konstantin berlant- bring the beautiful boys home

I  

BEAUTIFUL GIs, soft naked shoulders sweating in the Vietnamese sun
looking over their naked shoulders for the bullet from the crackling leaf in the jungles
looking over their naked shoulders for CID man who’s gonna bust them for dope
who’s gonna bust them for love, who’s gonna dress them in pink tennis shoes,
pin their heads down over their cocks between their legs,
throw them out dishonorably, send them to jail, send them to the front lines.

Gonna have those beautiful shoulders sliced with bayonets,
sliced up like shoulder roasts, blood pouring from the crevices
blood spattered across the blue sky
across the sparkling sun
that glares in the camera lens
a red explosion across your color TV

I was just watching a beautiful boy, beautiful naked shoulders

I wanted to touch and kiss him
I love him:

This poem was part of a leaflet for the October 1969 Moratorium distributed by Gay Liberation in San Francisco and Berkeley.

My boyfriend from high school P.E.
My boyfriend from commuter-cycle rides to college from El Cerrito
My boyfriend from the newspaper
My boyfriend from sociology class
My boyfriend high up on the balcony of the Student Union
My boyfriend swimming naked in Yosemite’s backcountry Washburn Lake

My boyfriend in bed with me
kissing my cock
I snapped you on the butt with my towel
I held you tight from the back of your motorcycle
I put my hand on your shoulder before we said good night after our double-date
I held your hand on the walk to your house to study with you
I held your feet as you slid into the sky

Into the sea,
I swam under you, I swam around you
I stroked your naked liquid body in the icy water

Soaped your body in the shower
and rubbed against it
kissing your cock

Let me lick up the blood
of my gay brother
Wrap up his remains—
his foot, his eyeball—in a towel dripping with blood
and put them back on my bed for me to play with
I’ll lick my sheets so my mother doesn’t know I had company on the rag
Soak the sheets in cold water
Spread them out on the line in the sun.

Well, you can do your thing. Just stay away from me.
I want to go on hating and killing, hating and killing.
Hi there, Gook. Let me cut your beautiful body up limb by limb
Let me cut off your cock and put it in my pocket as a trophy-souvenir

Dying soldier / South Vietnam

Don’t touch me, queer!
I dig chicks, Vietnamese whores.
I didn’t know you were queer, George
you know it’s against regulations.
Don’t kiss me now, friend,
while the sergeant is watching.

Beautiful Vietnamese man
Let’s suck and fuck
Let’s not kill each other any more
I love you brother
You’re my buddy
We’re gonna die tomorrow
I want to hold your cock and
make it feel good tonight
I want to put my cock in your body
and feel together with you
tonight