Wool Slacks with Knee Patches

Some say that I’m discovering my masculinity in Du Queer, but this self-referential squandering of the senses is not the reason for my meandering ways. It is always some time of day or night – I carry the stars with me in a newsboy cap, and they come scattering down around my ears as I arrange my chapeau upon my head. It is twilight. My dreams are dark clouds spread out along the horizon, and I’m strolling nonchalantly towards them. I’m in no hurry for happiness; it is something I’m unfamiliar with and mistrust. My grey herringbone trousers have patches sewn onto each worn-out knee. As I kneel to shake an errant star from my shoe, I look up to see you standing gloomily. Why the bog-face, if there are clouds nearby?

What is Home? (leather jacket)

Sadly, I pack Lulu and Francy in their burnt orange leather cat carrier. We’re leaving home once again and I can hardly bear it; the departure, the shuffling of belongings and hearts like so many worn dollar bills – folded, filthy and disheveled. I need to leave crumbs so that we can find our way back again. And “home” – what of home? Is home a door that I will ever happily enter once more? Is home just a worn and battered pissoir on a sad, lonely street, good for the inevitable piss leaving my urethra in a hot gush, a faint dribble down one thigh, and then vaporizing into a memory of a pulse. I listlessly zip up my jacket, and stroke Lulu and Francy’s furry wee heads. Francy stares at my navy suede desert boots and meows a “What the fuck!?!” I look down; I’m so befuddled by the misalignment of the planets and the careless scattering of the stars that even my socks are mismatched. I sigh, and lock the door. There is no whistling today, only a bellow.

You Pretty Things

It has been a long exhausting week, full of emotional storm clouds and disgraced cats. Lulu and Francy have both been bad little kittens, although one would never know it by the peaceful bundle of mixed ginger and tawny fur snoozing on the sofa next to me. The lights are dim, I have a cup of ginger tea and a bowl of warm strawberry cake topped with cream that has been whipped into a soft slouch on the copper coffee table. My boots are off, and to my exquisite pleasure, you are massaging my feet, your fingers pulling each toe firmly and smoothing my shins. I’m wearing my espresso brown velveteen 13-button sailor pants with equestrian buttons. The velveteen nap is worn thin at the knees, and my thin white singlet is torn and limp from an earlier romp. David Bowie is crooning in the background, and you are mine.
“Wake up you sleepy head,
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed,
Put another log on the fire for me,
I’ve made some breakfast and coffee,
I look out my window what do I see,
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me,
All the nightmares came today,
And it looks as though they’re here to stay”
(By David Bowie)

Colored Shoe Laces (Tied tightly)

The air in your sitting room smells sultry, with a bite of sandalwood, pipe tobacco smoke, and spice. The lights are pinkish and low, but I can’t tell if the dusky dimness is deliberate, or if you have forgotten to make sure your light bulbs are in working order. I wait for you nervously, my damp loden green felt fedora balanced on my grey flannel-clad knee. I keep fiddling and twirling the gunmetal buttons on my jacket; I feel underdressed and slothful. I notice that the waxed shoelaces on my brogues are untied, and I lean down to retie them into a tight knot. I’ve never visited you here before, and it always makes me antsy to be in new places. The loveseat is upholstered in chocolate faux pony skin, and your Isfahani carpet is worn through on the edge of the diamond-shaped center medallion. The walls are lined with wooden bookshelves crammed with well-read volumes, but I do not feel comfortable or reassured. I hear you coming before I see you; you are softly whistling “Over the Rainbow”.

Vintage Window-Pane Checked Jacket & Yellow Vest

Googoosh is playing on the stereo, and the winter sun is setting. I’m dressing to meet you at the corner Italian restaurant, and mulling over the past two weeks while thoughtfully fastening the horn buttons on my window-pane checked jacket. I take my grandfather’s gold pocket watch from its velvet-lined ebony box, attach my timepiece with a T-Bar chain, and slide the watch into my silk lined inside pocket. There is a soft rustling, and I withdraw a piece of carefully folded yellow notebook paper. It appears to be either a shopping list or a mash note, and reads “one Tarte Pomme Pistache, three pounds of fine salmon, a bag of Demerara brown sugar, five assorted chocolate bars, one pound of mixed stars”.
گریه کنم یا نکنم
حرف بزنم یا نزنم
من از هوای عشق تو ، دل بکنم یا نکنم
با این سوال بی* جواب ، پناه به آینه می برم
خیره به تصویر خودم ، می پرسم از کی* بگذرم
یه سوی این قصه تویی*
یه سوی این قصه منم
بسته به هم وجود ما
تو بشکنی ، من می شکنم
(Gerye Konam Ya Nakonam sung by Googoosh)

Striped Velveteen Victorian Waistcoat

It is a bleak Tuesday; only one day past Monday, but too far from Friday. I’m dressed up to go to a poetry reading, listening to music at the corner pizzeria as I wait for my order, and wondering about romance; is romance our clasped hands in the dark? Is it a bouquet of periwinkle thistles, or sweet whispered words in the night? When I was 23, I thought I knew all about romance, and that it was love notes and damp palms. Now this has changed. Sometimes kindness seems like romance, but sometimes all I want is a nonsensical sweep of something big. I’m waiting for the pizza gal to heat up my slice while sipping a glass of water. I am wearing a brown and black striped and waled velveteen waistcoat, black velveteen jeans, short buckled boots, and an iridescent green and black brocade jacket. She brings me hot pizza, and I take a bite.
“E’er since Miss Susan Johnson lost her Jockey, Lee,
There has been much excitement, more to be;
You can hear her moaning night and morn.
“Wonder where my Easy Rider’s gone?”
Cable grams come of sympathy,
Telegrams go of inquiry,
Letters come from down in “Bam”
And everywhere that Uncle Sam
Has even a rural delivery.
All day the phone rings, But it’s not for me,
At last good tidings fill our hearts with glee,
This message comes from Tennessee.”
(Written by W.C. Handy and sung by Bessie Smith)

Plaid Tweed Cap for Errant Lads

I am cruising through Hampstead Heath Park in London, over by West Heath. It is dusk, and the setting sun casts warm pinks over the bog…adding a glow to the shadowy forms of men lurking by the untrimmed bushes. I am planning on trekking on over to Leg of Mutton Pond to let loose with copies of 250 missives that I have written to you. I’ve copied each note on crisp gold origami paper and folded them into wee gilded swans. They will be perfectly gleaming as they float across the rippling water. I have on my old denim patched sailor pants, and a yellow and cobalt blue stripped wool pullover. I’m wearing a tattered plaid tweed cap. I sing a little tune as I make my way through the park.
“How glad the many millions
Of Toms and Dicks and Williams
Would be
To capture me.
But you had such persistence
You wore down my resistance
I fell
And it was swell.
You’re my big and brave and handsome Romeo
How I won you I will never never know
It’s not that you’re attractive
But oh my heart grew active
When you came into view.
I’ve got a crush on you, sweetie pie
All the day and nighttime, hear me sigh
I never had the least notion
That I could fall with so much emotion”
(I’ve got a Crush on You – Written by George Gershwin & sung by Ms. Fitzgerald)

Vintage Wool Smoking Suit

It is a fine day for fashion and wordsmiths. Last month, I bought the “Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary” (ed. Kay, Roberts, Samuels, Wotherspoon), and “One Hundred Years of Menswear” (C. Blackman). I am reclining on my wine cut-velvet armchair basking in the intellectual warmth of page 1085. One hand is in my pocket, fondling the commendation ninepence and chain link that you gave me…and wishing I was fondling you. My other hand holds a 19th century hand-painted Staffordshire Punch and Judy mug of hot spiced apple cider, and I’m wearing a copy of Rudolph Valentino’s three-piece smoking suit made of grey and black herringbone tweed, with black matte satin cuffs and a shawl collar. Queen’s Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy is playing scratchily on the gramophone.
“I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things
We can do the tango just for two
I can serenade and gently play on your heart strings
Be your Valentino just for you.
Hey boy where do you get it from
Hey boy where did you go ?
I learned my passion in the good old-fashioned
school of loverboys.”
(By the luminous Freddie Mercury)

Wrinkled White Linen Shirt

Sadly, I remember traveling on the Orient Express; I dashed a note off to you on my last aerogram, including the recipe for my grandmother’s spoon bread that you’d requested during your last visit. I fiddled with the mother of pearl buttons on my white linen shirt. The front was wrinkled from me slumbering earlier in the afternoon, and there was a spot of egg yolk from yesterday’s breakfast. I slouched on the banquette sofa in my cabin and stared out the window until the steward brought me a warm Pot de Crème au Chocolat. My iPod was playing Mark Eitzel singing “Sacred Heart”. Maybe this was the perfect moment to be fleeing from Paris. Will I return to your kisses? Will trying it once more time make our love magical again?
“Now I’m out walking on Saturday morning
without a direction, I’m a dime a dozen,
a worthless tourist – a walking target
with his eyes stuck on glue and paper
no roof to crawl under
but with a heart full of rain
a heart full of rain.
Full as the clouds
my throwaway map should throw me away
and where does it take me
streets long since flooded
raindrops and heartbeats
though Noah doesn’t want me
you won’t let me drown.

Gold & Silver Wingtip Tap Shoes

What do I know? Not much. I’d like to keep it that way, and fortunately this is simple…maybe even simple-minded. I’ve decided to take a train ride to retrieve the tatters of the past; tooling through Europe and the Middle East, with the noise of the wheels embossing each memory into my heart. I’ve packed my leather steamer and carry-on, kissed the kittens good-bye, and locked up my apartment. Tapping my way down the long dark hall-way to the dawn in my metallic two-tone wingtips, and then settling into a cab to the airport, I cross one 501 clad leg over the other and take a sip of candy-bar coffee from my green metal thermos.
“I’ll break your heart
To keep you far from where
All dangers start
And atmosphere”
(By Warpaint)