She's wearing a long red dress with white stockings and black pumps, the accordion resting on her knee. Her hand in the strap squeezes and unsqueezes in long, deliberate strokes while her other fingers tap a melody. She lets the tune repeat, piping, warm vibrato, then leans forward to the microphone and sings.

No one wants to keep me anywhere,
because no one wants to know me.
Most of all I'd simply like to run away
and manage my little existence.

Jerry swings open the front door, squints his eyes into the dark lit dimly with table candles in smoky glass sheaths. People sitting close around coffee cups and beer glasses. The singer on a chair on a small stage under pale spotlighting.

A hand waving. "Jerry, over here." Donatello sitting at a table in dark gray parka. A younger man is beside him, dressed in a black sweater.

"Good to see you again, Jerry, I want you to meet my friend Anthony." Jerry shakes Donatello's hand first, then Anthony's. One seat is empty against the wall. Jerry drags it over and sits down.

"I'm glad you came by, how are you?" says Donatello. He has gray hair and mustache, strong but aging hands.

"I'm fine. I've never been here before." He looks around at the crowd, mostly young, smiles, conversation.

"It's different," says Donatello. "You wouldn't find something like this outside the Gallery quarter. Would you care for something to drink? They have seven types of beer on tap."

"No, thank you." He sits back in his chair. The candle on the table is flickering tall and bright. Anthony glances at Donatello.

"Well, I'm glad you came by," says Donatello. "I was afraid Nathan scared you off that night."

"I heard about that," says Anthony. His hair is dark brown at a uniform half-inch length. He has a wide mouth and solid cheekbones. "Nathan goes a little wild sometimes."

"Yes, he does, I want to apologize for that."

"No need to," says Jerry.

"It's really my fault. I don't go out of Gallery very often. I should be more careful."

The singer has finished her song. Applause is quiet and polite. She smiles. When she begins again, people return to talking.

"Interesting show," says Jerry.

"That's Gabriella," says Donatello, nodding. "She specializes in Kurt Weill tunes."

"Yes, and by the end of the evening you'll think you've heard every song Weill ever composed," says Anthony.

"Obviously, Anthony doesn't appreciate her like I do."

I can't believe that love has lost its glamour,
that passion is really passe
If gender is just a term in grammar,
how can I ever find my way
since I'm a stranger here myself.

Her cheeks are heavy with red rouge, her eyes thick with liner and mascara. The wrinkles around her pale, powder-caked mouth stretch as she sings.

"She has kind of a clown look about her," says Anthony, smiling with rounded cheeks. "And her body doesn't have the same staying power as that dress."

"She's an aging beauty, and she's maintained her dignity. That's all that matters. In fact, I'm planning to do some photographs of her." Donatello spreads his hands out with thumbs extended, framing the singer. "High contrast black-and-white shots. Plenty of shadows."

"Shadows might help," says Anthony.

In my younger days we didn't stand a chance. We committed dark secret acts that had to be done in the shade of heavy drawn curtains in afternoons or pits of abandoned cars on roads without streetlights. I wandered. In San Francisco I felt the sacred need of the bath houses. The halls you walk through, open doorways to private booths on both sides. Nude men, some on stomachs, some on backs, letting you know which side they want to be on, some stroking themselves gently, looking out at you, lazy-eyed invitations. The transvestite strip clubs in the Parisian Pigalle, husky voices from lipsticked mouths, golden-blonde wigs. In the morning, hungover in a mellow rain, sightseeing. Oscar Wilde resting in a cemetery. And alien tears will fill for him pity's long broken urn, for his mourners will be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn. Hamburg leather bars, the live shows, spike belts and red welts of cat-o'-nine-tails. I left with the German biker fellow who took off everything but the high steely boots. The Italian island where Von Gloeben photographed nude boys posed by rocky beaches and earthenware pots. They still look like that, dark sunned skin and curly black Adonis hair. New York for disco and poppers. London theater district. I grew old wandering. Escaped the disease I had no right to survive. Finally ran into Isidoro Bandi again, who told me about the artists living out in a small town. Told me I could find a quiet place to work. It's for the young now to find each other. We had to hide. We were shame-faced men in shadows. No more of that. Let them beckon and love boldly.

"So, how is Nathan?" says Jerry.

"I haven't seen him in a while. Why, does Nathan interest you?" says Donatello.

"There's something about Nathan," says Anthony.

"No, I was just asking. I don't know you guys very well, so I'm not sure what to talk about."

Donny smiles and pats Jerry's hand. "It's okay, Jerry, don't be irritated with us."

Gabriella's melodies, breezy and strong.

Oh show us the way to the next pretty boy.
Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why.
For we must the next pretty boy
for if we don't find the next pretty boy
I tell you we must die.

"Anthony's a poet, Jerry."

"No, not really," says Anthony.

"True, in reality he's a very fine poet. Sometimes he shuts himself in that little apartment room of his and won't sleep all night working away at his poems. He told me so. Don't you do that, Anthony?"

"I certainly don't."

"Do you like poetry, Jerry?"

"I don't know much about it."

"You'll learn to like it, Jerry, believe me, you're on your way." He checks his watch. "I'm afraid I'm late for an appointment, gentlemen."

"Time slipped away on you, Donny?" says Anthony.

"Yes, yes. I really must get going." He gets up and shakes Jerry's hand. "You stay, Jerry. Anthony's fun to talk to. He can fill me in on things later." Donatello walks to a row of hooks on the wall where coats are hanging, takes a gray fedora and places it on his head..

"Is he pissed off or something?" says Jerry.

"Sure." Anthony scoots his chair closer to Jerry. "He doesn't have anywhere to go, or at least I seriously doubt it."

"Why?"

"He likes you. I mean he's tempted by you."

My mother sat me down and looked at me dead-on while I kept watching her dangle of pearls. "We don't mind about you and your boyfriends, really. It's just that we need to maintain a certain image for the sake of the family. The press have been going after your father lately, it could ruin him if they found out about you." "I'm careful," I told her. She fitted a cigarette into a long slim holder. "Well, actually we thought you could do a little more for us. You've known Gladys all your life. I think you two would make a nice couple. It would be just for show, of course. You wouldn't have to change your lifestyle. But . . . but a grandchild would be nice." For Gladys I was just one more man. It was easy for her. I closed my eyes the first time. It only got a little easier. . . "The press love big weddings" . . . I stopped the car on the way home. "It looks bad," I said. "People are starting to notice." "You haven't stopped seeing your fairy friends," said Gladys. "I'm discrete at least." "Why do you care?" . . . "A senator should have a grandchild, it makes him look distinguished" . . . "I have my pride." "Only real men have pride." I met Donatello at an exhibit opening in the city. He told me about Aliento. "Keep the house, keep the car, keep my family," I wrote. "I just want to be left alone." . . . "We've always been respectable people" . . .

"Let me ask you something. Just how straight are you, Jerry?"

He shrugs. "I'm straight. Nothing else to say, I'm just straight."

"Then why do you come around looking for known homosexuals?"

"Donny seemed like a nice man."

"It's the mystery you like, Jerry."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a straight guy who got kissed by a man."

Jerry says nothing.

"Donatello told me all about that night at the Steakhouse. Nathan kissed you on the lips."

"I didn't care. It didn't disgust me and it didn't turn me on. It was just a guy showing off."

"So you came around because you realized a man could kiss you without making you want to kick his ass. That intrigued you. A mystery started to open up for you."

Jerry shakes his head. "You don't know me."

"Have you ever been with a man?"

"No. No, never."

Another song begins in a squeaky vibrato.

Gentlemen, I was seventeen
when I entered the love business.
I've been through a lot,
much of it was nasty.

"Donatello wants you but he's afraid of scaring you away."

"Really, he told you that?"

"No, I know him well enough. Maybe he's handing you to me, wanting me to ease you in."

"I don't get handed around, Anthony."

We were working on the tractor all morning. Our hands dipped into that old engine and got covered with grease. When he took my cock in his hand I could feel the grit and the slick of old oil rubbing against me. He took my hand and led me so I could do him at the same time. I did it blind, staring down at his hand. Red knuckle ridges. Rows of wrinkles standing out through the grime. I imagined we were like an engine, two pistons sliding in oil, rhythm steady, both working together. Nothing bothered me if I could think of it as an engine. Metal and oil and heat and moving. But I had to look in his eyes and suddenly I was human, connected to someone through a look. While I came I was more than human, him, a part of me, a part of that feeling that kept going. And then afterwards when he turned away and went back to work without saying anything I felt less than human. At the bathroom sink guiding water with my hand. My hand and cock sticky with black and sticky with white.

Anthony and Jerry are speaking on friendlier terms now, stories of their lives, how they got to Aliento, what they want to do. If they continue, then tonight or at least soon Jerry will tell Anthony that he lied about never being with a man. Anthony will tell Jerry that he's made love to a woman. They will probably understand each other then, because Anthony never thought he could be hurt by a woman and Jerry barely realizes he was hurt by a man.

Gabriella finishes the last verse of her last song.

For some are in darkness
and some are in light.
You can see the ones in the light,
those in the dark cannot be seen.

In the applause she packs her instrument into its black shell case and steps off the stage. She smiles and thanks people who congratulate her. Jerry and Anthony are laughing and sitting close at their table.

She leaves by the rear door. Outside, Donatello is waiting with back leaning against the wall. He takes her case and raises her hand to his face to kiss her knuckles. "Another exquisite performance, my dear," he says. He offers her the crook of his arm. "You're looking lovely this evening. Perfect for a closeup."

The espresso machine doing doubletime for the growing line of patrons still couldn't beat the rush for the seven taps of beer. In the sound of orders being taken and given, and people milling about greeting and hugging each other, someone daring Thelonious Monk's, "Straight No Chaser" in the beat up Baby Grand could barely be heard. A foot-high wooden platform made the stage along the eastern wall of the café. Lit only by a single halogen lamp from the ceiling, the stage nevertheless stood out amidst the smoky darkness of the rest of the cafe. About thirty people were seated in chairs and stools around the stage, a few were seated on the bar, on the piano, and on the floor. Sheila Gooden stepped up and assumed the barstool placed away from the podium on stage. She eyed the sign-up sheet on the podium, nodded to herself and began applauding. The crowd in the café joined in on the applause with whistles, howls and shrieks.

"Thank you, thank you. Thanks for coming everybody. An impressive list here. I look forward to the ones I know here and wait restlessly to discover the ones I don't. If it seems that one act takes up more time than is fair then I'll cut that act short. Don't feel shut out, it's easy to get caught up in the mood especially with such a receptive crowd. I've been told to wrap up many times when I've exceeded the given time at readings. So don't hate me if I make you wrap it up sooner than you would have liked. We have a lot happening so I won't take any more of your time. First on the list, Yusef Hamid."

Applause.

A six feet tall black male dressed in baggy pants, white t-shirt, plaid vest and a white lace cap took the podium. He bowed to the audience and began reading:

Neighborhood

The resourceful kid
has built his neighborhood. . .

turtles in his sandbox become hills
cauliflowers and broccolis form trees
splattered cigarette butts make dry grass
an upturned piece of glass makes the lake
graham crackers unwrapped and stacked
are the projects of the city
match boxes become trucks
drink stirrers-lamp posts
chewing gum-cement
but he can't find anything reasonable
to represent the prison
where his father, two uncles and a nephew live.

Yusef bowed again and left the stage to assume a chair in the front row.

Applause rocked the café.

"Big hand for Yusef. Next, we have Sandra."

Applause.

A short Asian girl wearing a 50s style thick plastic spectacles and dressed in a blue plaid shirt, cutoff gray sweatpants, and thick army boots up to her calves took the stage with a nervous smile and read:

Walt says grass, I say smokes

when the spine of my notebook
sleeps across my palms
and the pages unfurl

my lines don't resemble leaves
of grass

rather a pack of smokes
not even
feigning random arrangement
for a magazine
ad

"We're cooking tonight, let's roll. Mark is next." Sheila raised her hands up and down to work the crowd.

A white male in his early 30s, clad in blue jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt clumsily walked up to the stage from behind the crowd seated in chairs. He clutched a thick ledger in his hands and flipped pages for a several seconds behind the podium before finding what he wanted. He cleared his throat. His face looked agitated, the crowd held its silence.

Untitled

my mind races like a river
breaking loose
in an alley

. . .the shower pellets roam
your body and take the long
way out
wwwhy should I spare me?

I let my gaze hang hither
and nether until
your skin sprouts
goosebumps,
your smiley-faced breasts
ssstick their tongues out,
your pearl onion toes
curl in unison like a rose
reversing its bloom. . .

my mind glides in a rhythm
achieved only when privy
to the dawning
of a new wisdom

The applause grew loud inside the café, the crowd was warming up.

"My, it's getting hot up here." Sheila's face blushed like she was drunk from wine.

"Next, we have Sung."

A diminutive man dressed in a saffron robe like a Buddhist monk took the stage. He had no paper or book in his hands. He looked over, barely visible from behind the podium, and proclaimed in a scratchy voice,

Truth is the potter's wheel
But in the hands
The stories lie

Sung walked away from the podium and disappeared out the front entrance.

Sheila looked perplexed as she watched Sung leave the café.

Applause reigned.

"Moving right along. Next, Hector." Sheila retained her perplexed look.

A stocky dark skinned male wearing a white tracksuit took the stage. His stooges haircut shone from the stage light.

Lesser Species

For every whale rescued
under the spotlight
there die a thousand helpless
rodents in the dark

for every dimple-cheeked
Polly Klaas and Jean
Benet Ramsay
vanish a thousand faces
black, brown and yellow
on the sides of milk
cartons

a life is a life
you say
a loss is a loss

I suppose,
but I save my tears
for those unduly
departed from
the public eye

so forgive me for skipping
the main street
tombstone parade

I was busy
in the back alleys
last night
mourning the
unvaunted

Hector acknowledged the crowd with a nod and sat down on the floor to a steady applause.

The crowd buzzed with murmurs.

"We're in rare form tonight. Let's do one more before intermission." Sheila announced from the stool next to the stage. "Our next poet will be, Carol."

A slender girl with waist-length blonde hair, wearing a batik summer dress and no visible undergarments took the stage in long strides with her pale bare feet. A slight sound emanated from her toe rings scratching the floor. Once behind the podium her demeanor was very subdued.

Sign Language

if the moon were to convey
its mood in
sign language
when smothering
rosehips
or savoring tulips
it will borrow
Debussy's fingers

Applause from here and there in the crowd, a few squeals and bravos. The crowd dispersed towards the bar forming coffee and beer lines.

Sandra politely walked up to Carol who was seated midway on the stairwell with her face tucked between the bars below the handrail.

"Oh my god, it's true. Your gossip is true. Did you see Sheila blush after Mark's poem? I couldn't take my eyes off her. She caught me staring once. I thought you had it wrong about those two. And the poem he read, wow what a change for him. He used to read some grim shit before, remember?" Sandra's voice reached its shrillest.

"I've always liked Mark's metaphors. I thought Yusef kicked ass though." Carol bobbed her head to accentuate her words.

"Don't sell yourself short, honey, you were up there with them, with your sexy ass poem. Bitch, trying to score the way you read with your husky voice." Sandra clapped her hands and laughed as Carol joined in.

"I did nothing like that. You're so full of shit."

"Yes you did, and I know who you're trying to impress too, so shut up. Now me, I think I should've drawn a picture to explain my poem, maybe footnotes."

"You were fine, they loved you." Carol offered in a serious tone. "Yeah, right. At least I should've gone after you, not after Yusef got them thinking all political."

"Yeah, like Hector wasn't political, please. If you're good you're good. It doesn't matter when you read. Besides, you were good so shut up." Carol got up and looked towards the bar. She saw Mark talking to Sheila and sat back down.

"They're talking, it sounds pretty intimate."

"I wonder if they'll do it again in the cooler." Sandra said in a mischievous tone.

"Sandra, why don't you announce from the podium? Learn to keep a secret, girl."

"Oh, hush, like anybody is listening. You're thinking the same thing aren't you?" Sandra nuzzled next to Carol on the stairwell

"I just can't see Mark and Sheila. She's all wild and he's so. . ."

"Homely?" Sandra deadpanned.

"No. He looks fine, I just can't picture him tying her up and dominating her. . .well. . .considerable body"

"You gotta butter up, girl. He's probably a chubby chaser. You think he stutters when he. . .you know?" Sandra playfully ducked Carol's slap on her head.

"You are sick. You think, think he liked my poem?" Carol whispered suddenly.

"He would've if he wasn't staring at Sheila the whole time."

"He was?"

"How would I know? I was listening to the poems." Teased Sandra.

"You're not helping."

"You're on your own sister. I gotta go mingle." Sandra pat Carol's hair and blended in the crowd.

Mark walked over to Carol.

"I just wanted to say, I loved your poem. You and Yusef were amazing tonight. Well, I better go."

"Wait, Mark. What's the rush?" Carol barely hid her anxiety as she walked towards Mark.

"I begin my shift in two minutes. I have to do dishes, straighten out the back and ssset up for the morning crew." He put on an apron and a Tabla Manners cap and headed beyond the salon doors by the bar to the back of the café.

Carol watched Mark's body amble away and returned to the stairwell dejected.

Sheila approached the piano and placed her hands affectionately on the shoulders of a man seated on the piano bench and tuning the keys. The piano man, a thirtyish black man, displayed an exuberant spirit as he shook his head fervently to Sheila's inquiries with a winning smile. He brought his long wiley left arm up in the air to lunge the beer from a twenty ounce bottle down his throat. His cheeks and throat dripped of sweat.

Sheila clapped her hands to alert the crowd. The crowd took the cue and began the applause.

"Okay, everybody. We have a special treat tonight. You know, I've been coming to Ashram off and on for many years now. And I've always felt that a true artist colony shouldn't act colonial. I often wished that we could get people from the Aliento community to share their gifts with us. We heard from Sung earlier, who after years of my pressing him has finally obliged tonight. Now we are moving towards more unchartered territory. Blues, folks. Are you ready for some blues? Blues are truly the richest of American art, the purest by any means. So without much further delay let's give some love to our generous performer, Roy Bubby. I was so lucky to spot him one night right here at Tabla Manners. I hear he comes in after hours once in awhile to play the piano. I begged him, I begged him to play for us and here he is. . .let it flow Roy."

Acknowledging Sheila with a smile and a two handed flying kiss at the audience, Roy began working the piano. Piano ripples flooded the air as Roy poured a fountain of notes with suspenseful leaps and tentative strokes. Then, with his face turned up and eyes closed, and fingers still busy, he started to sing in an amplified voice. . .

Anybody seen my Creole woman?
She could be cruising the midnight train
I'm lost without my Creole woman
She could be stolen for another man's gain

Her body must be the devil's playground
She got more curves than the number 8
But when she got you easy and unwound
She gonna double cross you like an 'X'

Anybody seen my Creole woman?
Her eyes damn wide like a deer
Anybody seen my Creole woman?
Her body moves like a baby dove

She put the sin inside o' satin
She put a cure around every bit o' hurt
But when your way and reason's all forgotten
She sure gonna take you for your shirt

Anybody seen my Creole woman?
Another man pro'bly has this dance
I really wish my Creole woman
Would've took my life instead her romance

Soon as the song ended, Roy was flanked by half the crowd as a steady applause went on for minutes. Slowly the crowd settled down and Roy took his leave in the arms of a lady from the crowd.

"That's a tough act to follow, but this is how it is kids. If you go to the Nuyorican Café in New York, you will find many tough acts to follow. Okay, who's next. David." Sheila's face positively glowed on stage.

Wearing a loose rugby shirt and black chinos, a shaggy haired white male in his early 20s took the stage.

On the cutting edge

Coffins of flowerheads
Surround his bed
Their epitaphs
Pray for his better health

Wind leads the curtains
to a cancan
Blue sky crotch beneath
Promises distance

The white frocked one leans
Over with yellow
pills as tiny as rat
Droppings

Her tenable twins
bubble their freckled
cheeks like rising muffins
he sighs and follows
runs in her
alabaster hose

by the door the barber
prepares for chest
harvest

soon metal fingers will plough
a new pipeline

David's hands shivered around the white paper he read from. He stopped abruptly without a sign of having reached the end of his poem. The crowd caught on after a few lapsed seconds and applauded.

"Next up is Gust. A new comer, welcome welcome. Give him some love everybody. Gust braved our company."

A fidgety youth averted the crowd by bending his head over a rat-eared journal. Several white t-shirts under a loose brown sweatshirt and baggy washed up yellow corduroys completely hid Gust's frame as he shuffled up to the stage.

"The poem I put together is almost word for word what my grandpa said about a prospective new business. Here goes. . ."

Contempt: a lucrative restaurant concept

"You wanna run a profitable restaurant?
Here's how you do it.

Forget plates they cost too much
We'll give people flat trays
The size of handy ash trays

Forget cooking
Just arrange the meat
In tight lumps,
Okay, roll some rice around it.

Forget entrées
They get two bites per serving
Of course, we'll charge
$3.50 a tray,
some at $4
some at $4.50

a unique floral pattern in each
tray though

forget seperating the kitchen
from the dining room
the cook is in the middle

whatever he has plenty of
he'll cut in lumps and float it around
on cute wooden boats

this way we can
forget the waiter

oh, and give crazy names for dishes
like
shushume
oonagi"

"Sounds great, gramps.
Did you actually start a restaurant?"

"No. The fucking Japs
beat me to it."

The crowd generally reacted with oohs and boos like it heard a perverse joke. Gust hurried away from the stage.

Sheila clapped her hands vigorously and took to the podium.

"Very good, Gust. Come on people, that was politically incorrect, and refreshingly so. It takes a lot of guts to do something like this these days. Okay, that's three for three from folks outside Ashram. We may have room for one more volunteer before we wrap things up for the open mike so we can drink and mingle. Any volunteers?"

"I got one." Said a raspy voice from the bar.

The host of the voice, a huge Samoan with muscles rippling like a race horse, leaned on the bar with a toothpick hanging out of his lips. He had on a skipper's cap made of black leather, a black tanktop, and blue jeans over white cowboy boots with polished spurs.

Sheila pointed to the podium while returning to her stool, "Please indulge us, Mister. . ."

"Rupert." He mumbled while swaying his short hands to move his massive body towards the podium.

He cleared his throat and twirled the toothpick in his lips.

"This poem is too short to be a Haiku."

Death

Period
After
Life sentence

Applause broke out like firecrackers and many, including Sheila, gave a standing ovation to Rupert who quietly walked back to the bar and downed an amber colored drink from a crystal shot glass.

"Okay, folks, that's as fitting a finish as we can get. Thanks everybody, we'll see you all back here in a week and I hope more folks outside of Ashram will contribute from now on. Let's begin the spiritual activities." Sheila raised a glass of red wine from the stage.

The competing lines for espresso and beer started to take shape amidst the shuffling of chairs and stools. The lights winked to a lulling, dim, Lucifer blue as the café began to behave like a bar.