Hello and welcome to a Very Special Valentine’s Day Edition of Some Gay Poems!

There’s nothing all that special about it, but if you’re reading this now, that means you were retroactively my Valentine yesterday, congratulations!!!

Don’t forget to subscribe and share. You can find Some Gay Poems on Twitter as well.

This week’s poem is a dialogue about lox. It’s Valentine-y in that it ~explores~ ~relationships~ ~in confinement~.

Here’s an out-of-context photo of the creation of Adam, but gay and autumnal.

What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk to Anybody Else

do you want lox for lunch tomorrow?

we have lox?

we have lox, three packs, my father went to costco.

i’ll thank him.

do you want lox for lunch tomorrow?

do i have to decide now?

i need to take it out of the freezer if you want lox for lunch tomorrow.

do we have cream cheese?

no, but we have plain greek yogurt.

ok.

ok, you want lox tomorrow?

it’s tomorrow.

what?

it’s lunch tomorrow, is the lox defrosted?

no, it’s now, it’s still in the freezer.

then why are you asking if i want to eat lox?

i am the lox. i am a slice of smoked sockeye. i lived a few years in the vast pacific. the water was cold and gorgeous and salty, saltier than i am now. my school was kind and my tail was strong and i would have died after spawning but i’ve been busy fucking you instead.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you’re handsome.

you wish i weren’t a piece of lox.

i just told you you’re handsome, i love you.

i love you too, but you want to eat me for lunch tomorrow.

it’s lunch tomorrow now, and you’re unconsumed.

i repulse you, you despise me.

i love you, you’re handsome.

you won’t even eat me for lunch.

it’s just we don’t have cream cheese.

i’m sorry, i love you.

i love you, you’re handsome.

when i was a sockeye, i dreamt of you. i dreamt of you while i ate zooplankton by the gallon. i dreamt of you while i found warm currents in which to rest my tired fins. i considered returning to the freshwater whence i came but dreams of you kept me in the ocean. i saw you in every shiny pebble and every billowing blade of seaweed. i saw you and i knew you and i knew.

i have a call at lunch.

— Misha Solomon

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

See you next Monday for another gay poem! Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So, sharing is caring!

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

Week 4!

If you’re new to Some Gay Poems, welcome! If you’re not new to Some Gay Poems, thanks for sticking around!

Last week, I started a Twitter account. 2021 seemed like the appropriate year to explore this new and revolutionary social network. Follow me!

This week’s poem is an apology to Napoleon Bonaparte and Justin Suarez, the Ugly Betty character played by Mark Indelicato. I don’t know what to tell you, things are weird.

Here’s an out-of-context photo of me from when I resisted being compared to Justin Suarez:

Do Not Wash

I’m sorry, Justin Suarez,for scoffing when people told meI reminded them of you,Ugly Betty’s flamboyant nephew

I’m sorry, Napoleon,for saying “gross” when a Jeopardy! cluereferenced your letter to Josephine:“Ne te lave pas, j’accours et dans huit jours je suis là”

As a teenager, I woremy American Apparel jewel toneswith much less confidence

I was no emperorbut I did get the best marks in French classproud that my simpering voice dropped an octave in the language

Justin sang “Good Morning Baltimore” on the subwayloved fashion in a broad, aughties sensecame out before I dideven though he was younger

Napoleon’s penis is ownedby a urologist’s daughter in New JerseyJosephine is buried wholeat a church in a Parisian suburb

In the final season, Justin got a boyfriendI never watched the showit was years before I smelled someone up closelet alone a man who would wait eight days for me

Napoleon wasn’t even shortclichés take holdeven if you resist

That letter to Josephine may be a mythstill, my parents were right to counter my disgustto tell me that one day I’d understand

Now, like Napoleon, I know the sensual pleasureof a natural, mature muskbut unlike Justin Suarez

I never knew myself

Thanks for reading and/or listening and/or sharing, y’all! (And special thanks to Lauren Peat for her excellent comments when I wasn’t sure if this ~piece~ was working.) Feedback is always welcome:

See you next Monday for another gay poem! Although this is a ~personal exercise~ in ~creativity~, it also stems from a desire to ~connect~ in this weird and wild situation. So, sharing is caring!

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

Week 3!

Fun fact: 3 is most likely my favourite number but I never tell anyone that because the concept of having favourite things worries me! All through my schooling I always tried to go third for presentations and to pee in the third urinal from the left!

For every follower you recruit, you’ll be entitled to one (1) more fun fact like this!

Oh, also, here’s a thing I’ve been thinking about: it’s Valentine’s Day in a couple weeks, whatever that means. This past December, I semi-accidentally started writing commissioned poems. I really enjoyed doing it. So if you’re looking for a V-Day gift for whomever you may like or love, and you’d like a personalized poem, get in touch.

This week’s poem is about Elton John, my speech therapy, and anxiety (broadly). It engages in abstraction a little more than the past two weeks. Do you like that? Bonus points (I’ve been counting) if you can tell what the title comes from!

Here’s an out-of-context photo that suits the Eltonjohnniness overall:

Sugar Bear

In preschool talent shows I sang “Goodbye Yewwow Bwick Woad.”

A face painter once came to my elementary schoolNo one could understand me when I told them I was a “beaw.”

Years later I was sent to a speech therapist.She and I played Balderdash.She told me to focus on my tongue against my palatewhile I pronounced “world” and “carrot”with their centres wet like undercooked cakes.She told me to start with my tongue against the back of my front teeth,to make an “L” become an “R”and over time my world came togetherand my carrots hardenedand now they’ve been in my fridge so longI ought to find a recipe for them soonbecause every time Elton John stutters“B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets” I worry that my record player is skipping again.“You know I read it in a magazine” gets my heart racing —The B-B-B, the rattle of a roller coaster mounting its peak,The release assured but ill-defined.“Lllllurrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” my tongue screams.

— Misha Solomon

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

See you next Monday for another gay little poem!

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

Welcome back!

So, through the magic of modern technology, SOME GAY POEMS is now also a podcast (?) ! Said “podcast” is just my weekly gay little vocal performance of my gay little poem, but if you’d like to subscribe on the DOUBLE, you can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts and probably elsewhere too!

I hit a fun subscriber milestone this weekend, but my hunger is eternal!

This week’s poem is about pillows, cohabitation, and cave art.

Here’s an out-of-context photo that will make sense once you’ve read the ~piece~:

Dwelling

Four pillows on our bedAll with linen coveringsThe colour called Sienna.

Before he goes to sleepHe removes one Sienna pillowcaseReplaces it with black cotton.

He does this to preserve the linenProtect it from his night cream andOccasional night drool.

I first bought him the night creamFor ChristmasThe brand is Australian.

The linen is FrenchJust like the Chauvet CaveSite of famed cave paintings

Including three steppe lionsI had tattooed on my forearmTwo-and-a-half years before I met him.

Dozens of men touched the tattoo Before he didIncluding an Australian

But none ever rolled overFrom some drool-encrusted black cottonTo gently kiss the lions

As the day’s first act.Sienna was a clay-based pigmentUsed by some Paleolithic artist

Who didn’t have pillowcases to changeOr pillows for that matterNever would have spent the morning

Being asked by their loverWhether ivoryWhite

Or charcoalWould work bestAs an additional accent cushion

On the guest bedWhich won’t be usedFor at least another six months.

But before their violent deathTrampledGored 

Or bludgeonedI hope the artistKnew tenderness at dawn.

— Misha Solomon

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!

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, hello, welcome!

I’ll keep this preamble brief. First, a huge thank you to the very talented Edith Garcia for designing the logo for SOME GAY POEMS! How cute is it?!?

If you enjoy my gay little poem, please feel exceedingly free to tell some of your gay little friends (or any kind of friends!).

You can also find more of my ~work~ in my chapbook published by above/ground press.

This week’s poem is, appropriately, about a particular first. It’s me from the lofty heights of ~thirty~ looking back at my late-blooming twenty-year-old self. It’s also, just a warning, mildly NSFW. Much more mildly, though, than some of the poems that are sure to follow.

If you prefer listening to reading, my recording of “Only Been Kissed” is included at the top of this email for your aural pleasure. I’m a podcaster now?

Only Been Kissed

Our family doctor cups my scrotumand chitchats that my grandfather wrote him.

I update Dr. ——stein that I’mnow sexually active with men.Dr. ——stein asks how I plan to give my mother grandchildren.

But the truth is, I don’t have a lover.‘Sexually active’ doesn’t usually cover

my front teeth knocking into another man’s on a dance floor, orhis hand guiding mine so I’d put down my drink, ormy silent sigh as a tongue breached my lips for the first time.

I’m just a few months post-teen,and I’d like to tell Dr. ——stein:

I wanted to ask the other man the same question,wanted to wake up next to him,and talk surrogacy options over brunch.

But his subway stop was way south of mine.What a shame, he said, we weren’t on the same line.

— Misha Solomon

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!

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