John Whittier Treat
Sweat: A History

With Thanks to Dorothy Allison

I was twelve and learned to clean my new rifle with gun oil. It stank like sweat.

I was thirteen and helped my father change the oil in the pick-up truck. It stank like his sweat.

I was fourteen and used baby oil with drops of iodine in it to protect my girl’s bare back from the sun. Her longing stank like sweat.

I was fifteen and the man coated his dick with spit before putting it in me. My longing stank like sweat.

I was twenty-eight and our lube on the nightstand smelled sweet, like sweat.

I was thirty-two and the drugs I snorted up my nose smelled sweet, like sweat.

I was forty and my dying boyfriend’s vomit and piss and shit smelled sweet, like sweat.

I will be old and the priest’s holy oil on my forehead will smell sweet, like sweat.

John Whittier Treat is the author of the novel The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House (Big Table Publishing Company, 2015), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. His short stories have appeared in the journal Jonathan and the anthology QDA: Queer Disability Anthology (Squares and Rebels, 2015), edited by Raymond Luczak. Now a professor emeritus of East Asian languages and literature at Yale University, he holds a BA from Amherst College (1975) and a PhD from Yale (1982). Originally from New Haven, he now lives in Seattle.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

A final prompt for National (HIV)  Poetry (Writing) Month: Today’s poem goes beyond a typical refrain to use what we might call a formula: Every line begins with “I was” plus the speakers age, and ends with “stank like sweat.” Write a poem about any aspect of HIV/AIDS that uses a formula of your own devising.

Jarred Thompson
Misty Weather

He loved misty weather.
The way it made us cling to bedsheets
and each other, like vapour clinging
to its former self.

He loved misty weather.
His lampshade hands sheathing the sun
whose rays made us spy shapes of families
out a blurred horizon.

He loved misty weather
for how it swirled round the drain
of every pore, promising to hold you in a deserted field
with nothing in sight, but the whorl of his smile.

He loved misty weather
because he was like it:
rolling in before you wake and gone
before your eyes could strain
the flesh from sweat.

Like misty weather he was everywhere
and nowhere: able to be seen from far, to be walked with,
but never to be kept in place, never
to be reduced to droplets running down
a window pane.

Jarred Thompson is the author of Twilight People (Praxis Magazine Online), one of seven manuscripts chosen for the 2019/2020 digital chapbook series, selected and edited by JK Anowe. Thompson’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New Contrast, Typecast Literary Magazine, Type House Literary Magazine, Outcast Magazine, Esthetic Apostle, and Sky Island Journal, as well as anthology Best “New” African Poets 2016 Anthology I (Langaa RPCIG, 2017). Also a fiction writer, his stories have appeared in numerous fiction journals, as well as in the anthology Transcending the Flame: The Writivism Mentoring Anthology (Black Letter Media, 2018), edited by Emmanuel Sigauke. 

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem used the refrain (a repeated word, phrase, sentence, or line of poetry) “He loved misty weather.” Write a poem on any aspect of HIV/AIDS, incorporating a refrain into the structure of your poem. (Notice how the last stanza includes a variation on the refrain—try using that technique as well.)

p.c. scearce
Ars Vitae HIV

i. results

were nights like here, muddled in summer’s sweat
opened by fans, breezed

, a prophetess either without a heart, or

without you—oh uh now I call him
him…

this audience doesn’t believe poetry—

doesn’t

, isn’t bringing much to me
anymore.

my language can’t trick myself to hitch
click the jams of doors or

these thoughts are because of him, of you.

those who’ve seen in waiting rooms and thus passed away,
i am awaiting my tests.

are minds in prognosis, ah the medical articles—
an audience, a year’s past filled by dis-
connects

—i’ll always know
where i am by the time I last saw him—see you.

was it easy for him/you to best the beat on repeat wrought-
out from an audible to tell me—there were/are
no goodbyes but that it could’ve

been one.

i murder the clinic with what litters the pavement
along with other
test results.

it is all i couldn’t have possibly known—can live
without a positive—now do.

who could lead this sparse liturgy of lovers i’ve kept?

who cares but me, or him—that’s you, idiot—
my constant return to emotionally
blame become declined to ever reside
on my couch / off my couch—

you/he did once
before
the results.

not three months long ago before
these results.

i try sitting in musical chairs when i get home—

each time,
they remain significant still like

i am attempting to shake you—no him—ah, but it’s you
again i run around and around
but no longer follow
myself.

where are you now so i can confirm suspicions…
it isn’t where he; it is i to mine to
maintain.

Poems by Phillip Calvert Scearce (p.c. scearce) have appeared in Screen Door Review and Euantes, among other publications, as well as in the anthologies Super Stoked: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from the Capturing Fire Slam & Summit (Capturing Fire Press, 2018), edited by Regie Cabico, and Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Squares & Rebels Press, 2019), edited by Raymond Luczak. Originally from Danville, Virginia, Scearce, lives in Washington, DC.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem has in its title the Latin phrase “ars vitae,” which means the art of life or the art of living. Write a poem about the “art” of living with HIV/AIDS, however you care to interpret that phrase.

Yrik-Max Valentonis
Plague and Prejudice

Your liberal reply disturbed me.
I wish I could talk to you right now.

beating a gay man
fighting to lift military ban
taboos
I miss going out with you

gay community marched
my fellow AIDS sufferers
winning social tolerance
ban on homosexuals in the military
to greasy all-night diners

it toughened me up
a coalition put together to raise support
You’ll be here soon enough
every human being
where we would sit and talk

as the odd woman
called the incident deplorable
but never really fitting in
empowerment
until sunrise.

discriminates and is based in prejudice
I loved the way you

Gay and Lesbian students
predefined gender roles
I wish it wasn’t true
would fly with your fingers

militant views
always been instances of bigotry
if you believe in something
to make a point.

committed
experience the nightmares
sexually open
allowing my vulnerability
I would catch myself

showed no remorse
blatant and obvious
That was too kinky for me, and I got a divorce.
staring at your hands

every cold was the one that would do me in
One gay veteran
try to cover it up
while you sculpted a story

I wanted to hold him
called the attack unfortunate
in the air for me.

Apologize
the denial of our legal rights
I told you, you should write a book

after realizing he was gay
live to see a treatment breakthrough
an isolated incident
on philosophy or something.

homophobia
would be better to be honest and
Your words enraptured me

embraces, tears, whispers
open about it
Don’t give up
the right to voice their sexuality
prevent more gay bashing
it would be good for others

I didn’t want to hide
is to be alone
to hear your strength and courage.

people like this who are
supposed to be protecting me
by camping up every now and then
to be with someone with HIV
As you told me

I feel that I’m not safe
sodomy and sexual misconduct laws
how the doctor treated you.

find kinship
very intoxicated
I really had no choice
We talked about support groups

raises awareness about homosexuals
of anger and courage and politics
that deep nausea
I collapsed
and how every little action helps.

She was sure I was a homosexual, possibly a child molester,
come to terms with AIDS
and worried that I would end up in prison.
latex gloves to shake your hand
it’s important to show
the lid off the coffin
writhed on the floor in a seizure
a very individual thing
mourners
That night you pulled

trying to force
a conservative group
an outsider in my own world
diagnosis: full-blown AIDS
away from me when I tried

end the stereotypes, cruel jokes
surrender totally to the disease
would feel proud
lived these two years is a miracle
feeling hypocritical
against all the odds
to kiss you goodnight.

a positive thing
launched a state constitutional amendment
preaching to the converted
they were hated
backwards and bigoted state law
become more spiritual
unburdened herself
I was scared.

Please! he cried.
infected with HIV
You were scared.

gay rights ordinances
except, recommend doctors
How noble of me
I kissed you.

When my mother discovered my cross-dressing…
first sign of trouble
law in the future
I am alive.
Afterward we just looked at each other

AIDS kamikazes
ambivalent
waiting in the wings
civil rights
gay-bashing
live with guilt and shame
I didn’t want to lose you

I guess I was ready
extraordinary rage
called for an end to discrimination in jobs,
to some damn disease

before they die
it will always be a broken heart
about the whole androgyny
a current of paranoia
push for a repeal
—You held me

camaraderie
and overturn the law
housing and child custody
having sex
as I cried.

AIDS benefit
in the closet
career
for a dear friend who was still alive
Already missing you.

AIDS can carry on for a while
on the side
I thought I could somehow conquer
the final group you can attack without a problem
I caught myself staring at your fingers

being attracted to the strength in subtleties
went public
so many of my friends have died
battle over gay rights could hurt the states
is grief
wondering when I would

Did I think it was weird?
trigger a boycott
they want to share their lives with someone
of the same sex
see them again.

source of rage
Guiltily, wanting them

I love my gay son
whose torch-like emotionalism
to tell me more stories.

catastrophic
death tolls
I was never gonna change it
to have them hold me.

undefinable
would have added protection
liberation of the oppressed
I’m sorry for my weakness

most people don’t understand
I now help him coordinate his outfits
around your strength,

society’s consciousness
and enjoy putting on his makeup and combing his wig.
endowing gay society with a soul
I hope it would not
is sanctioned as any other
I just wish…

it was basically a love story
a show of strength
fight like hell
reflections about gay life
was seen less as quirky
opponents
displays the paradoxical qualities
I’m sorry.

based on personal appearance
only a charade
I knew that I was odd
I cannot see the families of America
discussed strategy
our sexual history
I hold your hand

everyday lives
and say goodnight.

Yrik-Max Valentonis is a writer and cartoonist. His comics and writings have appeared in magazines, e-zines, radio broadcasts, art exhibitions, including Brave New Word, Chaleur Magazine, Cliterature, Experimental-Experimental-Literature, Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art. His work has also appeared in the anthologies: Animal Blessings: Prayers and Poems Celebrating our Pets (HarperOne, 2010), edited by June Cotner; Sinbad and the Winds of Destiny: The First Six Voyages and More (Kent Hill Publishing, 2016), edited by Kevin Candela; and Zombie Nation: St. Pete. (Zombie Nation Publishing, 2010), edited by Aaron Alper and Jason Cook. Valentonis holds a BA in English and American Literature from the University of South Florida, and a MFA in Poetry & Prose from Naropa University.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem combines a personal narrative with an direct address to a dear friend who died of AIDS. Write a poem in which you relate your perspective on HIV/AIDS to your personal history.

Mel Waldman
The Secret Life of J
A Developmental Perspective

STAGE I

PHILOSOPHER KING

J
is the philosopher king

the
flow of the river in glittering opalescence

a
private spirit revealing the way

lover
of beauty & the grandeur of the universe

phantom
visionary & mathematician/logician

aware
of sin

the
death & obliteration of the true self

STAGE II

FIRST CONFESSION

J
is the keeper of a secret self & a hidden life

that
is the way it is

in
his time

his
era

chance
& destiny merged & we were neighbors

became
friends

decades
ago was it in the 80s?

faraway
yesterday & now

in
the flow of my phantom brainwaves

Time
a kaleidoscope of illusions

a
grand magic show

is
the otherworldly flow of phantasmagoria

&
in this eerie container of Being & Becoming

within
the whirling Dome of Life & Death

he
revealed,

“I am gay.”

He trusted me.

Trust
dissolves boundaries/separations & creates oneness/connection

STAGE III

SECOND CONFESSION

The
past is now

&
time returns

inside
my swirling mind again & again

in
a circle of infinity

like
Ouroboros

the
snake that eats its own tail

J
confesses/reveals

“I am HIV positive.”

His
familiar voice

calm
& accepting

conceals
the silent shriek &

transverberation
of my mournful soul

I
wear the black hole of grief

STAGE IV

HEALING

Imagination
a magical door/boulevard to the multiverse

a
cornucopia of universes
may
heal

medical
treatment & psychotherapeutic visualizations are his way

&
in his Mind’s Eye

he
does not obliterate/kill the disease

J
envisions a world of transcendence & peace

&
sees harmony/beauty in a circle of love/divinity

STAGE V

AIDS

IT
progresses

&
J moves away

lives
alone in his new house/fortress retreating into inner space

STAGE VI

VANISHING

Occasionally
he visits the old neighborhood

until
he stops

&
we vanish from each other’s life

an
invisible barrier/boundary separates/cuts the sacred connection

STAGE VII

CONFESSIONS/REVELATIONS

Confessions
of the wounded soul

&
waves & particles of revelation

are
a potent blending

the
flow of empathy

&
the efflorescence of the self

I
reflect & recall & taste the pain that hovers in my brain

&
crave the holy healing of acceptance & peace

I
shall not forget

my
friend nor the insidious disease & I wait for a selcouth catharsis

I
am a shattering absence

a
panorama of loss & grief

scattered
across the vastness of the lost landscape

&
a vanishing mustang

galloping
into the deep of the ravine & the ruins of the chasm & the blackness of nowhere

&
soon the chimerical snow falls incessantly

covers
the lost landscape & swallows all

&
the snow is a holy veil that holds & caresses & transforms the swirl of pain & suffering

in
a beautiful alchemy & metamorphosis & divine transcendence & now I am free

transcendentally
free

Poems by Mel Waldman have appeared in Ascent Aspirations, Brickplight, Clockwise Cat, Eskimo Pie, Indiana Voice Journal, The Jewish Literary Journal, Liquid Imagination, Mad Swirl, A New Ulster, Oddball Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Red Fez, Skive Magazine, Two Drops Of Ink, and Yellow Mama, as well as in Namaste Fiji: The International Anthology Of Poetry (The Blue Fog Journal, 2007). He has also published short stories in a number of fiction journals. Holding a doctorate in psychology, Waldman is a practicing psychologist in New York City.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem is explores a man’s journey with HIV/AIDS from the perspective of an HIV-negative friend, as well as the impact the friend’s HIV/AIDS had on the speaker. Write a poem exploring a close friendship between an HIV-negative person and an HIV-positive person.

Vernita Hall
Letter from P-town

Dear Gregory,

As Pop would say, I’m as happy as a faggot in Boystown—literally. ‘Cause that’s where I am! You and Richard would love it here. Nearly every passing face looks up and smiles. But they hesitate first, searching for—the welcome, I think. Acceptance. And with each shy, hopeful gaze I remember your funeral, your family’s faces, in that church with Richard—like they’d been sucking lemons and needed to spit.

I wish you had told me. I wish you had told me why in the hospital they let you smoke. I thought your nurse was kind because he was your kind. As if any alphabet infection could have ever changed my affection for you.

I’m trying to enjoy my stay here. Like you always said, you’ll be dead a long time.

Well, the gang’s almost all there now. You, Pop, Richard, Granny, Uncle Charlie. Mom says hi; she’s coming to visit soon. Keep the music hot, the beer cold, a seat warm for me, and the tab running. I’ve got all of you covered.

Always,

Vernita Hall is the author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color (Willow Books, 2019), winner of the Willow Books Grand Prize for Poetry and of the Robert Creeley Memorial Award from Marsh Hawk Press; and The Hitchhiking Robot Learns About Philadelphians (Moonstone Press, 2017), winner of the Moonstone Press Chapbook Contest. Her poems and essays have appeared in African American Review, American Literary Review, Atlanta Review, and Mezzo Cammin, among other journals.  With fellowships and residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center (sponsored by Indolent Books), The Ucross Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hall holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont College and serves on the poetry review board of Philadelphia Stories.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem is an epistolary poem—a poem in the form of a letter. Write an epistolary poem on any aspect of HIV/AIDS. 

Raymond Berry
Harbinger

—For Robyn

The times my door kicked in
By you, the prophet
Predicting my death
Because I took it up the ass
Each time, I forgave
Until something triggered you again
This time, rage, because I agreed
With the Jacksons attending the BET awards

After Michael’s death
Telling me to shut up
That’s why you have AIDS
What’s that? my nephews asked
Ask your uncle
God is killing him, you said
How you really felt
That day in the hospital

Your prophecy finally happening
Your first words, a question
If I could share forks or straws
We’ll buy separate plates
I’m okay, I thought
Because you didn’t ask
Cabinets stacked with plastic
And other disposables

Like me, you said,
Used once and tossed away
I understood then
Why gay men didn’t tell their families
Because even in death
They knew
Loved ones, like you, my twin
Would take their hurt and load it

Raymond Berry is the author of Diagnosis (Wasteland Press, 2010). His poems have appeared in WarpLand, City Brink, Cactus Heart, Assaracus, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies To Be Left with the Body (AIDS Project Los Angeles, 2008), edited by Cheryl Clarke and Steven G. Fullwood; Spaces Between Us: Poetry, Prose and Art on HIV/AIDS (Third World Press, 2010), edited by Kelly Norman Ellis and ML Hunter; Reverie: Midwest African American Literature 2010 (Aquarius Press, 2010), edited by Randall Horton and Patricia Biela (Editor); and Rust Belt Chicago (Belt Publishing, 2017), edited by Martha Bayne.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem explores the stigmatizing of HIV/AIDS within the families of people with HIV/AIDS. Write a poem about HIV/AIDS-related stigma.

Rodney A. Brown
Documenting What Has Come Up With Time

A Black boy in Dayton. [I guess I’m still living it. It’s in my blood memory. The summer of 1989 was the peak of men just brutally dropping like flies. And in the same circle. We danced around the reality of not knowing at the time how the disease was passed on. Maybe it was foolish at the time but we just kept dancing. The only problem was.] The gravity of the graveyard space. Remember witnessing. Remember their wakes? Them filled, lined up and smelling sweet coffins with cuts on the inside undersurface. Pulled open and then blackjoy things like biddles, flowers, and herbs from the earth at Congo Square lain slowly down in the cushion and sewn together as a kind of love offering. Perfumed. Flesh and bones in a neatly organized laying down. Presumably resting bodies with spirits somehow going somewhere—home or away to some other place. Chaperoned by hand claps for some. Bagpipes for others. Songs are ever present as we funeral goin’ folx do the burial swinglow without forgetting. [One weekend we had lost like two or three people. Friday. Saturday. Sunday.] We knew them. No, know em’. Nozipho Bhengu. [Out of state.] Mike Malone. [Houston TX.] Blaine Evans. [Thursday.] Essex Hemphill. [September.] Alvin Ailey. [Concord.] Arthur Ash. [July.] David Irish. [February.] Rock Hudson. [August.] LaBron. [Syracuse.] Eugene’s ex-boyfriend. [April.] Michael and Jesus who had lovesex together with Bryan and Josh and Sabrina. [Thursday, Saturday night and early Sunday morning.] Iaokim. [Miami resuscitated and then gone away fo’real-fo’real in June.] Donald E. Garrison Jr. [3 December 1997, Age 44, Houston.] Human immunodeficiency virus. [Everywhere hopefully very, very soon.] Jeff, brother of Jim. [Atlanta.] Jamal. [Ohio.] Dorian Corey. [January.] Ulysses Dove. [Tennessee.] Hibiscus. [December.] Willi Ninja. [Paris. New York. Chicago.] Angie Xtravaganza. [In state.] Marta. [February.] Arnie Zane. [Virginia.] Kuwasi Balagoon. [March the first day.] Sisters who were dead in their prison cells. [Born 1970 lived almost to the year 1982.] Easy E. [7:15 in the morning.] Pearl, a mother of an HIV positive child whose [death became commonplace.] Marlon Riggs. [Missouri. Cincinnati, Ohio. Las Vegas, Nevada. May. Sunday.] Penelope. [Blood Transfusions 6 September—January 24.] And I nearing a complete psychosocial.

Rodney A. Brown is a choreographer who connects art, performance and education through choreographic practice and advocacy. He founded the Brown Dance Project in 2006, and was an assistant professor of dance at Ohio State University from from 2012–2016. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Brown was a member of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC). Brown has taught at the University of Michigan, Spelman College, Kentucky Governors’ School for the Arts, and served as Artistic Director of Dance at Santa Fe College. He holds an MFA in dance from the University of Michigan, and a BA in performing arts from Oakland University. Brown currently lives in New York City, where he is experiencing homelessness.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem explores the impact HIV/AIDS had on the poet/speaker when as a young Black man in Dayton, Ohio. Write a poem about any aspect of HIV/AIDS in Black communities in the United States or elsewhere.

Izzy Wilson
When the Epidemic Gets Personal

13 years old, but Wide Awake!
Told my counselor I am bi today.
Her reaction silences me for another 13 years.
Ryan White and ACT UP making headlines.
Sarcomas and withered bodies flash before us,
Then Diana held the babies and
A.R.T. rejuvenated life.
I cried for the gay men and babies, rarely seeing other representations.

Move on to my personal, compulsory heterosexuality. Somehow I broke out!
Got woke!
Contracted HIV.
47 year old librarian type.
Re-education–not a death sentence.
U=U Hallelujah!
One pill a day replaces 13.
And I finally realized that it’s my turn to ACT UP…. now!

Writing by Izzy Wilson has appeared in Atlanta’s OutLoud Magazine and on the International Bipolar Foundation blog. Wilson has published poetry and essays in both gender studies and social work textbooks. Wilson is a 2019 Fellow for Positive Women’s Network and is currently organizing housing for people living with HIV and trans displaced persons.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Today’s poem recounts the poet’s (or speaker’s) experience of queer gender and sexuality from childhood to adulthood, and how those aspects of identity intersected with HIV/AIDS in the speaker’s own life. Write a poem about HIV/AIDS in the context of a personal coming of age narrative. You do not have to be HIV-positive or have had AIDS to write a poem like this—it can involve your experience of HIV/AIDS as something affecting a friend or loved one or something you learn about from media representations, art, or literature.

Barbara Rockman
Summer Theater: Still We Lust After

Because it was going to be Monday and the theater dark, the first boy I loved drove past midnight with our band of line readers for the famous actors and light techs for the famous directors, prop makers and scrim painters, across the Bay State to the sea.

We spent the night on Plum Island, most duned, uninterrupted beach I’d ever walked. I lay down on the soon dawn sand and when I woke, across my body sandy tracks, claw prints of a huge bird that had crept up one side, crossed over, wandered off and disappeared.

And there he stood, the beautiful long-haired boy smiling over me, dangling the stick he’d drawn with.

The next week I stood by as he bowed his long frame into a glass booth on Main Street of the Berkshire town where we worked. “I’m going to lie.” And to a draft counselor on the other end of the black phone, “I’m gay. What can I do?”

His number closing in on that war. My wanting his long bone hands to want my untouched breasts. It wasn’t of course a lie: not the jungle massacres nor his love of men nor the pandemic that would silence him.

Barbara Rockman is the author of the poetry collections to cleave (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), and Sting and Nest (Sunstone Press, 2011), winner of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award and the National Press Women Book Prize. She teaches poetry at Santa Fe Community College, in private workshops, at Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families and with OutsideIn Arts with people living with mental illness.

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Here is today’s prompt

(optional as always)

Once again, today’s poem is about the loss of a loved one to AIDS, this time in the form of a prose poem. Write a prose poem addressing any aspect of HIV/AIDS—risk, testing, prevention, treatment, living with, loss of a beloved, shame, stigma, pride, etc.