Frank Kelly

Poetry

 

 

Gym Eyes

 

Religious communities

And sex addiction programs

Practice “custody of the eyes,”

Not engaging visually

With the host of temptations

Which assail us

And imperil our souls.

I practice gym eyes,

A lesser discipline

If a more precise calculation:

Just how much gaze is allowed

Without provoking

From the objects of my

Objectification

Annoyance

Or Anger?

If my body were toned

I’d have the latitude

Of the initiate.

Defined? More.

Muscular? Most of all.

But the fat

Ogling the fit?

Praise God for mirrors!

 

 

 

Amtrak, Northbound, August

 

Out of the tunnel at 98th and Park

We rumble past abandoned

Soon-to-be-abandoned

Apartment buildings, factories.

A man rummaging at a car

A whore tottering in the street

Next to an overgrown lot

Signals to a dark red van

Swerving around her.

 

Over the river and into the Bronx,

There on a rise

In a truck

Its back open to the tracks

A man grips a rope along the truck’s inside

As another fucks him vigorously.

 

Our shouts catch in our throats

As we clatter past

The fucker looks up

Blankly

Not breaking his stride.

 

 

 

Buying Drinks for R.Q.

 

Across the bar in the campus dive

In your herringbone tweed

You smile your crinkly smile --

Cool

Poet among journalists

Illiterates

Worse, academics!

You raise your drink,

Nod to me

Drink the drink,

My drink.

 

As close to a pass as I ever get

This gift

This hearty good fellowship.

Does it mask my desire

Or point to it?

Do I dread discovery

Or wish for it?

To be done, at last, with hiding.

 

 

 

It Was Charged Against Me

 

“He’s a fairy nice boy.”

She walked behind me

Just close enough to be sure I heard.

We were headed to McCawley’s;

She’d pulled her white school blouse

Out of her blue school skirt --

Branding her as “bold”

In the parlance of the day.

 

Even “very nice boy” would have stung,

Coming from her,

For niceness in a boy was valued

Only by a certain type of nice girl

(Which she was not)

Or, of course, by

Another very nice boy.

 

“Fairy” wasn’t “faggot.”

“Fairy” wasn’t explosive,

“Fairy” was a sneer,

Dismissive,

You didn’t waste much energy on a fairy.

The charge was weakness --

Not sexual practice --

Effeminacy,

Girliness.

 

Me?

Soft

Sensitive to my surroundings,

Fond of and excellent in school,

Hungry for the arts.

Girls?

Pals!

Guys?

Well it wasn’t as if I was going to do anything!

I wasn’t crazy.

I was just a fairy nice boy.

 

 

 

The Boy Who Stole My Copy of “Judy at Carnrgie Hall”

 

Bar buddy

So I thought

Enthusiast

So I thought

Younger than I

(Surprise surprise)

And ignorant

Of what I knew.

Never seen again.

Oh God

Oh God

Oh please!

Years later

I got another copy --

Judy sounds almost the same.

 

 

 

Frank Kelly taught English at Farmingdale State College in New York for 33 years. His poems have appeared in Danse Macabre, Sketchbook, Breadcrumb Scabs, The Bicycle Review, and the anthology Voice of the Bards.  In 2012, he published Growing Up Me: A Memoir in Poems. He has collaborated on three stage musicals, The Texas Chainsaw Musical, Xmas! The Xpose! and Pageant. The last was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Musical Revival of the 2014-2015 Season. Since 1985, Pageant has played off-off- and off-Broadway (twice), and in London’s West End, Australia, Japan and throughout the United States.