CARL MILLER DANIELS

two poems

CHEAP SHOT

so i'm having a dream about

a guy i had a big crush on back in

high school, a basketball player

named David.

**

i am just sliding my tongue

down his long lean belly

toward his smooth lovely 

cock, when, there IS A KNOCK

ON THE DOOR TO OUR APARTMENT!!! (in

the dream, we are both still 18, and 

we seem to have just gotten

an apartment together, all of which is

just fine by me!!) well, after

the knock on our door, 

an exaggerated look of panic appears

on David's handsome face.

we both get dressed in a hurry, he 

opens the door, and,

yes indeed, his parents are

standing there right outside

in the hallway. he sputters,

says "come in", or "just a minute"

or something like that. meanwhile,

the apartment adjoining ours has

mysteriously sprouted a door

that leads directly into our

bathroom, and people from

the apartment next door are

looking into our own apartment with a great 

deal of curiosity and disapproval

written all over their smug prying faces.

somehow, we send his parents

away for a while. we close

and lock the mysteriously-

appeared door that leads

into our bathroom from the

adjoining apartment. David and i are

again naked, kissing, fondling,

again deliriously happy that

FINALLY WE GET TO HAVE SEX!!! 

i have never wanted

anything so much in my entire life.

we spent our entire senior year

of high school in denial about our love for

each other, but now we've moved in together, 

told each other how we feel, and now WE FINALLY

GET TO HAVE SEX!!!

he is my first love, my

first lust. i could just

eat him up. then, the curtains on the 

windows glide open. people are milling

around outside our apartment. he is

jittery, unhappy, unwilling;

this is not to be: there

will be no sex with him tonight. i wake up,

sad, frustrated, angry. that which

never happened, never gets to.

not even in a dream.

**

36 years was a long time ago,

but to have it again within my

grasp, and, then have it snatched away--

that just seems

cruel, unbearable, and downright mean.

**

whoever said "a man's reach should

exceed his grasp" had obviously

never dreamed about David, 6'5", 9".

the mitochondrial smear of gloom essence

hangs in the air like

duck-billed platypuses on their backs,

exposing their enigmatic genitalia

to the peregrinations of the wind.

**

it is a bally-hoo pom-pom-toss kind

of day. cheerleaders exude, well,

let's just call it "extreme

enthusiasm" shall we? rampant insistence on the

unity of effort and theme

pummells the heads

of the spectators, 99.9% of

whom are really "into it".

the others (probably the poets) 

aren't so sure.

**

athlete uniforms are tight,

and certainly accent the phallic, &

the scrotal. 

**

up above, big clouds billow,

threatening rain. in fact,

if one squints, one can

see the millions of raindrops,

preparing to launch themselves

earthward, toward the crowd.

**

birds dart in and out among 

the blackness, eating 

quick-flying insects, or hoping for sex.

** 

when the rain begins,