Collaboration is fun

But first, an update: I submitted the other two December apps online last night, will print off all my stuff today, and then pick up the last letter Monday. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the wonderful person who is saving my sanity!!!!! I will drop those three packets in the mail Monday, and then think about the next batch after the New Year.

And, here is the very first draft of a collaborative poem Stacey and I wrote over the past, oh, month, or so... We got sidetracked and distracted and busy a few times in the middle of the process, but we finally found the ending yesterday. Look for her to post it on the PoCo site, and on her lovely blog as well.


Velvet Elvis

Rest deep in the field of matte black
plush and dense as Mississippi night
no screams will jolt you from this
reverie, no girls will faint at your feet
except me, clawing to get behind
the wide gilt frame centered on the wall
to run my fingers thru your hair, to recline
against your muscular thighs, to climb
up your twisting legs, to scale your hips.

Rest here and wait for me. I will come
to grasp your shoulders, to cling to your name,
taste the sugar and the smoke of your mouth
but when I try to press my lips against yours,
I feel nothing but dust clinging to the painted fibers
and the rough places where a painter's brush
paused, the paint pooling on your bottom lip.
You are all man, rough, hard, surrounded by a sea
soft and impenetrable, velvet waves fading
into a bright white glow at the edges of your face.
I brush one finger along the angle of your jaw,
slowly slide it down the short softness that lies
flat, the revealed triangle of your chest. I step back
I see the gold surrounding him, the end of a plush life framed
forever, a bright spot on the dark paneled wall.