KLIK TO EMBIGGEN!

Hey! Did I mention I've got readings coming up? It doesn't look like I'll be doing any this month (which is really just as well -- we're so busy getting ready for Lobby Day -- which it would mean the world to me if you came to -- that I'd rather focus on MTPC this month anyway), but I've got TWO readings in the first week of February.

Tuesday, February 2nd I'll be making my triumphant return to Port Vertias (and Portland in general) with a feature at the North Star Café (225 Congress St., Portland, ME)! I'd like to come spend a couple days in Portland if my budget allows -- anyone have a couch I can crash on for a couple nights? I'll cook you dinner! :)

Then, after a week of not going to Creating Change (*sigh* Someday...), I'll be doing a mini-feature down here:

Sunday, February 8th I'll be part of a really fantastic line-up of writers coming out to support Queer Soup in Boston (details in the flyer above, even if they did misspell my middle name). I haven't decided who my gender icon will be yet -- I kind of want to go with Patti Smith, but I'm afraid someone else will beat me to her, so maybe I'll go with Katharine Hepburn. We'll see. Anyway, Queer Soup are really wonderful folks, and I can vouch for several of the other featured writers as being excellent... and what else were you going to do on a Sunday night, huh?



ALSO! Have I mentioned here I have copies of New Problems for sale? I don't think I have.

They're $11 (more than last time, I know, but this book's 20 pages longer than The Oxygen Catastrophe), and you can buy 'em in person or drop some money in our Paypal (if you want to drop an extra dollar or two for postage, that would be nice, but you don't have to).

Here's a sample, just because:

Jacob's Story

1: All night in the desert I tossed and turned
with my angel. In the morning my brother was coming
to murder me for what I did as a child.
I pinned my angel to my chest and hoped the night
would go on forever.

2: At first, we rolled and struggled against
each other's bodies, but as the moon
turned our skin into light, I forgot which limbs
were hers, which limbs were mine.
We were wearing one skin.

3: As we nested violently in the sand, she told me
about her childhood in the silver city, how she loved
her million sisters. I spat the names of my wives into her
ear and felt her fingers carve
ten moons into my back.

4: I learned to forget she was there at all. She was an extra
set of legs I never used; she was static interference
in the perfect whisper of the desert wind. I preferred the wind.
I was checking my watch. I was watching the moon as it
peaked above her back. I rolled, and took my turn on top.

5: I wondered if she remembered me at all. Her eyes
had not met mine in an hour. She was watching
the sand, she was counting the grains. Her lips moved a little
for every number. She prefers the sand to me, I thought, staring at her
as she stared at the sand. I wished she would turn
and look at me again.

6: The half circles on my back were white where the sand
had stuck against my brown skin. We rolled again
out of habit. There was nothing in the desert
except us.

7: The night went on forever. I wished my brother would come.

8: She spoke.
She forgot my name and used another and
I took it for my own. I would have taken anything
for a change. A new name, a new angel, my brother's
army, anything
but this. Anything.

9: The moons on my back began to sink.


___


Up on Radiosilent.org, I've also got Fashion and This Poem Could Never Be Good Enough