{"id":253,"date":"2013-12-01T22:39:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T22:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2022-01-21T17:17:19","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T17:17:19","slug":"253","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"TRUE BEAUTY\u2019S EASY TO FORGET – Angelo Nikolopoulos"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it\u2019s yourself who\u2019s looking
\nand looked at\u2014
\n 
\na myopic knowing in the morning,
\nsleep-struck and shocked\u2014
\n 
\nthis is my face!
\nUnshareable, one-of-a-kind blandness.
\n 
\nAlone in my apartment
\nI\u2019m the prettiest boy in the room.
\n 
\nSo why should you be one, too?
\nBetter-face made better
\n 
\nby the arrangement of unequal things.
\nA strange beauty so foreign
\n 
\nit makes my heart sting. Jealousy,
\na kind of locked-in syndrome.
\n 
\nBut in the waiting room where I lurk
\nfor Lasik of the soul,
\n 
\nI believe it\u2019s a miracle to have been
\ngiven a body at all.
\n 
\nLife is a celebration. By neon lights
\nand cellulite. We are not dead.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

STR8 GYM BUDDIES<\/p>\n

for Mark<\/em><\/p>\n

You can smell them from here\u2014
\nthe alloyed bench press,
\n 
\niron beam and barbell, the grainy grip
\nof blister and callous.
\n 
\nIt\u2019s sinful synesthesia,
\nthe hour spent in repetition and set,
\n 
\nextending their core\u2014
\ncable raise, dead lift, upright row\u2014
\n 
\nfriction\u2019s copper wire
\ncoiled and uncoiled by lateral lunge thrust,
\n 
\nuntil failure, until sore. What\u2019s voyeurism,
\nafter all, but a lesson in resistance?
\n 
\nTo lower your face
\ninto that reddened strain of burden.
\n 
\nOne more. Give me one more.
\nI could go on like this, too.
\n 
\nI love the language of cardiovascular desire,
\nlooking\u2019s syntax in its steeliness,
\n 
\ntethered by limits, wrought form.
\nThe threadbare cotton
\n 
\nof endurance spread over deltoids,
\npivoting breastbone.
\n 
\nBut if description\u2019s just encoded want,
\nwhy not decode the d\u00e9nouement?
\n 
\nThat muffled sigh of fatigue,
\nhis index fingers curled to guide
\n 
\nthe weight into its lock\u2014
\nthe way he slumps over, reveals the thin
\n 
\ncrest of waist, between underwear
\nband and shirt,
\n 
\nand I rest the brim of my feeling there,
\nacross the skin,
\n 
\nthe tan line,
\nthe few blond sprouting hairs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"credit<\/a><\/p>\n

Angelo Nikolopoulos is the author of Obscenely Yours, winner of the 2011 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2012, Best New Poets 2011, Boston Review, Fence, The Los Angeles Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. He is a winner of the 2011 “Discovery” \/ Boston Review Poetry Contest and the founder of the White Swallow Reading Series in Manhattan. For more information, visit: http:\/\/alicejamesbooks.org\/ajb-titles\/obscenely-yours\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it\u2019s yourself who\u2019s looking and looked at\u2014   a myopic knowing in the morning, sleep-struck and shocked\u2014   this is my face! Unshareable, one-of-a-kind blandness.   Alone in my apartment I\u2019m the prettiest boy in the room.   So why should you be one, too? Better-face made better   by the arrangement of unequal [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11877,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/11877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}