Seven poems that appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009


pagan textbooks

latin for sexy high-school boys is license to think
about sexy gods and goddesses.
latin for sexy high-school boys is free-reign
to ogle photos of old statues of sexy near-naked
men and women nestled there along with the text
of all those difficult reverse-order latin sentences.
on long days, when the day just will not
end, sometimes sexy high-school boys who
take latin just sit there and visualize
the god Mercury in all his nakedness,
high above the clouds, illuminated
by the loving rays of the sun -- they
think of Apollo, and the chariot
being drawn across the sky
by four muscular fiery stallions,
and sometimes sexy high-school boys
who take latin find themselves
sitting there with their big smooth
hardons raging underneath their
pants; they try to think of
boring ordinary things to make
their hardons go away -- instead,
it's Mercury, Apollo, hot stallions.
Virgil wasn't supposed to
be like this (him and
his naked Aeneas frolicking
with love-sick Dido); Cicero was
supposed to be boring,
but, to sexy high-school
boys who take latin,
it looks like Cicero and
his man-servant Tiro
clearly had somethin'
going on. And so
sexy high-school boys
who take latin sit there
with their big hardons bulging underneath
their pants, rush on home, and
from underneath their tent-poled
sheets, they see Dianna pacing the
moon across the sky,
Apollo not far behind, racing her toward
the slender slit
that is the oh-so delicate pinkness of their
favorite latin horizon.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.)


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total

it was a simple enough college mens room
graffitti (or is the singular of
graffitti actually graffittum?) --
anyhow it was simple enough:
it said:
"Focus on your studies".
someone (presumably the same guy who wrote
the original line) had then
scratched through the word "studies"
and written the word
"studs" below it.
so then the line said
"Focus on your studs."
the tall sexy freshman sitting
in that particular stall on
its toilet and with
his pants down
around his ankles chuckled
as he noted that
someone had then lightly
crossed through the line that
said "Focus on your studs." and
written below that line a new line entirely:
the new line read
"Focus on me, a stud."
someone had then added the line:
"hey stud, how big are you?"
and the next line said:
"5 inches soft, 11 inches hard"
and the next line said
"prove it"
and the next line
said "where and when?"
and there was no next line after that.
the tall sexy freshman sitting there with
his pants down around his ankles
chuckled, pulled out
a black magic marker, and
drew a not-half-bad sketch
of a sexy naked guy with a huge
erect dick.  the entire composition
was about 1 1/2 feet tall, and
took approximately 3 minutes to complete.
it looked pretty good. toes and everything.
then,
the tall sexy freshman put away
the magic marker, wiped
his butt, pulled up his pants,
flushed the toilet,
and, below his composition, he
wrote the words "signed, an art major" --
and then he left that stall,
never ever to return.
"shy" was his middle name.
but golly he loved art.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.)

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that word

the fire and ice of love and desire
may be simplified by the term "addiction" but
that seems unfair and dry and clinical.
love and desire may not, or
should not, be simplified
so easily and glibly. the sexy naked young
man lying on his back in the middle
of a sunny meadow tugging on his
big smooth cock while the rays
of the sun caress and love
and heat him up is not merely
"addicted" to solitary sex in
the sunshine. he is enveloped
by everything about the moment,
the sensation of his dick
responding to his fingers on it,
the sensation of the sunshine
on his nipples and navel
and balls and knees and toes.
he is enveloped, caught up in
it all, in everything about
everything about it.
to reduce all this
to an "addiction" of some
sort is disingenuous, to
say the least. to what
is this sexy naked young
man "addicted"?  being naked?
masturbating? the feel of
the sunshine on his naked
skin? the feel of the
meadowgrass on his butt?
or is it, perhaps,
that his so-called "addiction"
is to complete and utter
oneness with everything,
sex, nature, sun, meadow,
heat on skin, sunlight in eyes,
texture of dick skin, texture
of finger skin against dick
skin, exquisiteness of
having balls pulled up
tight and greedy
against body instead
of dangling half-interested
and lazy?  no. this all
goes well beyond the
application of the
term "addiction" -- even
though he does this, all
of it, alone, over
and over and over, dozens
of time a month during
the sizzling summer, when
his heart is hungry
for the taste of
the universe.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem first appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.  It also appears in my book String Bean.)

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troubling

mountain lake is on top of mountain lake mountain,
in giles county, virginia.  i drowned in mountain lake
over 50 years ago.  i'm thinking this thought now
because, every once in a while, mountain lake goes dry.
well, when it did it this time, skeletal remains
were found in the dry cracked dried-out mud bed
on the bottom of the lake. shoes, too, old coins (some
of them dating from the 1920s and earlier),
and a ring, and a pocket watch, all found
along with the skeletal remains. police
have removed all of this stuff and are holding
it and asking for help in determining the
identity of the dead person.  the remains
are estimated to be approximately 50 years old.
maybe older. i think maybe they are 56 years
old, which is my age, and that after
i died in mountain lake 56 years
ago, i was reborn in my mother's belly,
and there you have it: me. now. here.
but i died in mountain lake on top
of mountain lake mountain in giles county,
virginia, 56 years ago.  i really wonder how
i died, what happened, who i was.
how i got there, and why nobody
now knows who it was who died all those
years ago, in that deep dark lake,
on top of a mountain, a lake that
sometimes goes dry, mysteriously,
reveals its ugly bottom, and then,
just as mysteriously, fills back
up, its water cold and dark and deep.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.)

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everybody deserves at least one

candy lay melting on the floor, dripping down
the front of the stove, as
the sexy skinny teenage boy
walked around naked in the kitchen,
a drippy candy-covered wooden spoon in one hand,
a long glass-tube-shaped cooking thermometer
in the other hand. the sexy skinny teenage boy
had been having fun, cooking there at
home all alone, after deciding to make
a batch of candy from scratch:
butterscotch, with chocolate swirled
throughout. the kitchen smelled
wonderful, as he walked around
naked with the drippy spoon in one hand
and the cooking thermometer in the other hand.
and, now that dozens of delicious-looking blobs
of candy were resting on the wax-paper-covered
cooking pans scattered all around
on the kitchen countertops, and the
air was filled with the scent of
warm butterscotch and chocolate, the
sexy skinny naked teenage boy found
that he had sprouted quite a hardon,
there in the kitchen, surrounded
by all that candy.
he put down the spoon. he put down
the thermometer. he
grabbed a blob of the warm
candy from one of
the wax-paper-covered pans, and he
put that blob of warm candy onto his
tongue, letting it kind of
sit there, melting into the
slobbery pinkness.  he looked
down at his hot beautiful throbbing
dick. he looked at the spots
of melty candy lying on the floor,
and at the
drips that ran down the front
of the stove. then, without
even touching his dick, he
spurted out several large gushes
of cum, and his orgasm
was so good his cum
landed about 5 feet away
from him, spotty on the
floor, mingling with some
of the candy drippings.
"wow" he said, right outloud
there in the kitchen.
"perfect day."

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.)

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physicians have the highest suicide rate

good-looking medical student
who's planning to be a heart surgeon
goes out jogging and eventually finds
himself by a picturesque secluded
pond. he strips off all his
clothes and beats off
and when he's
spurting cum,
he listens to the sound
of his own heartbeat,
a good substantial
beat, and,
between heartbeats, he
counts to 4,
tempo somber, yet
almost giddy:
1-2-3-4-beat
1-2-3-4-beat
1-2-3-4-beat
another habit.
"so much of life is just habit,
isn't it?" he thinks.
he's trying not to be cynical,
though, trying to avoid the
pitfalls
of healthy scientific cynicism,
the tip of his dick
still slimy in his long-fingered hands.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.)

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sardines

oh what a wild and wanton wind that blows its way
into the mucky wanderings of the young and
high-spirited. it takes them by surprise,
rips off their clothes, touches their genitalia,
presses their lips tightly against their own teeth.
it tousles hair, tangles it, wraps and unwraps
it, assembles strands in savage and unkempt ways.
the young writhe in its path, welcome it at
first, then, they're just not so sure what
to do, what to expect of this rough fondling
they are receiving from it.  their naked skins  
glisten tawny and tingling, their fingertips
when lifted above feel as though they
could leave their fingers, fly off into
the sky, print themselves on the butts of
birds.  there is a constant moan and drone
as of dishes under watery assault in
the dishwasher. eventually, the young and
naked just lie down on their backs
on the ground, staring up above,
the wind whooshing over their nipples
and over their thighs and fanning
their pubic hair as though it were
wheat about to be
flattened in the fields, and, then,
it is over. suddenly, the wind
has stopped. the day is nearly
done, and there they all are
lying naked on the ground like that,
skin tingling, and everyone's feeling
a little silly now, but, their
eyes are glowing, and the taste
on the tips of their tongues
is salivary delight, and
the thoughts are of ice cream,
and cup cakes, and other things, too --
things you're not supposed to put
in your mouth.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Chiron Review, Issue #88, Autumn 2009.)

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[END OF SEVEN-POEM BATCH FROM CHIRON #88]