The boy could be an angel or a porn star:
close-cropped hair and clean-shaven face;
shirtless, his chest muscled, smooth, and lean;
eyes that say, “I might have done or not,
but with you, I’m definitely going to.”
His mouth open just enough to kiss,
he’s the personification of seduction.
Copyright 2018
T. Allen Culpepper
Light fades as evening falls on Bloomsbury Way,
red bricks and grey stonework turning dark,
but for a yellow glow from a window bow,
exuding warmth that comforts even a stranger
unlikely ever to enter the premises.
Copyright 2018
T. Allen Culpepper
Among the holy and royal ghosts still haunting
the chapels and passageways of Westminster Abbey
stirs the spirit of Edward the Confessor,
seventh son of the Unready, successor
to the Danes, precursor to the Normans,
a saint English, Roman, and Orthodox, hardly
a perfect man, but a capable and celibate king
who trusted that God would choose the next monarch
since he couldn’t be bothered with producing heirs.
With him the House of Wessex revived and expired.
Signs in the abbey describe his shrine as delicate–
something the man was not; accounts describe
His Majesty as tall and blond and dignified,
the epitome, in fact, of ideal ruler–
forbidden to the tourist hordes, open only
for private prayer, by whom unspecified.
And perhaps the restricted access contributes
to the shrine’s mysterious pull, or maybe
the attraction comes by way of age,
from cold stone hewn in Anglo-Saxon times
scarcely imaginable in 2018,
or maybe it’s only because the abbey itself
rose from Edward’s Norman-Romanesque dreams,
or because his tomb was opened at least twice,
allowing ectoplasm to enter the air,
wafting about the soaring nave, still echoing
with the chants and hymns of monks and choristers
from stacked centuries come and gone.
But in any case one feels something,
whether true believer or doubting Thomas,
whether it’s the lingering breath of St. Edward,
or only of so many ordinary passers-through.
Copyright 2018
T. Allen Culpepper
On accidentally being in London on the day of the royal wedding
Harry and Megan never consulted me
before scheduling their royal wedding for when
I would be making my very first visit to England,
and my invitation got lost in the Royal Mail–
they might at least have invited me to the reception–
so while they were saying their vows at Windsor Castle,
I was touring London’s parks and squares,
where people congregated to enjoy
a fine spring day in a celebratory mood;
only the monarchists interpreted the lovely weather
as a sign of heaven’s blessing on the couple,
but even republicans were game for a picnic and a pint.
In Green Park and St. James’s, the tourists
strolled about, taking the royal air
despite Her Majesty’s absence from Buckingham Palace,
while locals sat around chatting or walked their dogs.
In Russell Square, twenty-somethings sunned themselves shirtless,
and loners read novels on shady benches
under gnarly plane trees leafy and green,
against one of which a terrier relieved himself.
Two uni students on a coffee date
at the Italian cafe in the corner
spoke of their studies, politics, life, and themselves
over cappuccino ordered so late in the day
that the Italians surely snickered in laughing derision.
At the adjacent table, three English generations–
father, son, and father’s father–drank pints
from tall, thin pilsner glasses, and in
the trio one could see three ages of man.
The young man, blond and bright, drew my eye,
but I pondered his father’s thoughts, and feared
that I share most of the grandpa’s years.
An Asian family talked little but exchanged
glances charged with centuries of meaning,
and two elder gents, one armed with a can,
the other in a driving cap, commented
dryly on perpetual injustice
and chuckled at the antics of a pair of corgis;
I wondered if Virginia Woolf had dogs,
and, if so, how they coped with loss.
Over in Soho pretty boys sat on the lawn,
gossiping and drinking beer from cans;
the mood was about the same, though the denim
was slashed more artfully and the humor a bit more arch:
With the aid of a paper mask, someone had dressed
the statue of Charles the Second in Meghan drag.
Copyright 2018
T. Allen Culpepper
A slab of grey-streaked marble cloud
leans against the pale blue sky
not yet gilded by the sun,
like a piece of construction material
tilted up to a just-primed wall
at a building site, in wait
for the workers to arrive
and fix it to its proper place;
then red-eye planes like diamond knives
saw sharp lines through the sheet of stone,
cutting it into squares of tile.
Copyright 2018
T. Allen Culpepper
I’d praise how our bodies perfectly entwine,
if this were some romantic verse. It isn’t.
It’s the cruder modern kind in which
your bony elbow jabs me in the ribcage,
your razor toenails scrape my naked calves,
and your hard cock that gave me pleasure before
kind of annoys me now that I want to sleep,
but when you roll over, you take all the covers with you,
leaving me cold.
Like us, that story’s old.
In my fantasies, you’re someone who
doesn’t concuss me with flailing arms or keep
me awake some nights with raucous snores,
but in reality, that’s not even half–
the book would have at least a hundred pages.
The sex is fine, but sleeping with you’s a bitch.
Yet my love, my love, is still consistent:
I wrote you this poem, and it even rhymes.
Copyright 2018
T. Allen Culpepper
Poetry When It Comes 