{"id":7364,"date":"2019-12-22T18:40:03","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T18:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=7364"},"modified":"2020-03-18T19:18:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T19:18:07","slug":"two-poems-paul-latorre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=7364","title":{"rendered":"TWO POEMS – Paul LaTorre"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE PRESTIGE<\/strong>
\n 
\nBoys desire to be
\ndesired, too.
\nBoys move
\nout of single
\nparent homes &
\ninto double occupant
\ncondos of unwilling to fix
\nfoundations so they never fill              the vacant rooms.
\n 
\nMen make tombs offill              their defects,
\nerecting
\nmonuments
\nto conquest &
\nmislabel it company.
\n 
\nBoys can also be whores, you know.
\n 
\nBoys ignore knocks on doors
\n& keep pleading.
\n 
\nBoys use fingers as
\ntongue depressors when
\ndepressed & hit eject.
\n 
\nBoys look into mirrors
\nat shapes that aren’t there
\n& also want not to be there.
\n 
\nBoys become assistants
\nto magicians willing
\nto help them
\nlearn
\nto disappear
\n& then reappear
\neach evening withfill            the flick
\nof an \u2018Abra-cadaver\u2019fill              wrist.
\n 
\nBoys become men            who vanish altogether.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

 
\nONE SIZE FITS<\/strong>
\n 
\nAll of us have a type:
\nSchindler’s list thin,
\nstarvation Ghandi thin,
\nungodly thin like Paris Hilton
\nafter purging six big macs,
\nTom Hanks Philadelphia,
\nJared Leto in Dallas gaunt
\nribs could play xylophone
\nlike my withhold of protein
\nled to Ethiopian days of near
\nfainting on stair masters
\nafter chugging a sugar-free
\nRed Bull with taurine
\n(which is actually bile)
\nscorching eyes as chlorine
\ncrotch touches during first
\nsummer swim, Angelina Jolie
\ncheekbone thin, won’t even eat
\na wafer thin, paper doll thin,
\nKate moss thin, chemo treatment
\npatient thin as pre-Easter Jesus
\napocryphal thin
\n& all these                          idols               fit
\non the altar
\nwhich we kneel to              nightly
\n& make our sacrifice.
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"Paul LaTorre is a poet, activist and educator who teaches at Bloomfield College in NJ. Blending pop culture with advocacy for various forms of trauma including abuse, disorder, and mental health issues, his aim is to create dark poems with a sense of levity. Paul’s work has been published in Zeitgeist, Drunk Monkeys, Narrative Northeast, BLINK<\/em> and has been featured on the DREAM Act’s<\/em> ‘voices’ portal. His chapbook of poetry, Disappearing Boy,<\/em> was recently published by the 3 Mile Harbor Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE PRESTIGE   Boys desire to be desired, too. Boys move out of single parent homes & into double occupant condos of unwilling to fix foundations so they never fill              the vacant rooms.   Men make tombs offill              their defects, erecting monuments to conquest & mislabel it company.   Boys can also be whores, you [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[334],"class_list":["post-7364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-self-portrait-by-egon-schiele"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364","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=7364"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7395,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7364\/revisions\/7395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}