amphibi.us » »Paul Hostovsky

Poem for Uncle Walter

Shannon Peil — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:22:39 +0000

So you want to die but
you can’t. Ay, there’s the rub. I bet
it feels a little like wanting to come
when you can’t come. Masturbation
and suicide have a lot in common,
don’t they, Uncle Walter? I mean
you want to get off, don’t you?
You want to get out. You want to
take your life, take your death
into your own hands, and kind of
rub the shit out of it. You want to
go to Oregon, ay, but the rub is
you have to be a resident there;
you have to have lived there awhile before
they will help you to die there. So there you lie
in your hospice bed like someone with no hands
who is dying to come. And who
can you ask for help with that among
the children and grandchildren gathered
around your sickbed? They won’t do it for you,
you sick old man. Nor will that beautiful
diffident young nurse who comes in the evenings.
Once you could have done it yourself—
but now it’s too late for that. And it’s a little
sick, isn’t it, that I should be thinking of you,
as I touch myself now, as I bring myself
to climax, giving myself another petit mort,
which I know you would kill for, Uncle Walter.

© Paul Hostovsky, 2010

[others]

The Quintessential Impotence Poem

Shannon Peil — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:51:13 +0000

Quintessence is the fifth and highest essence
that permeates all nature and is the substance
that the heavenly bodies are composed of. Impotence

is the state of no sex in heaven. Or if there is
sex in heaven, it will technically have to be masturbation,
because everyone is one and the same in heaven.

Hell is having nothing to read but your own
poems. A psychiatrist is someone with a hanging
psychiatric shingle outside his door. A prostitute

is someone who sucks dick for a living.
A dangling participle is a relative clause
in an ambiguous sentence, or it’s a life sentence

in a man with erectile dysfunction. For example:
“Jerry Remy hit an RBI single off Haas’s leg,
which rolled into right field.” You would think

the leg rolled into right field. You would think
getting to first base with a girl would give you
a boner as hard as a baseball bat. All we know

is that Remy got to first base and someone
scored. Whoever it was, he must have been very
happy. He probably got an erection. He probably got

a raise in pay and self-esteem, and he probably
had an erector set when he was a kid. My mother
never bought me an erector set. And my father never

learned to speak English very well. He thought
a home run was something you did when your mother
forgot to pick you up after your baseball game.

© Paul Hostovsky, 2010

[others]

Wincing at the Beautiful

Shannon Peil — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:12:57 +0000

So my friend Phil is telling me how

he can’t get a date

how he loves women and how

they’re always giving him looks

so I ask him what kind of looks

so he winces at the beautiful

braless young woman passing by

at that particular propitious moment

giving her a look of such

longing and longevity

that she returns his look with a look

that kills his entire family tree

from the roots to the unimagined

blossoms of the great grandchildren shriveling

on his shriveling bough

and I think I’ve diagnosed his problem now

and I think of quoting some lines from Rilke

but on second thought I think

a sports metaphor might serve him better

so I steer the conversation round to basketball

and the three second rule

which says you can only stand inside

the key for three seconds

before they blow the whistle

they’re just blowing the whistle on you Phil

for breaking the three second rule

for standing there with your eyes

popping out like basketballs

it’s a game like any other I tell him

then I ask him if he wants to score

and now that I have his attention

I throw in those lines from Rilke

I tell him that beauty is nothing

but the beginning of terror

we’re still just able to bear

and the reason we adore it so

is that it serenely disdains to destroy us

and he winces again and this time

it’s at the beauty of those lines

or maybe their truth which hits him

like a three-pointer now

that Rilke hits all the way from Germany

at a distance of a hundred years