Matt McKinzie: Queer Dream Triptych
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
QUEER DREAM TRIPTYCH
i. reckoning
as nightmares softened
over smooth sheetrock
smirched with the scents of
salty snogs and ravenous breath
and tremors shooting through tailbones
and tangled bedsheets
soaked in sweat
but in a fortnight
soaked again
too, the tears of young men
sudden, infantile
crying out to their mothers
and a quiet, merciful God
ii. resurrection
in claggy winter window glass
and sterile clinic needle pokes
and Patti Smith’s Ghost Dance
we shall live again, we shall live...again
and Kate Bush, whirring through a forest
dewy with spring, bright in her red dress
stretches of highway cracked in winter steel
sun shattering smokestacks
apartments in Boston backroads
daylight through construction slats, rising, rising
with the taste of unbrushed teeth
Dad always wanted a son, and I don’t fit the bill
but at least I made it out alive
iii. redemption
slipping into fissures
body out of hellfire
he who spent August skating through mist on
an imagined winter’s lake
but in winter, I keep warm
even with the season blue, in Vashti Bunyan’s lemon voice
for bed sheets keep me hot and dry
and sun comes in through plexi windows
unfettered by death
with a brain as clear as ice, and not as cold
and a yearning for love, without pain of hunger
I am okay
I am okay
THE BOY FROM TEXAS
Born with the sun in Leo
where tumbleweeds tumbled in a tumbling town
a tumbled marriage
tumbling down a desert hill
respirating in newspaper ink
‘fore boarding the greyhound
northbound
where water sprung
from rusty backyard hoses
and catfish ran hot and fast in woodland streams
and spoiled fruits landed in frail boy arms
up in arms
with the pop of a pistol
in gentle cow hide, a scorched microcosm
of the homestead
steady, now, with his sweat and tears, until
northbound, again
with a cooler sun, chaos in equal measure
measuring the glass shards
at the pop of a beer bottle
on parking lot pavement
and post-grad desires pervading
waxy red skies
lighting up Ma
in her American flag sandals
still trudging down an uncertain road
Matt McKinzie is a Boston-based filmmaker, screenwriter, essayist, photographer, performer, and poet. His work has been showcased in several galleries, collectives, and publications, including the Film-Makers' Cooperative of New York (as Matt Thomas), Studio 550 of Cambridge, Hygienic Art, and POPMATTERS, a Chicago-based magazine of international cultural criticism, where he contributes as a staff writer. He currently works as the Editorial Director of EM Magazine.
