Thanks for joining me for the fifteenth (!) week of Some Gay Poems.

I have to admit — I’m growing bored with this format. I’d love some ideas from the crowd for how to change it up!

This week’s poem is inspired by my changing sleep patterns and by pseudoscientific thinkpieces.

I don’t have a thematically linked photo, so here’s just one of me that my boyfriend’s father (thanks, Jean-Pierre!) took — feel free to use it as a reaction meme.

Medieval Sleep

In the Middle Ages,people woke up in themiddle of the night,texted their friendsand drank mead andate boar and chattedabout whether the plague doctor was sexy under his mask and robes.

Lately, I’ve been waking upin the middle of the nightbut I just scroll until mypinky indent hurts too much.

Alas, I have replaced themead and boar with twoor three or four Tums,depending on whether theyare Ultra Strength or ExtraStrength or Regular.

I’ve always been a bitmedieval, in that I’ve nevergrasped linear perspectivein art and I often worry thatmy enemies are poisoningmy food.

After the mead and boar,the medieval folk didpart two of sleep and chargedtheir phones. I do that too butoften can’t be bothered toreach for the charging cable.

In truth, this divided sleepbrings me closer to lifeitself, for life itself is alsoa brief period of scrollingbookended by deep sleeps.

In truth, we modern folk havelost so much. We never sharea mid-sleep mead with thosewe love and our phones arealways low on charge.

But now we know that, yes,the plague doctor wasquite sexy. He leaked hisnudes and let me tell you,that man has two beaks.

Weird times, y’all! Click some buttons:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Hello friends and others! Thanks for being back here.

Excited to report that two (2!) of my poems appear in the latest issue of Yolk, a beautiful literary magazine based here in Montreal. Check it out:

This week’s poem is inspired, in part, by a video my father sent me last week. He’s currently digitizing the infinite hours of camcorder footage he recorded of me as a baby and child. One clip features a three-year-old me asking for help to spell the word “narwhal.” Anyway, it was cute.

It’s also inspired by the fact that I keep injuring myself with my own teeth. Also, sorry, there’s an epithet stolen from Homer, I’m not sure why, it’s probably a tacky choice.

Here’s a photo of me and my former pet snake, Tiger, who also had sharp teeth:

Narwhal

I keep getting canker soresfrom biting the inside of my lower lip

My fangs are sharp asfangs, but those of a moredangerous breed

I could hunt with themor inject venomor have a necklace made

I have a box somewherefilled with decorative fangs:a shark’s, a big cat’s

And I swear mine are sharp as those,sharp as my old pet snake’swho bit me once

I imagine myselfon all foursbounding through the savannah

I imagine myselfin a spooky castleenamel painted with human blood

But maybe everybody’s fangsare sharp as mineI’d like to knowbut when I ask him to open widefor scientific purposesso I can feel his fang with my tonguelaughter puts an end to the experiment

And maybe individualityis illusory

Or maybeone fang grows and growsa mighty tusk, a poacher’s prizeand I find myself in the wine-dark sea

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing, y’all!

Buttons to click:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Let’s start a petition to rename “Mondays at noon” SomeGayPoems O’Clock!

If you’re thirsting for more content, I had a poem posted for Chaudiere Books/rob mclennan’s celebration of National Poetry Month. Check it out here:

Also, today is your LAST CHANCE to hear me read a poem on ExpoZine’s new Dial-A-Poem Montreal, a very chic revival of a project that began with John Giorno in 1968. Call 514-558-8649 to hear my piece — it’ll be up until some point today (April 12). [Last week I lied 🤥 — it was only posted last Tuesday, not last Monday.] More info below:

This week’s poem is about my desire to wear garish costumes. But really it’s about my desperate need for my presence to elicit excitement.

Here is a photo of me wearing a totally different kind of mask (the kind for your skin):

This Is Unrelated to COVID

I wish life were like The Masked Singer(airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX),by which I mean I wish I, specifically,experienced each and every dayas if I were a contestant on The Masked Singer(airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX).I would wear nothing butthe same gorgeously gaudy costume —a rhinestoned, technicolour crustacean ora mushroom casserole in a jumpsuit orMount Rushmore, but drag —and, after every interaction,my interlocutors would guess at my identity —“the sparkly crawfish sounds just like my dead aunt” or“my old neighbour had a similar jumpsuit” or“it can’t be a gay in there, they hate our presidents” —and then, once the part of the costume that coversmy real human head were removedmy interlocutors would reactwith unbridled excitement.My interlocutors would scream,screaming louder even than if I had ripped off my real human headto reveal my bleeding neck and naked cervical vertebrae.My interlocutors’ shock would fade to bliss,a state of ecstasy previously achieved only throughparticipating in the actual Masked Singer(airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX)or one of its numerous international formats(The Masked Singer franchise, in fact, originated in South Korea).

The next time you see me, scream.I have never seen The Masked Singer(airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX).

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing!

Here’s some buttons, use ‘em if you please:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Have you heard the good news? It’s time for another gay little poem!

If you’re thirsting for more content, I had a poem posted for Chaudiere Books/rob mclennan’s celebration of National Poetry Month. Check it out here:

Also, starting later today, you can hear me reading a poem on ExpoZine’s new Dial-A-Poem Montreal, a very chic revival of a project that began with John Giorno in 1968. Call 514-558-8649 to hear my piece — it’ll be up at some point today (April 5). More info below:

This week’s poem is an exploration of complex patterns found in nature. I’ve tried to avoid “COVID Poetry” but sometimes it gets the best of me.

Here’s the author photo I submitted for the National Poetry Month post. I like this photo because it’s both semi-nude and semi-dark.

A Rational Man

I am a rational man.I believe in hard scienceand hard factsand I get hardfor things that make sense.

I am a rational man.I am in control of my own future,my own thoughts,my own mask collection.

I am a rational man.I can research the provenanceof each of my masksto ensure that they filterover 95% of contaminants.

I am a rational man.Rationality is achievedthrough rigorous study.I recommend readingat least 100 pages per day.

I am a rational man.I read at least 100 pages per day.If I don’t read at least 100 pageson any given day,I believe that bad things will happen to me.

I am a rational man.For the past thirteen months,I have read at least 100 pages per day,and mostly no bad thingshave happened to me.

I am a rational man.I know that complex patterns can be found in nature:Fibonacci spirals in a sunflower or a nautilus,perfect symmetry in a tiger or a starfish,reading 100 pages per day to ward off bad things happening.

I am a rational man.I am a rational man.Everyone, about me, says:He’s just so rational,we don’t know what to do.

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing!

Here’s some buttons, use ‘em if you please:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Guess who?

Yay, you got it, it’s indeed me!

I’m tired, y’all — this is more challenging than I anticipated. Challenging in terms of creation and production, but also in terms of sending work out into the void of this series of tubes we call the Internet.

ANYway, hi, thanks for being here.

This week’s poem is about my father, cicadas, and ingrown hair. If you’d like to tell me what you think it’s about, about, feel free to let me know — I’m stumped.

Here’s a photo of my father and me as fashion models:

Brood X

As a child, I had a little box in which I collected animal fragments:butterflies and butterfly wings, the skeleton of a baby bird,probably some rocks with lots of personality, and molted cicada shells.

Soon, trillions of periodical cicadas will invade the Eastern United States.These aren’t the same cicadas whose exoskeletons I collected in Montreal,but this brood only appears every 17 years, so it’s headline news.

My father texts me one such headline, that cicadas are in fact edible.They taste like tofu, apparently. My father muses that my boyfriendmight therefore like them. My boyfriend isn’t much of a carnivore.

Yesterday, I hurt my neck. My father told me to tell my boyfriendto press very hard on the knot in my neck muscle to ease the tension.My father says my boyfriend should be able to feel the blood flow back in.

An origin story: Once, my father found a dead baby bird in our old backyard. He buried it, so that we could dig up the bones a year later and add the skeleton to my little box. A more honest time capsule.

My father has a tube of topical anaesthetic cream ready to applyto a spot along my jawline from which he will remove a hair that has been growing under my skin for a couple years now.

My father will sterilize a pin with a flame and squeeze a quarter of his face around a magnifying monocle. My father will gently excavate the hair, which will be shockingly long and dark, dark brown. My father’s hair is dark, dark brown.

Eventually, everything comes out or up or through: dormant burrowed cicadas,a painful knot in a muscle, a hair that’s now lapped its own semi-hidden spiral,an off-white skeleton with an infant beak. Maybe I could cook a meal of all four.

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing! Feedback is always most welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay little poem. Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~ and ~productivity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So, thanks for connecting! Find me on Twitter/Instagramif you’d like!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Hi! It’s me! Here’s a poem!

Yesterday was apparently World Poetry Day but no one called or texted. Make up for it by sharing SGP — click below!

This week’s poem is a bit of a change of pace. A little more “boo-hoo” and a little less “ha-ha.” Or maybe you’ll find it hilarious, who knows!

A gay little poem about a dream my mother had, accompanied by her and my literal invention of the selfie:

The Mistake Is Thinking About It

My mother tells meshe dreamt I drownedin a pot full of water.

I was a baby;she wasn’t sureif I was dead.

A dream stranger told hershe should knowby my smell

And so she smelled my face.

Outside the dream,our faces masked,she has to trusther other senses

To know that I’m alive.

Once my face was hersto smell as she pleased.

My face has been my ownfor decades now.

I never chose agencybut was made to understoodthat I should have it.

I would give her back my face,my head, my hands, my toenails.

I’d be no more than smelling saltsto wake her from a nightmarewith certainty I’m living.

I can never gently lower my own warm noseto my own soft cheek.

I have no way of knowingif I drowned in that pot.

The mistake is thinking about it.

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing! Feedback is always most welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay little poem. Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~ and ~productivity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So, thanks for connecting! Find me on Twitter/Instagram if you’d like!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Who, me? Sending out a poem at noon on a Monday? Again?

Yes, I’m back back back again, and I DO think you’re ready for this.

But first, here’s some buttons! Click ‘em!

This week’s poem shares its name with a rescue dog whose profile a friend sent me last week. The bad news is, I can’t share said profile with you because it’s been taken offline. The good news is, that means the dog has been adopted. We’re all so happy for her.

This week’s poem is dedicated to Fifi, and to all the gay little dogs I’ve loved, some of whom are pictured below:

For Fifi

I want a tiny little dog.I want the adorable result of delicate human intervention,not toxic natural selection.Survival of the fittest? I’ve never worked out a day in my life.

I want a dog who can’t fight.I want a dog macho men are scared ofbeing seen with.I want a dog so small you’ll just know I’m not compensating for anything.

I want a dog who’s canonically gay —I don’t care about my dog’s sexual or romantic orientation,I want a dog who’s gay in the pejorative way, a “that’s so gay!” dog.

I’d treat the dog well, of course.I believe in the union of accessory and loved one,of ownership and cherish,of signifier and signified.

I don’t understand semiotics,but what I mean is, I want a dogwho is what it appears to mean.

I want to be what I appear to mean.

Put me in a bag and call me Tinkerbell.

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing (and for sending me tiny dogs up for adoption in my area)! Feedback is always most welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay little poem. Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~ and ~productivity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So, thanks for connecting! Find me on Twitter/Instagram if you’d like!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Fancy meeting you here! Come here often?

Thanks for joining me for another edition of Some Gay Poems. Wanna spread the gay?

I hope the self-deprecation is apparent in this week’s poem, which is a little ditty about the chasms between the way we see ourselves and the way the world sees us (or maybe just the way I see myself and the way my world see me). I just wanna be BAD!

Here’s an out-of-context creative depiction of me by the eminently talented @mordysalt. Thank you SO MUCH for this piece, which fits so nicely with this week’s poem. There’s nothing I love more than being drawn.

Contrary to Popular Belief

I never got a detentionbut I’ve always known I’m a bad boy.In tenth grade, I assured a teacherI respected her, as a peer.

I’ve never been in a fightbut I’m convinced I’m scrappy.Once, I told a cell phone store employee to go fuck himselfbecause he was very rude to my mother.

“My name is Misha Solomon,”I once began an email, “you don’t know me, but I hate being accused of breaking rulesI know I haven’t broken.”

Look at my tattoos!A cartilage piercing, even.Would a good boyget a stick-and-poke on his foot?

And, yes, I’m happily monogamousbut sometimes [these next few linesare indeed redacted, but not becauseI’m prudish — quite the opposite.

Redaction felt like a titillating poetic device,and that, I daresay, is true kink.] for which I recommend Meridian Grooming’s trimmerin Sage Green — it does reduce nicks and snags.

I’m full of piss and vinegarbut I’m all out of vinegar;I used the last of itto descale our electric kettle.

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing! Feedback is always most welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay little poem. Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~ and ~productivity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So, thanks for connecting! Find me on Twitter/Instagram if you’d like!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

It’s March! Again! Hi!

Thanks for coming back to Some Gay Poems for another gay little poem. Know anyone else who needs some gay poems in their life?

This week’s poem is a Petrarchan sonnet. It’s the first non-free-verse poem I’ve written for this gay little series, and I hope you enjoy. I really enjoy playing with structured poetry forms! This poem is different for me, genre-wise — more fantasy/horror than my usual ~realism~.

Anyway, this week’s poem is a sonnet about oviparity.

Here’s an out-of-context photo of me face-swapping with my tattoo of Echidna holding an echidna. IDK, y’all, it’s a monotreme reference.

I, Monotreme

I woke to find I’d laid an egg.I knew not how it came to be,but I did know it came from me.Of late, I had, in truth, been preg-nable to fantasy. (I begyou to allow your mind to seebeyond the body’s boundary.)The egg was there, where leg meets leg.

The egg was warm, its shell was dry.I knew not what it could contain.I did know what my choices were:Patience or consumption. Icould eat it whole or else abstain.You’ve read this all — which did occur?

— Misha Solomon

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing! Feedback is always most welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay little poem! Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~ and ~productivity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So thanks for connecting! Find me on Twitter/Instagram if you’d like!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com

Oh, wow, hi! Come here often?

Thanks for being here again. February, am I right? The best cure for these wintry blues is sharing and caring:

This week’s poem is… a lot. I didn’t intend on making Some Gay Poems a special holiday-centric series, but here’s a Purim poem (?)! Google it!

I’ll be honest — I do fear this ~piece~ is a little… undercooked? But it also feels like a bare and honest reflection of something I’m feeling, so maybe that’s good! Let’s try this again:

This week’s poem is about Purim, pandemics plural, and pathological personality traits.

Here’s an out-of-context photo of me all dressed up as the King for Purim in preschool:

they hanged Haman and the cookies are delicious

this week I ordered new gloves onlinethe style’s called Handsomeso I thought they’d be perfect for mebecause I do think I’m handsome

this week I made Hamantaschenwith a homemade apricot fillingI’ve never made them before but it seemsas good a time as any to celebrate survival

this week I had my head shavedI wore a KN95 mask to the barbershopa real KN95, not a counterfeit, I checkedand had diarrhea all morning before going

I’m sorry, the gloves weren’t locally made, Kombi is a Canadian company but their fabrication happens elsewhere

Hamantaschen are cookies named for Haman, a vizier in the Persian empire who sought to kill all the Jews, but was thwarted because King Ahasuerus really loved his wife Esther, who revealed herself to be Jewish

this week I watched a TV show about gay mendying in a different time of a different ongoing pandemicbut there aren’t commemorative cookiesfor that near-extinction event

the 95 in KN95 is for 95% filtration and the masks come from China by way of Vancouver

in the shower after the haircut, with the sun shining through the frosted window, I almost thought it was summer, because buzzcuts are for summer, or for avoiding the barbershop for as long as possible

I’ve never questioned the efficacy of a condom, or researched its provenance, but sometimes I worry my mask is wide open under my chin

this week I read an articleabout a Jewish food writer criticizing Bon Appétitfor a piece from 2015 that speaks insensitively of Hamantaschenand so this week I made Hamantaschen

the gloves are decently handsome, quite warm, and safe for me to wear after I quarantined them for 48 hours after delivery

I do think the lead in the TV series is more handsome than I am

I’m sorry, I was missing a few tablespoons of flour but I made the Hamantaschen anyway

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing, y’all! Feedback is always most welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay little poem! Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~ and ~productivity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So thanks for connecting! Find me on Twitter!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit somegaypoems.substack.com