May 2025 Monthly Roundup

What’s good, Waywards reader?

I didn’t write any pieces for commission that were published this month. I revised and resubmitted an article I first authored a few years back, but it hasn’t appeared online yet.

I’m not pitching new stories to editors for a while. In addition to wrapping up the quarter at the university where I teach, I’m trying to make progress on that book I’ve mentioned before. I did a follow-up interview for the book-in-progress with the inimitable incarcerated intellectual, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, which was posted to his website on May 1. You can access that Q&A here.

I completed one poem during the merry, merry month of May. You can find it below, underneath the picture of my Buddy showing off his hops as he leaps for a rope I held above my head.

Into the Sacred, from the Profane 

He shot his shot
He shared what he thought
And what he felt
It made her heart melt
But only in his dreams
In another Umwelt 
Where he and his self-esteem
Play on the same team

Unfortunately for him
He didn’t even hit rim
Credit her with the rejection
A block, a blow to his midsection
‘Twas like a punch to the gut
To sting like a bee was her intention
Like a scythe her words cut
Severed heart; unrealized want

Affection, erection, elation and nut
To touch the small of her back, then what?
Down the cheeks to the intertriginous fold
Her response encourages him to be bold 
To pull their bodies closer together 
She desperately wants to relinquish control 
To be gently guided and told, as if by a director
To be behold his pleasure, while getting wetter

Alas, reality as fantasy seems so much better 
With pain unfettered, he wishes he never met her
Repudiation as destiny; he didn’t stand a chance
Now he’s alone; many don’t get a second glance
He who isn’t among the upper crust of the land
Won’t get invited to the well-heeled dance 
He’ll come to oh-so painfully understand 
He’s seen as superfluous. Inferior as a man.

At least that’s the impression popular culture gives
It glorifies and normalizes how the top quintile lives 
Learn to look down upon the economically less successful
Devalue all those for whom existence is stressful 
They make you uncomfortable with their strife
So you sever ties and knot your mind like a pretzel
Think only about your awesome life 
Excise those residing where struggle is rife 

But behold, a vision. A revelation. 
A new sensibility. A raw sensation.
The anima came to assimilate the animus 
Enlisted by Eros in a cause that is just 
No more idolizing. No more despising.
They touch, trust and transfigure lust 
They’re locked in without fetishizing
Their longing they’re no longer disguising

Now she looks down on him, from on top
But with him inside, as he tells her not to stop
She’s not concerned with his stature or social status
But she likes when he tells her how nice her ass is
And how he’s attentive to female sexual desire, like Freud
She can’t stop thinking about when they last kissed
She’s done with the superficial, classist and vapid void 
She was taken to another galaxy, but without an Android

He’s no longer settling for the jumper from distance
She shows off her ball handling and upon her insistence
He penetrates the zone, through tight resistance, into the hole 
He burrows in; to quote Marx, “Well grubbed, old mole!” 
The hurt and pain as they came underwent qualitative change
He warmed what was cold; discomfort soothed her soul 
Excitation dialectically ordained, insides divinely rearranged
Transmutation into the sacred from the profane

It’s now time for leaving, and like those Allman brothers, I’ve got to keep ramblin’ on. I do hope you understand. Please just keep doin’ the best you can, Waywards reader, and I’ll holler at you later.