert Strozier Library.
Shove it into the pocket of my jeans like loose change.
To think I almost pulled a muscle for the emotions I invested in you.
You don’t want me. I’m not your ideal guy.
I’m no Prince Charming.
I’m nothing but a hard, black cock going in
And out of your sand-toned ass.
I thought I was the queerboy that struck that nerve,
The nigger you were looking for in a page of gay personal ads.
You answered the door in a tee shirt that was long enough
To hang over your penis softer than cotton candy.
Walked into that living-room, ironing board sitting in the kitchen,
An unmade bed past the hallway.
I could see the Shell station where you work
From the window of your place.
Gas pumps and streetlights looked like miniature toys.
“Make yourself comfortable,” you said.
Took off my corduroy coat, the one I wore for slumming.
Could feel my cock swelling like a micro waved sausage
In my jeans. “Want something to drink?” you asked.
“No, I’m cool.” You took your rightful place next to me, stark naked.
I unbuttoned my plaid shirt. Giving chest hairs some air.
Peeled off the Levis from my legs like dead skin.
My thighs were French doors opening to your mouth.
Commercials from your television danced in my eyes
As you went in searching for oyster pearls of semen.
I rubbed your head like a crystal ball.
Then there was your butt: domed and pimpled.
Reach around and can feel a tinge of lubricated
Jelly between those ivory cheeks.
You sat upon me, roosted on my cock like a pigeon.
“Give me that black dick,” you said.
“Gonna ride this big black cock.”
Spewed a milk truck of spunk in your rump.
You rolled up off me like the rubber I was too lazy to grab for.
Walked nude, red and sweating to that cardboard box of a kitchen.
“I’ll get you a rag for the mess,” you said.
Sat exhausted at the foot of your sofa. Cock smudged
With your feces. The rag was wet with water from your
Kitchen sink. You had the decency to use a little soap.
A week later I dropped by that gas mart.
“Five dollars at pump 3,” I said. You took my money
With a nonchalant look on your face like you had never
Seen me before, like you never gave me head last Saturday.
I feel like a notch on your bedpost.
Tried calling you, but all I got was the answering machine.
Went by, knocked on the door of apartment 311, but no luck.
I knew you were home. Could see Sixteen Candles
From the vertical blinds playing on your TV.
I saw you moving around in there. Looking through the peephole.
Treated me like I was the big bad wolf.
I wanted to blow your house in.
Torch the fucker; throw a brick through the window.
Take spray paint to that door you hid so cowardly behind
Writing “bastard” in big, hot pink letters.
I wanted to tell you to your face that you were a real asshole,
But I just went home, grabbed a permanent marker and permanently
Wiped you out of my
Winnie the Pooh address book.
Questions and Answers
Q) When you are writing a poem, how do you know when it is complete?
SA) The poem is never finished. Even after it’s published, there are still some things you want to tweak and change to make better. It’s best to let it sit for a bit and then come back to it with fresh eyes. I find myself constantly having to do that with writing short stories. You just can’t rush the writing process.
Q) Having had your poetry featured in a variety of places both online and in Print I’m quite interested to know why you decide to send your poetry where you do?
SA) It’s always good to do your research on the places you would like to see your work published. I try to do as much of that as I can. Especially with the type of raw verse I like to write. Not every editor is the same. I pick five journals I really want to get in and just bombard them with what I think they would dig. I do feel that with journals, the editorships need to always switch up instead of having the same editor with the same aesthetic. Most journals publish such dry, bland shit that provokes nothing. It’s all just pretty lines on the page for the sake of trying to be poetic. I did the whole creative writing MFA thing and I stuck out like a sore fucking thumb and was proud of it. Instead of hanging out with fellow students, I went to spoken word readings at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Bowery. This was in New York. That type of work is real and honest and the only kind I could identify with.
Q) You write about the male form in a matter of fact way. It appears that most men are still decidedly uncomfortable with their own naked image. Why do you feel this is?
SA) It’s all so junior high shower room. Men can’t let go of their roles of what it means to be a man in this world. Masculinity is so fucked up. I mean, what’s wrong with men checking each other out? It doesn’t make you gay. It’s a penis and there is nothing wrong with looking at it. It’s just an organ used to make babies and shit. There is nothing wrong with sexualizing it. It’s used to give life and pleasure.
Q) When writing a chapbook, how do you approach putting together a collection of poetry?
SA) I like to gather poems that I think would work on the page, that I feel would entertain the reader. Most think I set out to shock, but I have no interest in doing that. I try to write with honesty and truth. How do I not write about being gay and black? That’s part of who I am, but not all of who I am, so when I put a book together, I like to mix the manuscript up with some crazy fun experimental shit and of course the cock and balls poems too. I like to throw one or two in for good measure. There was a time when I couldn’t find anyone who had the balls to take a chance on me. That’s still hard, but not so much now.
Q) Do you think it is possible for a poet to break through the glass ceiling and receive worldwide acclaim or are we all jazz musicians living in a world of rockstars?
SA) Those that have published widely, I don’t see as rockstars at all. They work just as hard at getting their shit out there. They just have something an editor digs. I think those who consider emotionless poetry as quality work, that is the ceiling we need to break through. Throw basketball size poems at that shit.
Q) I’ve been following the US Presidential Election from the UK and thus far I have been thoroughly entertained by what is without doubt televisions finest soap opera. McCain or Obama?
SA) My dad isn’t all that optimistic about Obama winning, which I imagine most of the country is. I’m not saying anything about it until November 4th. It’s all typical political tactics. All that kicking of sand in the face. What a riot.
Q) With 2008 now in its final quarter, looking back has it been a good year thus far for Shane Allison?
SA) Not really. I’m still not where I want to be at 35. I would like to make films and move back to New York. I have never been happier there. New Yorkers don’t take any shit. I hate Florida.
