Roger (10 July 1996)

Roger

Dear Roger

How I glowed being near you

Hormones flooded my awareness

Filled me with unspeakable joy

Overwhelmed my thinking

A place of confidence beyond words

A last childhood calm

I didn’t hide my feelings

Didn’t name my feelings

Wasn’t afraid to show them

Without labels

Without expectations

I was safe

Rah

Rah

Roger

Fellow rogue

Able to banish my fears with your smile

Able to accept me unquestioned

Being wise beyond our years

Playing roles without a script

A haven of chaos and confusion

Yearning to be grown up

Not knowing if the world would even exist for us to grow up into

Believing we were on the eve of nuclear destruction

Afraid of what we might find if we ever went downtown

Rrrrrrrrr

Grrrrrrrr

RRRRRRoger

BBBBBboyfriend

I, I, I,

I never ever even knew the lust I felt for you

Every day in history class

Sitting side by side

My body responded

The hardness in my cock

The softness in my heart

Unaware that the two were connected, let alone the same

So lost

So very very lost

Each of those precious, all too precious, moments

Lost, lost, lost

In a last full bloom of innocence

A decade later

We met at the Oyster Bar

Grand Central Station

It was early afternoon

We were almost alone

Still trying too hard to be sophisticated

Ordering overrated food in an overrated place

Trying so hard to connect the pieces of our past to our present

I left angry that my adult fantasies would not be satisfied by a childhood love

I left more alone than when I arrived

I left sad that I had clouded my memory with desires of a later time

And so lost both past and present

Now, two decades further along

I remember the texture of your skin

The wind in your hair

The light in your eyes

I smile to myself and wish you well

Wherever you may be

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]

No Two Dicks Are The Same (26 June 1996)

No two dicks are the same

Hell, mine’s not even the same one minute to the next

Sometimes shy and withdrawn

Sometimes bold and upstanding

Sometimes languid and full and ready to stir.

No two dicks are the same

Cut or covered

Straight or curved

Some cum buckets

Some but a gentle rain

Each one has his story

Each one has his man

Joy and sorrow

Laughter and pain

You never know what you’ve got

Even after they cum

Even after you’re clean

You can’t prevent change.

No two dicks are the same

Men at a distance can be safe and alluring

Men up close can overwhelm with sensations

Men who say no, in their eyes and their pose

Men who say no, in their lies and their prose

Men who won’t love you, no matter what you do.

No two dicks are the same

The first man to show me his, proud as can be

Was eight year old Michael, alone in apartment 3D

He lay on his bed with his legs spread apart

And pulled his balls up til they covered his cock

And he called it a turtle as the little dick head hid inside, and poked out of, the rounded ball sack

And then there was Tony at thirteen and fourteen

His dick was full grown

His balls hung free

His crotch had hair

I yearned so to lick the shaft of that dick, to suck it and suck it and make it all slick

But contented myself with the jerking we did

As we learned the first joys of cumming

And knew it was good.

Roger, dear Roger

All blond and assured

We sat side by side in the back of the class

My hard on was raging, but I never saw his

His dick was kept hidden,

His lusts went elsewhere,

While I stewed in my juices,

Content as can be

To have a good friend to play with and watch

While we went our own ways and never said why.

No two dicks are the same

Each morning I’d wake and find mine erect

Waiting to squirm and to spasm in bed

I’d wrap my hand round it and feel the sensations

At fourteen and fifteen and sixteen unsated

One morning my father walked into my room

Thinking I still slept, he entered in quiet

And found me laid bare with my dick hard and pulsing

The silence was deep as he realized his blunder

And blushing and stammering turned on his heel

While I paused but a beat and watched his reaction

And knew for the first time I had real power and strength

As I saw him retreat all red in the face

As I picked up the rhythm and knew I my heart

That we’d just become equals, at least for my part.

No two dicks are the same

I knew that right from the start

I’ve seen quite a lot

And I’ve held very many

I’ve known some quite well

And wished to know others

Each one has been different

Each one has been loved

I’ve seen them mature as I too have grown older

These men and their dicks,

They fill me with wonder,

They make the world sing.

No two dicks are the same.

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]

Two Mathematicians (17 June 1996)

Reading a story that isn’t mine

But could be

I too was good at math (but not until high school)

I too went to high school in New Rochelle and took math classes at a local college

I too went to Hampshire College but I didn’t have two boy friends at a time (or even one)

until grad school at UMass Amherst, down the road

I wonder if the author knows old friends of mine

Yes they are getting old those young upstarts who started Hampshire College some twenty five

plus years ago

I wondered if I hadn’t left some pages of my journal in a time warp

Only to find them again, edited by another and in print

Like the woman in Blade Runner who thought her thoughts were her own until learning that

she was a machine and the memories of childhood were implanted in her fabricated mind

We two had both failed in French

But then our paths more strongly divided

I could tell where the narrative was no longer my own

And breathed a sigh of relief

My life was my own again

My identity intact

My tale left for me to tell

Where he told of Galois, I would have told of Turing

An English mathematician, equally eccentric though not as flamboyant

Living in a differently violent time

Key to breaking the German naval codes

And then left to kill himself when his drive for sex with men brought him into court and

rather than follow in Wilde’s footsteps to jail, was placed in the kinder hands of a medical establishment that fed him hormones and precipitated his suicide.

But that’s a diversion from this tale

Of how I picked up a magazine and started reading a story called Two Mathematicians

And had flashbacks to my life when I was less than half my age

And learned (or relearned) some math history

And wondered about the boys and men I studied with and where we’ve come to.

And saw a reflection that caught me, surprised,

By words in print that I knew to be true.

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]

Quiet Rage (25 May 1996)

Lightning flashes across my face

Breaking the expected mold

Breathing fully

Hearing birds shout their piercing cries from the crows nest

Awake to the storm that's gathering

Ride the waves of towering power

See the far horizon choppy with breakers

Know the shore is close and the rocks threatening

Steer clear to the wide open reaches

Find the world at the end of the world

Leave behind the doubts and the tears

Live in the frozen present

Fully fearful, raw, shattered

Unknowably alive

Lost beyond words

One moment to the next

Present

On the edge.

Rage no longer quiet

Pulse strong

Eyes bright

Alive.

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]

Read Me (19 April 1996)

Twice Told

Norma

Ron

Raye

Bill

Bill

Paul

Rachel

Pamela

Amy

Larry

Walter Arlington

A slow walk along a busy street

People hanging out

Shouldering a pack sticking to my back

Humid sunset

Settling in

Dark espresso grit in my mouth

Words sung with guitar

A warm-up to the readings

Words written

Waiting

Soon words will be spoken

Add my name to the list

The only one not known to the other readers

They have their connections

Where will I fit in?

Reading into the mike

Distant from myself

Reading my words

Remembering my thoughts

Hearing them fresh

How do I sound?

The first poem

Long

Weaving back on itself

Seeing a bigger pattern than I knew was there

Always coming back to the breath

The first poem

Received with applause

The second poem

A risk

Revealing anger and hurt

Speaking in code

Speaking a common language

Greeted with silence

After the long poem

Was this one too short?

Were they expecting more?

Were they lost in the thought?

A hard poem to applaud

The third poem

More a head trip

Safer

Talking about walls

Bounded

Unthreatening

A known quantity

Still

Ending in silence

I have a special place for

Two Poems for Jim

Resting in my heart

One breath

At the balance point

Strong words

Softly read

A big stick of dynamite

Exploding in the mind

Walter (Reed) Arlington (Cemetery) ended the evening

Jittering on stage

Filled with his words

Acknowledging my words

Walking together out into the night

As our separate ways carried us along the same path

Ending at the Dairy Mart

Phone numbers exchanged

Will he call?

Will I call?

Good night

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]

A Day of Poetics (16 March 1996)

(1)

A day
Writing and sitting and writing and sitting and writing and sitting
And so on.
With others
Read the same poems but hear them differently
Read my poems and hear them differently.

(2)

Write
White
Lies
On a page
What is truth?
Where does it reside?
In a full bladder?
In a sleeping foot?
In a crystal Buddha?
Breathe in the smell of ink
Hear the sounds of pens
See people gathered around
A flower
A pile of bones
A towering vase filled with tears
Gaze raised to the silent eager faces
Intent on capturing the moment.

(3)

Be still
Feel the tension
Settle
Relax
Open slowly.

(4)

The sharp edge of sadness
Rubs against the grain
Slices through formal logic
And opens up my heart.

(5)

The edge of the seat
Holds my butt
Suspended
Balls dangle against fabric
Cock trapped in the folds
Held back lest it spring forth with sensation
Crying for attention
Ignored
Shut down
The flow blocked
Drowning in silence

Make room for quiet rage.

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]

Second Thoughts (1 March 1996)

3 x 3

Jim

Jim

Jim

7 + 7

In the darkness, light

In the light, tears

In tears, open heart

In open heart, life

In life, awareness

In awareness, death

In death, the cycle begins again

In openness, a flame flickers

In the fire, a heart melts

In love, a life is born

In birth, a seed unfolds

In growth, change and change and change again

In chaos, stillness

In death, the cycle continues

Reprise

James Lee McJimpsey, Jr.

James Lee McJimpsey, Jr.

James Lee McJimpsey, Jr.

May your spirit find peace and joy

May your spirit bring peace and joy

May the unrestricted flow of life rush through you

-- Larry Wolf (1996)

[Posted 2025]