#st.orr writer

[saintorr]

Just sold another lovely copy of my 1 hour mix of Pagan Moon which also contains a subtle, warm bi-lateral pulse (E.M.D.R.); great for de-stress, healing from P.T.S.D. or making love to your favorite loved one! What a steal at just a buck for a whole hour of healing music. Thank you J. Note; the pulse is best heard listening with headphones.

[saintorr]

Gun Massage c. 2017 by St.Orr

October 2017

                 Recently, hundreds of spectators were shot at a country western outdoor music festival; fifty-eight of them killed. The shooter was a quiet, retired, white male. No once knows what moved him to become the most prolific mass murderer in American history.

                 Before this news broke, I was watching a video shot by police in Sarasota, Florida of the arrest of a middle-aged, blond, female for practicing massage without a license. The arresting police had carefully documented, through video footage all the incriminating, evidence. The video showed them taking down the woman’s pristine massage table, cutaway to a shot of a large, gallon container of Biotone professional massage lotion; to an orange, serenely glowing Himalayan salt lamp; to a towel warmer, stacked full of what I would imagine to be warm, moist, hand towels (the kind that feel so good when applied to the face during, before or after a full-body massage. Finally, the video showed the police doing an actual “perp walk”, escorting the female felon to the waiting squad car. She was wearing cross-trainers and jeans as they walked her across a nappy-looking Florida lawn, past a kitschy palm tree. As she was being escorted to squad car’s back seat, one burly-chested, white, young officer with a crew cut, placed his hand on her head and gently pushed or guided her as she knelt and bowed to enter the backseat of the squad car.

                 In my mind’s eye, I kept replaying the shots of the nefarious evidence of the masseuse-felon, the innocuous, super-large bottle of Biotone, the gently, glowing, Himalayan lamp and more, on display and presented in the same light as confiscated bags of heroin from a drug bust, guns and knives from the cache of an alt-right mercenary or a gang-related safe house bust; cocaine, crack, containers of Cyclone B gas or vials of Ebola or Anthrax spores.

Reflecting on this, a dark feeling of the blackest humor came over me as I recalled the images of the video of the first few moments of the shooting attack on the audience at the country western festival in Vegas. As the shots are recorded, popping like errant fireworks, the hand-held video footage jerkily pans to the giant monitor stage left of the performer; we hear what sounds like the ping and crack of the bullets perhaps rupturing the giant screen as the artist suddenly stops playing and runs off the stage. There is another volley of pops as video turns back among the crowd the audience members begin to run and scream in the confusion, the bullets tearing through bodies and limbs as the mindless but well-planned attack continues on for some eight minutes before the shooter turns on the gun on himself a moment before the police break into room number 32135.

I fantasize stealing the police video record of interior of the infamous room in the Mandalay Bay that documents the crime scene. I would edit the video, and between the shots of the broken windows, the view of the massacre, the guns and ammunition, bomb-making arsenal, and the dead, prone body of the shooter, I would intercut the shots of the evidence of the hapless, unlicensed masseuse; the bottle of Biotone lotion, massage tale, the orange, gently glowing Himalayan salt lamp and the precious towel warmer with it’s stock of warm, moist face towels…

(Sing) “My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing…”

[saintorr]

The Most Beautiful Parts

by St.Orr c. 2017

             The most beautiful parts of myself glow when I have compassion for myself, for my pain, my joy and solitude; for the craters, bags and wrinkles that attach themselves to my face and body as I age. Along with these come the tears, smiles and feelings (stuffed and unstuffed) that constitute this lovely, divinely starborn (and sometimes stillborn) psycho-bionic being and oh so grounded human entity called myself. There are broken dreams and anger, the shadows of dark and the shadows of gold; both the ashes and the infinite parts of the pieces of the puzzle that make up the me, a man who thought he was a little girl, who then accepted the man he grew into, wrapped in all of the scars of that cocoon woven into a fleece of many colors, of many shadows, and seasons that make up a life.

            I can see the grace and beauty of those larger than life stars as they sit at their tables at the great awards shows, the Golden Globes, the Oscars, etc. I sit at home and watch and wonder at their flow, their luminosity, their electric energy broadcast through all the wireless waves and satellites and piped into my monitor; I feed on them, consume them and think to myself because I can see their beauty, their grace, that I have it too!  Because I can feel them glistening with unimaginable gentleness, grace, beauty and power, then I too must have those things in me. Or maybe some essence? Well, doesn’t every human being?

            When these luminous ones come together to make their art, they overshadow all the neurotic news of bombastic tyrants and terrorist statistics; they shine through the fear, bloodletting, violence and hatred of the current world, circa winter, 2017. But they shine their fake smiles on all the dreamers and poets who still scrawl, write, and scrounge through the bottom layers of silt seeking a chance at the glamour and the gold of this crap game called show business where beauty is elevated to an art form that can inspire and lift. Their beauty too can be a trap—for it is the A-list, in-crowd that the agents and managers feed on and fight over, the stars we worship and adore. For, let's face no one wants or cares to hear about the losers whose dreaming destroyed them.

            The only famous person I ever massaged was Clive Davis. Other writers have warned me never NEVER to use real names when I record my memoirs but here I go. My purpose is not to gossip or slander but simple illustrate how the high roads and pinnacles of great success can sometimes meet the everyday world of the common man and produce a strange concoction all its own. I was called to Davis’ black marble penthouse tower on Park Avenue late one Sunday evening. He was an elderly man, he owned his own massage table and after a very anti-climactic session he paid me partially in nickels and dimes. While I stood there, in his kitchen, receiving the coins in open palms, his sick, dying Cocker Spaniel had the audacity to throw-up on my shoe. I don’t think there were any pennies. Clive inspired me to write a song called “Park Avenue” which I later produced, recorded and played for him when he called me for a second massage. He didn’t seem impressed when he heard it. “Meh, it's not a killer” he said, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips. So much for inspiration.

            There was one client who actually did pay me partially in pennies; a forgettable outcall in the West Village truly more deserving of the demeaning label of trick than that of massage client. Besides the backbreaking massage, this arrogant, cold-blooded white snake of a humanoid also demanded that I piss on him in his bathtub. I still recall the hideous, garish Kelly green and shiny silver wallpaper of that awful bathroom; and the urge to throw the carefully counted pennies that he doled out right back in his face as he paid me off, both of us standing by the door. God I so wish I had flung those pennies right back into his satiated, smirking face. This was after I rubbed him and worked him up to a sensual release as the bedside photo of his lover standing on some pristine Hamptons beach replete with foaming waves and pant legs rolled up in the sand looked on, a boyish smile sweetly singing into the camera.

            The little boy in me has followed the man to the places where touch replaced sanity as the ultimate actor's “Survival Job” and the worship of the ecstasy of the orgasm was all, was enough, was better, truer and more real than any other form of working in the mundane “real world” could ever be.

            Now, I am emerging from that cocoon. Emerging from all my years that are spread out like a long, murky dark night of the soul. Older, wiser, a bit slower and a bit less generous with my body and hands to the hungry, horny minions of men; for what choice does one have when the downtime waves come lasting for a week, two weeks, or two months? In years past, when I was younger, the downtime could be measured in hours or days, there was always an endless supply of male (and sometimes female) clients in and out and up and down the one flight of stairs leading to my one-bedroom East Village flat. Then I recall all the hours spent in spas, the Plaza, the Waldorf, the crème de la crème of the best hotels and spas in the city; those passive aggressive, peach and crème-colored torture chambers with their silken linen smells and serenely smiling blond aestheticians working the front desk, making bookings, taking payments, listening to the complaints of the rich and not-so-famous. How many times was I initiated into the true meaning of the embalmed slave-state of the so-called service industry mentality? The place where New age serenity smiles are glued in place like impenetrable plastic masks. Oh the ache of the pressure of hands on bodies, hour after hour, giving until there’s nothing left to give; to have to smile, to have to fight attitudinal managers over incorrect paychecks, explain yourself like a criminal when some cunt complains about something you did or didn’t do (“too much peppermint oil on my thigh, it started to burn!” "So sorry to rock your bliss lady, but the cap was loose and came off in my hand!” or “During the massage, his fingers felt much too close to my inner thigh;" or "he stole my Rolex watch”). Oh what joy to be jumping like a trained circus dog when the cruel but handsome, Latin bisexual manager snapped his fingers “Room 4-Go!” at the West Village “Nickel-Spa for men.” That was the summer of the blackout I remember. There, in a tiny massage room, in the dark, a client lay prone, waiting. And there, light from outside glowed through a slit in the door like some view into a World War II NAZI gas chamber that "Hector” would peep through to check up on you, his eyes searching and accusing, making sure you weren’t doing anything naughty! In the darkened room while you massaged, sometimes you fantasized about lunch, the end of the shift, fantasizing the clock speeding up so the hour would go faster. Also, sometimes there were mysterious energy shifts and exchanges. You would begin the massage with a sore wrist, back or an upset stomach and simply through the mindful meditation of touching--of giving--your malady would disappear. Miraculous. After many a massage too, the clients would reappear looking pleasantly-sleepy, refreshed and years younger. Healing hands are so underrated. There is a lovely Zen quality to simply touching and being paid for it. It’s a pure physical, intimate work on a much higher level than office 9-5 drudgery. I’m grateful too for all the joys the sexual release work have given me through the years. Talk about “sweet labors of love.” So it almost appears strange that after all this physicality and all this time I wonder why is it that now, when I find myself servicing a client’s sexual needs that an intense nausea rises in my gut and I’m forced to fight the almost overwhelming urge to vomit? Interesting that after what?--some thirty years of doing massage (I started in 1990) that this very ethereal thing called self-integrity that I thought I’d lost or abandoned years ago, (my lost soul perhaps?) has come back to own me with a vengeance. Or maybe I’m owning it, my dear, sweet self-soul, after all these years. Thank you, God. I guess there’s a point where every man grows into his skin and outgrows his tired, cock-heavy adolescence. It’s as if my gut is telling me “You HATE this.” But I ignore the feelings and my urge to puke when repulsion grips me. I know the hour will soon be done and this strange “stimulation/torture/meditation” meshing and merging of energies, fluids and fantasies called M4Mmassage will help me pay yet another month of my over-priced New York rent. In my new vision of this my “third ace,”  I see myself fleeing this inflated, over-hyped, hollow, over-populated and all-too-neurotic place called New York City. Please God, soon, I pray, just the vista of the ocean and a small garden and I’ll be fine. Oh, and no more massages please, unless he’s my lover and not a client.

[saintorr]

FAMOUS NEIGHBOR

FAMOUS NEIGHBOR c. 2017 by St.Orr

My neighbor is a rising star; not quite 30, he makes quilts and sells them for thousands. His followers on Instagram will soon number half a million. He’s not friendly and appears medicated, as if living daily on a high dose of anti-depressants. He’s cold as ice really, with vacant empty eyes, as he floats down the street like a zombie, insulated from the world by his headphones. He seems upset if you speak to him. Of course, who I am to judge? He’s unlocked the key to success, his life has one single, burning focus--making quilts and taking pictures of them. Quilts of diamond patches and rainbow colors, both classic and modern designs. Though new at it, he’s truly mastered the style, the craft, the jargon, the design process itself—he makes it all sing. Sometimes he incorporates warm, cuddly animals, happy dragons or serious owls, Alpine Rose, Leap frog, Grandmother’s secret; a startled cat, or a sly fox; and all, all in some mad, luscious cacophony of colors; stars, triangles, tiles, and rays. His life has become extremely focused and he excels at that kind of monochrome zone-being the ultra successful elite procure. For you see, it’s irrelevant what I, or anybody else thinks, (including his lover), for he will be a millionaire someday, probably travel the world, connect with famous designers and possibly run factories; all from this art which he discovered after graduating in Public Relations and working in advertising for seven years, grooming and growing and getting to know the fine art of social media to sell and promote, to connect with that virtual zeitgeist, that collective ooze and yearning for warm puppies and all things cute and nice and Hello Kitty! Then, this lucky young prince found the joy of making quilts and discovered gold. Would that my talent could so simply claim its heart’s desire like a hunter claims his kill, or a mountain lion it’s prey. But no. I am part this and that, I flit from here to there, too old to deign to mine my own monochrome-zone; too needful of creature comforts; the worship of the sun, wine, men and music; too longing for the touch of semi-wild gypsy cats or the lust to capture with my finger on the shutter of my Android a dying robin’s last night on earth. Bless him. Maybe I will pay him $200 an hour for a consultation so that I too, may learn through the magic of hashtags and branding, the fine art of manipulation. For then, I too can master social media, and I too, can be a rising star. Good at any age.

[saintorr]

Gentrification Genocide

(Four sketches)

c. 2017 by Steven Orr

 I.  Having survived AIDS, a gay-bashing, 9-11, Sandy and an endless stream of queens posing as no-show clients, I wonder if this latest wave of too-close-for-comfort gentrification will be my own, personal, genocidal Swan Song? Tonight, while riding my bike like the crazed, clowning pterodactyl, I found myself breathily imitating a very feminized bicycle bell. “Ding-ding” one moment; and the next, I’m screaming like a wolf-crazed banshee as I fly past a very proper, chic and rich-looking woman, giving her quite a start! Indignantly, she screams “Oh my God!” in a belting, masculine voice tinged with a Valley-girl accent. This happens just off 7th Street and First Avenue and I pedal on gleefully, half ashamed for my acting out; and half empowered and self-congratulatory for my anarchistic tendencies, praying and hoping that maybe, just maybe this entitled-acting cannibal is one of the new billionaire zombies inhabiting the crystal cardboard and obtuse glass towers on the eastside of Avenue A between 6th and 7th; or the newly renovated Shul four doors west of my man cave. Oh, you know, that confusing condo/synagogue, half place of worship, half billionaire-broken-hearted-haunt of the ghost of the big Rabbi with the swarmy, philandering son, also named Sandy; the one who finagled, then sold off the temple’s rights for close to a billion dollars.

 II. In the morning, do not fear, I tell myself, for those monstrous explosions are merely the renovation of De Maria’s former studio, semi-formerly a Con-Ed substation; now currently being magically transformed into the billionaire Brant’s private museum. Ordinary neighborhood citizens will not be allowed access to the beatific garden growing between 421 E. 6th St., and cutting straight through to 7th Street, like a slender, cold, fish knife slices through a babe’s beating heart, nor will they be allowed into the private storage space where priceless, insipid and modern works of art will be stored and kept; available only for private viewing to the coterie of fellow billionaires, stars and their kingly cronies. Cannibalize yourselves, you lowly 99%, suffer the noise! Let the new money frighten away the former spirit guides and the friendly semi-wild gypsy cats that once played and sang and danced in between these dishwater-lit toy tenements of beer and dreams and young strains of songwriters’ guitars and falling in love with the moonbeam dreams of East Village hungry-hearts and shadowy leather lovers; for the new owners of this house of bomb-sounding billions was seeking a location and tax-write off in an edgy, creative neighborhood, so here we are! He sought to color his taste in architecture with the pronoun “creative”. Oh you poor 99%, you starving nothings. Yes, you may die of construction noise, dust, and fumes; and you may have to walk around the red-velvet ropes when the chic parties begin and the drones and helicopters start landing and the limousines begin pulling up with their stars with their even more glamorous billions but oh now look how your property values are increasing! With every chiseled BOOM of detaching chards and jagged, dusty bricks the work crew of flying monkeys flings into the the BOOMING maw of the dumpster from hell; comes the skeletal, fire-cracking, whacking-snapping chorus of never-ending jackhammers (often five at once), for this is a war of money over time, fought, won and played out by short trollish billionaires with crooked smiles. For WE THE PEOPLE--are irrelevant and WE THE PEOPLE are little better than charming old engines, White slave labor, memories of America’s fragmented, shrunken middle class, now addicted to crack, Walmart, Nikes and Disney digital dreams of “Searching for Dory”. WE THE PEOPLE, better forgotten, better disposed of, better buried by Trump, so the young, rich litters of billionaire spawn can play here anew, can fling themselves into their endless selfie-cesspools of Chai lattes tropical banana and protein powder smoothies, funny, arthritic, black French bulldogs named Lucy and lovely, decadent, divinely narcissistic empty and burning consumeristic dreams of pretension and nothingness.

 III.  As a matter of fact, Medicaid was specifically created to hasten us to an early grave; Those of us that weren’t exterminated by the first, or 2nd waves of gentrification genocide. Someone said “We don’t know how good we have it.” “We don’t’ know how good we have it” I repeat as I am having a nervous breakdown trying to make an appointment, trying to get a referral from my (formerly caring) community healthcare clinic where now only Trans-people matter; for, besides the billionaires, THEY are also the new masters of the New York human race; everyone else is basically irrelevant. I’m trying to make an appointment for this back pain that’s made every other step excruciating for three months now, (all through the holidays; the wine helped, sometimes the sex). “No, Goddammit I don’t NEED ESTROGEN! FUCK YOUR ESTROGEN AND YOUR PHONE MENU AND YOUR INSTRUCTIONS TO CALL 9-1-1 IF THIS IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY!” One of the patient associates handling referrals starts quoting policies to me, a vicious little queen with bitchy glee touting too-fast, meaningless and bureaucratic buzzwords at me like he’s throwing cream pies in my face. The next confusing day (nervous breakdown number two due to my continuing efforts to seek relief from this nagging pain), I am contacted by a manager named Stephanie (what sex is she? Dare I ask and be reported for inappropriate behavioral tendencies?). With balls of steel she attacks and berates me for my wholly unfriendly, overtly hostile and indeed homophobic language (referring to the “mean queen” of yesterday’s nervous breakdown).  “This is Callen Lorde” she proclaims, like a punitive, belittling, parole officer or a sexless, dominatrix cop, “You should know better!” Her rawhided, delivery strips me bare and exposes me for all my vulnerable, bisexual silliness and tendencies toward anarchistic prostitution and polymorphously, pleasure-seeking perversity that I am; for all that I inhabit and display, for this is the magical stuff that makes me me! I have an allergy to anything that coldly ignores and debases men only for being men. Why do some females act like raging amazon warriors slicing through the air, their angry clitorises waving like sharpened dragon’s teeth; so ready with a threat or an admonishment in response to any miniscule drop of incorrect language that happens to ejaculate casually from an innocent man’s mouth merely for the sake of jest…

 IV.  Once upon a time, there was a neighbor non-friend of mine, a sexless tomboy with frigid, uptight boundaries who had a talent for making me feel as warm and welcomed as a serial killer rapist. “Don’t nag me” she asserted testily at the coop board meeting one Saturday afternoon, and with jerking movement of her dry, tendinous and over-vascularized torso, SLAM CRASH, the mirror behind her slides off the wall, and onto the floor. Everyone jumps “There, you see?” I intone, smiling like Joan Crawford as Crystal in “The Women”, “That’s what you get for attacking me.”

[saintorr]

SPINELESS FAGGOTS

c. 2017 by St.Orr

It’s a dark day,

When spineless faggots appear

With their faceless voices

Consciously seductive, lying in wait

So casual, so mindless, so cruel

 If I could, I’d garret them,

Sling pitchforks up their asses

Force-feed them fecal cakes

Shower them with Zyclon B gases

 Devoid of character

No promises to keep

Like pussified assassins

To smother ‘n bludgeon you

In your sleep

 So deserving

Of President Trump

Oh to pour acid in their eyes

And line Crazy glue and AIDS effluvium

To the inside of one’s

swarmy little jerk off pump

 Oh to let them go

To be free of this territory

the chaos of sex work

The secret shame, the undead glory.

To slam their heads against the wall

Those bitchy-mean, queen cocksuckers

With their zombie-fag machinations,

The furry little lip that puckers

 Oh, to find sanctuary in secret tribes,

Of peaceful, hot, DL Daddies

Who show up with open arms,

And open bodies of lustful libations

[saintorr]

Space Music 1-9-17 (Two min. version), musical salad from Logic, misc. loops, etc. c. 2017 by St.Orr

[saintorr]

UPTIGHT c. 2017 by St.Orr

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  I’m uptight because time is money; and my time is precious,

I want a commitment from you, don’t act all pretentious

  I’m uptight because I want a pledge from you that you will show up

Cause even though you say you will, we both know that’s not enough.

  I’m uptight because it’s important

that if people say they’re going to do something

they do it

in a world where too many words are broken as stones

and broken promises are the average, the common, the norm.

  I’m uptight because time is a commodity; it’s all we have

and if we can’t show up when we say we will, then we’re no better off

than babies wetting ourselves and needing a mommy

to keep us clothed and taken care of.

  I’m uptight because you send me salacious pictures and come unto me.

If you’re not going to deliver, then why do you bother

like some damn fly buzzing around my head?

While I just lie here on the beautiful beach of my life in the sun,

who delivers his rays every day for free on everyone

and who alone will remain

long after we’re all gone and dead

  I’m uptight because I man up and try to make it right when I fuck up.

  I’m uptight because I demand respect as I give it

and if you can’t respect me as much as you lust for me to fill your hole

then we are definitely not a match,

and you’re a dumbass, blindass mole

  I’m uptight because I want the sex to mean more,

than a handshake in the dark, a casual conversation or a lark.

More than a tattered newspaper blowing in the wind,

or a hungry ghost

whose hunger has no end.

  I’m uptight because I’m hurt, when you say you’re gonna call and don’t,

for a day is too precious to loose,

to say you will, when you mean won’t.

  I’m uptight because I can see and feel all these things like the blood under my skin—and you can’t.

  I’m uptight because you’re blindness makes me angry,

and like so many I’ve met before,

you’re just another jerk off,

nobody’s friend, another closed door.

  I’m uptight because I’m scared that in my reflections, my solitude feels more relaxed and more like a natural state

than even the attempt of reaching out to someone like you

then getting nothing back

but a passive kind of hate

  I’m uptight, yeah, right, that’s why I bike in the city during the day and even at night.

  I’m uptight, so I’ll take a bath, get a massage,

dance, fuck or stretch to numb the pain

I’ll work out and warm up till my heart

can feel again

And after I resurrect myself

from the dead of you

I’ll write this poem,

in spite of, inspired by

the lie of you

  I’m uptight because I’m vigilant

And I can only let people in

Who give me some soul in return

And a little space to vent.

  I’m uptight because I owe myself to be something good

And not just be a trick you use,

throw out, dump on and abuse

  I’m uptight because I ask that you do right by me

Not just fuck or fight

then on a whim enslave and set free

  I’m uptight because I know my time here’s limited

And I’m a precious entity not just another number

that come a year from now you’ll forget you had and did

  I’m uptight because I have no desire to leave

A lukewarm, tepid, dishwater-colored legacy

  I’m uptight because I choose to be wise

not bitter, nor hiding

in the ashes

of your burned out fire,

  Not a prisoner, nor a plaything

of your desire malcontent

  I’m uptight because I’m bored of being an orphan

A victim of a wilding, a casual incident,

Who never acts but is only acted upon

Who never chooses but who’s only chosen

By other’s capricious acts of desire

And random, pointless discontent

  I’m uptight because I know you’re the kind of demon who

Can steal it all away without a clue

Or even a thought of being cruel,

yeah I’m uptight.

If you can’t take it

be gone fool

  I’m uptight because

I must give compassion

to that little boy inside

  That’s the only rule

There’s nothing else

Left to abide

[saintorr]

“GENTRIFICATION GENOCIDE” (TWO SCENES)

Published in “And Then” magazine 2018

c. 2018 by Steven Orr

(to purchase go to http://www.somesecludedspot.com/2017/01/02/and-then-magazine/

I. Having survived AIDS, a gay-bashing, 9-11, Sandy and an endless stream of trickster, horny-queens posing as no-show clients, I reflect; will this latest wave of too-close-for-comfort gentrification be my own, personal, genocidal Swan Song? Tonight, while riding my bike like a crazed, clowning pterodactyl, I found myself breathily imitating the sound of a very feminized bicycle bell. “Ding-ding” one moment, and the next, screaming like a crazed banshee at a female pedestrian dressed in black as she is mindlessly stepping directly into my on-coming path. My crazed battle-cry makes her stop bunglingly in her tracks; her oral addiction to her mobile device unforgivingly interrupted. Indignantly, she screams “Oh my God!” in a belting, bleating voice tinged with a Valley-girl accent. This happens just off 7th Street and First Avenue. I pedal on gleefully, half ashamed for my acting out, and half empowered and self-congratulatory for my anarchistic, bad-boy tendencies. I’m hoping and praying that maybe, said jay-walker is one of the new billionaire zombies inhabiting the crystal cardboard and colorless tag-team duo of million-dollar condos that went on the market last fall, located on Avenue A between 6th and 7th Streets; or perhaps she’s a new resident of the renovated and reconverted Shul just four doors west of my man cave. Oh, you know, that confusing condo-synagogue; that half place-of-worship, half billionaire-broken-hearted-haunt of the ghost of the big Rabbi; the one survived by his swarmy, conniving, snake-eyed son, also named Sandy.

II. In the morning, do not fear, I tell myself, for those monstrous explosions are merely the renovation of the deceased artist De Maria’s former studio. Semi-formerly a Con-Ed substation, the building is currently being magically and noisily transformed into a private museum for one Mr. Brant, the new billionaire owner. Ordinary neighborhood citizens will not be allowed access to the beatific garden growing between 421 East 6th Street, and cutting straight through to East 7th, like a slender, cold, fish knife slicing through a newborn babe’s beating heart, nor will they be allowed into the private storage space where priceless, modern (and most-likely insipid) works of art will be hidden away. Here will be housed Brant’s sacred treasures of the inner sanctum; here in this great, tall, glass-walled chapel of a structure, art will dwell. Rich man’s art, available only for private viewing to the coterie of fellow billionaires, stars and their kingly cronies. Cannibalize yourselves, you lowly 99%, suffer the noise! Let the new money frighten away the former spirit guides and the friendly semi-wild gypsy cats that once played, sang and danced along and in between these semi-lit row houses of tenements, filled with the ghosts of beer and dreams and young strains of fading songwriters’ guitars and falling-in-love-with-the-moonbeam-dreams and rainy-days-and-Sundays of East Village hungry-hearts and shadow leather lovers. Monsieur Brant wanted a location and tax-write off that was “creative”, so here we are! Oh you poor 99%, you starving nothings, yes, you may die of noise, entitlement and achingly tight ass-holeism when the chic parties start and the drones and the helicopters and the limousines start arriving with darling, parasitic models and the zombie-hungry,spoiled-cool, hipster billionaires and their cold, cold parents but oh! Just look how your property values are increasing! With every chiseled BOOM BOOM of chards detaching and jagged, dusty, broken bricks flinging, the work crew of flying monkeys is tossing all, all into the the BOOMING maw of the dumpster from hell (it must be half a block wide). Then comes the skeletal, fire-cracking, whacking-snapping chorus of never-ending jackhammers (often five at once), for this is a war of money over time, fought, won and played out by short, trollish billionaires with crooked smiles and hawk-like noses. For WE THE PEOPLE are obsolete and irrelevant; WE THE PEOPLE are little better than charming old engines, White slave labor, memories of America’s fragmented, shrunken middle class; now addicted to crack, Walmart, Nikes and digitized Disney dreams of “Searching for Dory”. WE THE PEOPLE, better forgotten, better disposed of, better buried by the Trumps, so the young, rich litters of billionaire spawn can play here anew, can fling themselves into their endless selfie-cesspools of Chai lattes, tropical banana and protein powder smoothies, funny French black bulldogs named Lucy and lovely, decadent, divinely narcissistic empty and burning consumer dreams of pretension and nothingness. In short, WE THE PEOPLE are poor, inconsequential, invisible. WE THE PEOPLE--don’t matter anymore.

[saintorr]

“Eyes” c. 2016 by Saintorr

The last time I’d slept with a guy must have been four or five years ago. My interest in Shamanism had led me to join to LGBT friendly, five day workshop run by a pleasant but effeminate group leader at Easton Mountain in Upstate New York. There I met Daniel, one of the participants. He was a big, broad shouldered, straight-acting Jewish lawyer from Montreal. He was also my roommate for the full five days. On the second evening of the workshop, we were sharing one of the small single beds in our private room. Big men always made me feel safe and protected. Further, I was mesmerized, and became faint when Daniel spoke French to me. His deep, masculine voice and the innate sensuality of the language, the sheer yearning of it, instantly made me hard and ready to cum all night. As the workshop progressed during the day, so at night did our male bonding. On our third evening together, while lying in his arms, I told him a story.

“There was a pet shop I used to pass by every Wednesday, on the ten minute walk from the Eastchester Road subway stop to my gig doing massage at Calvary Hospital. There were hundreds of birds in the big, storefront window. They were mostly parakeets, sleeping, fighting, scolding, playing, and eating; a never-ending carnival of small, feathered clowns, each their own independent bird-self. It made happy to stop in front of the window and just watch their shenanigans and it was a break from the chronically depressed Bronx neighborhood all around me. To one side of the parakeets, there was a huge, parrot on fire with colors, a big, yellow, beak and brilliant, green, psychedelic, jeweled eyes…those eyes, so stark and alive…like the eyes of a pterodacty I saw on my spirit journey today!” We both laughed. “Who said a spirit journey animal couldn’t be extinct?” said Daniel with his deep, French accent. “I’m just realizing that now, wow--I guess mine definitely is. Probably because I have something in common with extinct creatures, or at least dinosaurs.” “How’s that?” Daniel said caressing my chest.

“Well, I guess because I’m becoming older. I’m a survivor, a loner and I’m definitely not your typical New York queer. More than that I feel like a dinosaur among younger gays and the general populace. “Well, I’m glad your self-image doesn’t discriminate!” said the other man, “and I have to say you’re the hottest Daddy I’ve ever met!” “Thanks” I said, laughing. “I live a pretty unconventional life, I mean look at me; sixty plus years old and riding my bike all over the city like a 20-year-old. And I love biking, it makes me feel so free, like flying. And so good for the reflexes. Oops, there’s that bird thing again!” Daniel looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “Okay part terrifying and part spontaneous, like I can swoop down and take anything I want; then fly away like a great, big, terrifying, funny leather-winged bird. Like a pteradactyle! A clown. Did you ever see their heads? They have heads like long, pointed swords or stakes. A ferocious clown, that’s me.  Wow, yeah…those brilliant, green eyes of the parrot were the exact same eyes of the pterodactyl, the spirit guide animal I saw today in the workshop.” I nestled deep in Daniels arms and chest. The twin, single bed could barely hold us. I frequently felt like I was on the verge of falling out, unless he was holding onto me. We were like one body in that tiny bed. Silence. Then Daniel said “You live a pretty lonely life. It’s brave to do massage around dying people, I mean to be to deal with that when probably most masseurs are working in spas, making rich ladies feel pampered.”

“Thanks, yeah. Sometimes the patients haunt me when I take their memories home with me. Sometimes I can’t quite let go of the things they say; like facing the horror of the decay of their loved ones…awful stuff...Anyway then, one Wednesday, passing by the pet shop, I stopped in front of storefront window to see it covered with a giant, metallic shutter with a huge “For Sale” sign hanging in the middle of it. I got scared and angry then. For some reason I pictured the hundreds of parakeets still in there! Behind the shutters, behind the storefront window, still and silent and frightened in the cold dark, unable to feel the daylight; cold, some of them maybe starving or dying of thirst.” I began crying now lying in the other man’s arms. “All that beautiful, joyful life of the small, happy budgies, now imprisoned, entombed in a dark crypt, victims of the monster death. And the gorgeous parrot with the brilliant, green eyes, gone, sold or somewhere in the dark, it’s jeweled eyes smothered by the lack of light. People didn’t care, passing by. But I cared as I stood there. I cared. It was fucked up. Then it hit me; the monster, death. Death was the horror that stopped things, death was the storefront shutter that locked out life, it was the metal trap that killed off joy and beauty.” He cried and cried in Daniel’s strong, bear-like arms. “And in a way, I was serving death, giving comfort to people dealing with the cutoff of the storefront shutter; dealing with the unchanging end of everything that comes to everyone at Calvary, that comes to everyone everywhere always. That’s what death is, it’s the monster that ends it all.” Daniel held me close and listened to me cry. Then he said “But couldn’t it be the beginning too? Couldn’t death be the beginning of a whole new experience for all the birds, and people…some kind of step into the next place, the next world, a whole new dimension? Why does it just have to be the end? Couldn’t it also be some kind of next stage?” I reflected on this and it soon passed out of my mind as we made love in the water of tears warming our faces and bodies like rain or ocean waves, as the moon rose over the large bunkhouse and woods on the grounds of Easton Mountain. Our fluids mixed, like sacred things, mingling with cum like briny sea foam then drying like flaky, morning dust placed in our eyes by some hunky, gay dark Sandman looking like a shade or a Mr. Clean.

 For the rest of retreat, we slept together until finally by the last day, we had used each other up and our sexual fire grew cold. We emailed a few times after the workshop, then lost contact. That was the last time I’d slept with a guy in the same bed, the last time I had someone’s arms around me as I cried and dreamed and felt how good a stream of romantic, French murmurings could ease a veil of suffering and transform pain into a place of comfort. I loved being lost in that shared sensuality of both feeling and sex. That must have been about four years ago now, though it seems more like twenty or thirty.

[saintorr]

“For is not truth in art...

 that in which the outward is expressive of the inward; in which the soul is made flesh and the body instinct with spirit in which form reveals.”

 Oscar Wilde “De Profundis”

[saintorr]

I HAD TO LET YOU GO

c. 2017 by Saintorr

 I had to let you go

Though we had a private peace

With a deep and steady flow

 Time wouldn’t let me hold on

To you though I begged and cried

Time told me no

 I had to let you go

Please don’t say

I didn’t love you enough

Come every night since that day

The nights are cold

Your absence rough

 I had to let you go

And like the echo of a dream

You sailed out of my arms

Into that twilight stream

Cross Rainbow bridge

Where united and free

Someday soon

I know we’ll be--

[saintorr]

SHIVA c. 2017 by Saintorr

Shiva died last week. How and what do you say about a little, bitch cat who was your friend and companion of twelve years? I had a twisted relationship with her, one of love and hate; the same as I have for New York City, where I've lived for way too long.

Shiva was born a year or two before 2005. In that year, a stranger (probably an NYU student who needed a cat to fix a mouse problem then finished school and was quite finished too with the cat) who needed to dump her, did so in the lobby of my building. I had just returned from an apartment swap in Amsterdam, post Katrina, and there she was. Her coat was so clean, like silky, mink to the touch, I couldn’t imagine that she could be sick or have fleas, with that immaculate fur. And her coloring mesmerized me; grey with a rose pink tint undercoat I’d never seen on a cat before. Definitely not Russian Blue. I wonder if there is such a thing as Russian grey rose? Her dainty white paws and terribly aloof but curious attitude cinched the deal. Besides my apartment was infested with mice, a farewell gift of my messy and bitchy, Dutch woman “swapee-from-hell” Linda Cooper Black, a monster of a woman. I needed a cat, so I let her in. She was just naturally easy to focus on, and a great relief from the cold, sterile space of my flat.

Shiva loved to hiss, which always gave me a start—it was violent, and primal sounding. And she was never afraid of biting, or, taking a good solid, swipe at you when the mood struck her. She enthroned herself on top of my refrigerator and dared anyone to fuck with her. And like a beautiful Buddha, she couldn’t be touched, only loved or admired from afar. She was scary perfection in the flesh, with her own particular kind of feline, aloof, magic.

The first week I had her, she attacked my laptop, dislodging some 13 keys. I fitted them all back onto the keyboard, except for the “S.” For my trouble, the entire keyboard needed to be replaced for $300 bucks. The next day, she climbed up on the fire escape and refused to come down. I pursued her, almost falling off three stories in the process.

Shortly thereafter, I put my face close up to hers and said, “Hello Miss Priss, how are you?” As if responding angrily to a bad come on line in a sleazy pick-up bar, she attacked with a single, razor-sharp swipe of her paw, cutting a bleeding dotted line down the center of my nose.

We had some real knock down drag out fights. You see she wasn’t a lap cat and no matter how I craved to touch, hold, and pet her, she defied me, for she was a girl cat and love was only to be had on her terms, not mine. Besides, she wasn't born in my closet, like me previous cat who died some five years before. Tony the Tiger was my best friend forever. Everybody has one like that; the divine one. His Mother was a slutty cat I’d christened Egypta Q-Tip who loved hanging out in the bottom of garbage cans. Tony was more dog than cat. No hissing and biting here, his favorite human interaction was hugging you around the neck accompanied by a loud, deep purr. Shiva was coldly beautiful, detached and constantly semi-paranoid more often than not. Tony was warm, at ease and affectionate.

I often ponder, what is it about animals that grabs our compassion and won't let go? A friend said, it's because they give so much and ask nothing in return. Another person once shared his “theory of accelerated evolution” i.e., cats dogs live compressed shortened lives and they are here to teach us lessons we need to learn, blah blah blah. Yet another female friends claims to this day that one of her cats was a “vessel for her toxins” and that the feline’s presence kept her healthy.

In the long, peaceful times, her gentle, quiet silhouette welcomed me and reminded me I was not all alone in the world. Toward the end she began to talk more. She was even purring in the waiting room as I held her during both visits to the vet; in those final days...

I think I made the right decision; she was in pain, not enjoying being-a-cat-activities like most cats, namely eating. Yeah her teeth were a mess and I partially blame myself for not addressing that problem when she lost the first canine teeth three years ago, but I'm poor; and a thousand bucks to seal a tooth is outrageously expensive when you’re on a low, fixed income and a prisoner of rich, bitch, tourist hell, New York City.

There were so many factors, toward the end; she would sit in silence, night after night bunched up, looking uncomfortable, eyes closed as if to say “I’m quite done here now, if you please, I’m ready to go at any time now.” Her wasting away and lack of appetite; there was a mass in her abdomen, a cancer that had gotten bigger in only a month. I knew fearfully and sadly that if I put it off her leaving, it would just be for my own satisfaction, selfishness and the fear of being all alone again in my 425 square feet of prime, New York, East Village, one-bedroom space. Being chronically single, queer and older in NYC the nights get cold, restless and ghostly; the wine can get boring and the fake emotions from the television are poor substitutes for a warm heart or a hand to hold. Hmm, the past few years most dicks even leaving me feeling mankind has failed me. But I digress...

I used to pride myself on how much I loved doing M4M massage, with sex as a reward and a compensation against the sheer drudgery and service-job-hell of doing massage; and now that I’m 63, the M4M has turned into M4 Nobody. At least with Shiva, I had somebody, something, a creature who wouldn't see me as "less than" for being alone. Why is my history of intimacy more tied up with cats than with men? Am I too good for men? Such a grandiose thought--but what if it’s true? Are divine people only meant to be near animals because their love is pure? Am I truly divine, a "sacred whore" who's gotten older? Or am I just a lonely, older, white man who once had a pussy? I swear my next cat will be not be a girl.

And now the void is so cold.

On that last and final visit to the vet, the first shot knocked her out with her eyes still open. As I held her in my arms, I tried to sing a few lyrics from “Your Song” by Elton John but I kept choking up from the grief inside, pouring out like a slow moving lava from a volcano as I made the decision to let her go to Rainbow Bridge. Moments before that, as if sensing she must escape, she jumped from my lap and ran toward a low, deep, blue panel on the foot of the anonymous door in the exam room of the vet's, where outside, the sound of other animals and birds echoed as if we were in a small Noah’s Arc, not the St. Marks Veterinary Hospital. After that first show, the vet reentered the room then and removed her limp but still living body from my arms. She was wrapped in a ragged towel. The vet placed her on the cold, steel table, found a vein in her leg and injected the second shot containing a syringe full of light, blue, savagely beautiful liquid. Moments later, her heat stopped beating.

When it was over, I was left alone. I kissed her gently, one last time. And made sure she was well-covered with the towel. There was last touch of her tail, which was still warm. After a few minutes and prayers, I opened the door and got a technician’s attention. “I have to go” I said “and I don’t want her left alone. Please.”

But it was her time? Or am I murderer, feeling guilty that my dear, little friend couldn't simply walk into the woods next to my Grandmother Nan's house on the hill of a small town in Illinois next to those thick, green, dark and lost woods and be with her kindred spirits, the trees and birds and stars as she left this life, one of her nine? In the woods, she’d be dreaming of catnip and curling up, warmly, snuggly making a nest of fur, twigs and leaves at the base of a strong, sturdy oak.

 Here’s to Shiva, the bitch cat. I will never again have a female. I want only boys. But her untouchable beauty haunts me still. And at the end, she wasn't a bitch anymore, she was a loving creature. A waif, with short, grey hair, serious green eyes, a tinted rose, pink undercoat and dainty, white paws looking like small ballet slippers…

I'm so sorry, my darling. I took the easy path; I set you free. Forgive me. And please God, lead me into the woods when I have to go; my face shining like a silver mask in the moonlight. Please God, let me be gazing up and into the trees and clouds, my eyes resting, on the shadows of loving, dark, bodies of muscled warriors and chanting Shamans, coming to take me away to their secret, land, glowing with gold and mysterious shadows…

[saintorr]

Me and Shiva the bitch cat 2005(?) to 2017

I loved you and hated you...