Leo’s Libido
Much like dogs,
men will lower their voices
when they’re feeling dominant.
Nothing surprising there,
but you might find it of interest
that women prefer men with lower voices.
Especially during those fertile periods
of the menstrual cycle.
Oh yea, and scientists also found
that women preferred these baritones
when it came to brief sexual affairs.
This might explain why my friend Leo
scores more poon tang than I do.

In his youth,
Leo was what you might call a
feral child.
Indeed, the rumor on the street was that at
sixth grade he had already grown hair
down there
on his knuckles.

By second grade he was being asked
to use the men’s toilets,
as it was feared that other boys exposure
to his premature manhood
might cause deep Freudian psycho-trauma.

Baby-sitting for Leo became a costly affair
as it quickly became apparent
his parents would have to hire a third person
to be present as chaperone.
Oh, I see you raise your eyebrows in
confounded disbelief but
when at nine months in,
the third babysitter in row
found herself looking for
her own babysitter, well…
action had to be taken.

The question was:
how do you suppress the rampant libido
of a testicular dynamo
whose every sexual encounter
was the equivalent of
the Yanks hitting Omaha Beach?
Yank after Yank after Yank spewing forth
from waves of turbo charged
amphibious landing craft.
Every woman’s crotch was Normandy
and his phallus
“Operation Overlord”.

Sure, Leo could have been sequestered away
in monastic solitude but
what spiritual mandate of
celibate condom-nation
could hope to tourniquet
his copious fluid passion?

What was it?
What was it that finally curbed Leo’s feral libido?
If his dog was limited
to a defined array of fire hydrants,
what was it that gave us the short leash?

Was it his lifetime subscription to Martha Stewart?
No.
His I Pod hardwired to Barry Mantilow?
No. Then…
what was it?
I’ll tell you what.
At some point in Leo’s seminal life,
some evil son of a bitch introduced him
to poetry.
You heard me right. Po-et-ry!
And just what do you think poetry does
to a man’s sperm count? Hum?


YOU say Leo is the same growling dog he always was.
You say he lifts his leg just like in those days of yore.
That Leo Marks his territory
with every guttural utterance.
And yet all that flows from his pencil is ink.
The lead’s long gone.
This dog
is spade.
This dog
is neutered.
This dog is nutted.
Oh so eunich…tified!

And I?
Because I’m a lesser man,
I cry for Leo.
I sob.
I lament.
He that was in many ways bigger than life-size
(in more ways than one)
has shriveled away to nothing.
And I ask you:
What is poetry but low down squat to pee?

For the sake of all things testosterone,
take away his pen
and give that dog a bone!

©07 Jack Hubbell

Wood
I fall asleep in a weathered Adirondack
to awake and there find a leaf
has fallen into my lap.
Yes, on this spinning clod of earth,
once again, decay has found me.
Oh, not that I’ve been
running from decadence mind you.
Not that I’m running towards it either.
I know my place in the scheme of
all things entropy.

That Adirondack chair I’m sitting in,
could collapse at any moment.
‘Course, any moment
could stretch out to forty years.
It could also occur in the next forty seconds.
Jeez, with this looming doom,
how’s it possible I relaxed my guard
long enough to fall asleep?
Yet sleep I did,
and though I did not dream of trees,
I awake to find this single leaf,
just there; just so.

You know,
I use to wake up with wood in my lap.
Oh, I suppose that still happens
every now and again, but
when I was younger?
I mean almost every morning
I’d wake to wood whether
I was inside or outside.
Exposed or un-exposed.

It was alarming and sometimes embarrassing.
There were times you’d awake to
the gentle nudging of she who shared your bed.
And there upon her face…
wide eyed wonderment as she
pointed to your supine lap
and exclaimed,
“You’ve got wood.”

Yes, truly embarrassing.
All you could think about was,
“Where can I bury this wood?”

Of course, there were those times you’d awake
and swear that someone
had planted a tree in your crotch.
“How the Hell did that get there?!
Man o’ man.
I’m gonna need a couple of extra hands to deal with this.”
But no.
You’re on your own.
Solo o’ mano.

So you grab your axe and
proceed to whack at your wood.
A hard job, but
somebody’s got to do it.
Couple of hours later,
it’s finally down and
with a mighty shout of “Timber!”
it’s safe to be seen in public again.


So many years have past now
and I figure I’ve pretty much
clear-cut my entire forest.
All the mighty Redwoods are long gone
and all that remain are those
ornamental Redbuds.
Still, I covet them.
Never tire of gazing out
from all the shade they provide.
No matter the size,
I am never less than awestruck.

Would that you could pull up an
Adirondack here just beside mine.
Partake of my
last remaining woodland as
it hovers there
just above your head.
And should you fall asleep
to later awake with
one of my leaves upon your lap,
please do not be startled.

Just be happy it’s not my seed,
‘cause what with
all this wood I’ve come to find
throughout the years,
you just know I was bound to get a
nut or two.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Want
It moves towards me.
From a distance,
it is seeking me out.
It is desire of a sort.
It is need.
It is want.

In stark contrast against some
desolate landscape,
a small black period exists
there at the end
of a short life sentence.

Want.
Want makes a sound not unlike
that of a mewing kitten.
And Indeed,
were it that a giant eye
might gaze down from above,
it might observe a tiny jet black kitten
vectoring towards me
from a distance of thirty feet and closing.

I stand in a compound
some twenty miles south of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Having given you the locale,
you envision desert—
an extreme environment.
And this Arabian desert is the ultimate of
austere arid nothingness.
Again, everything here has a life sentence.
Everything exists to die.

The compound of which I talk
is actually a series of interlocking concrete villas
and sporadic courtyards.
All of this surrounded by chain-link and razor wire.
All of this surrounded by wasteland.
Here inside, each courtyard is its own desert.
Its own failed petri-dish.
But look, each miniature desert
comes complete with the luxury of
two or three withered palm trees.
The gravel, sand and hardpan between them
has been artfully raked into parallel lines.
If you must die here,
please have the common courtesy
not to fall perpendicular to
these precisely defined lines.

In one courtyard we eat.
In another we find the villas where
we eventually come to sleep.
In between are all the courtyards
that make up the span
between here and there.

Fully sated, I am passing from
what I am to what I will be,
there at my final destination.
Along the way, demands are made—
both by me
and of me.
In one of those many courtyards
I encounter “want”.
Here in this vast honeycomb of villas
live a multitude of feral cats.
How this came to be, I don’t know.
An act of god?

Don’t get me started.

We are told that in this colony of cats,
there is the existence of rabies.
We are told to have no contact with these
feral felines whatsoever.
We are told that.
And here in this desert
there is that which thrives
and that which dies.

“Want” does not exist
though some apparition of it
continues to move towards me.
Abandoned by its mother,
this tiny black mewing kitten
should have been claimed by the desert
one week ago,
and yet some life-form…
Some thing we know
which walks on two legs,
has passed this way before.

Something bipedal gave in
to that which we define as
compassion.
Something upright and human
came to the assumption that
we as a generic species
would all possess
this exact same compassion.
That we as a whole
would always be here
for this one small kitten which
has come to associate us all with sustenance.

Rumor has it that
we are all made in the likeness of our creator.
That all of us possess aspects of
his divine qualities.
Do we?

There now six feet away,
“Want” cries out my name,
but I?
I take two steps back.
I turn and walk away.
And for my final week in this forsaken desert,
I follow a different path home.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Umbilical
The culmination of the pregnancy
was something she thought
best described as
popping a giant zit.
That which had produced the swelling
prior to the popping
was deemed unsightly.
An embarrassing blemish.
That delivered to her crotch
some nine months earlier:
nothing more than…
bacteria.

Is it important to know her
state of mind at that exact moment of
infection?
No. Not really.
That which is irrelevant before the act
is just as irrelevant after.
All you need know is that she
is incapable of love.

And so, this excrement comes to lie
in someone else’s hands.
An easy afterthought,
were it not for the fact it exists…
there at the end
of an umbilical.

“Umbilical”.
Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Are you trying to imply that
it has something to do with motherhood?
Nah. Nah.
Nothing more than an inconvenient tether.
Nah.
Fuck that shit!

And there at the end of an umbilical,
some bacterial life-form
cries out for sustenance.
A sustenance beyond the mere
gratification of nipple.
A sustenance of embrace.
To be enfolded into another’s arms.
Held beating heart
to beating heart.
The desire for an assortment of qualities
gathered under the heading of
what it means to be
a mother.

That which exists at the far end
of the umbilical
has a double X designate.
Chromosome string,
gene to gene,
they are one in the same female.
So very, very alike.

And yet… And yet…
That one which yearns
for nothing more than her mother’s touch,
is seen by the other as… what?
Diseased doppel-ganger?
Nine months of festering tumor,
now on the verge of being lanced.

On one end of the umbilical
is a life-form that once knew love
but now sees only an object of hate.
There on the umbilical opposite,
is that which knows
neither love,
nor hate.
She is a blank slate
in need of… What?
Does it come down to
sustenance?
There at the end of the cord,
a mouth opens and closes,
and with each transition,
the only emotion
it can possibly know
is expressly conveyed.
“Sustain me.
Sustain me.”

And yet… And yet…
The umbilical is severed,
and every external remnant
of mother/daughter
is cleansed away.
Two hands raise, lift, and lower—
mother’s womb
to sterile incubator.

“Sustain me.
Sustain me.”
And there in her mouth she finds it.
Love. Love.
Love is a dummy; a binky.
Love is a pacifier; a rubber nipple.
Love.
Love is right there at hand.
Right up until that very moment
when even your thumb
is denied you.
When even the love of you…
is brutally
taken away.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Below the Belt
Ponder this:
Is it ever appropriate
to strike a man in his testicles?

Now, don’t answer too quickly.
I want you to savor the visual
you have in your head
at this precise moment.
There’s that which you men have pictured
and then that spectacle of testicle trauma
you women have oozing through your brains.
They’re not always the same.
You women simply have not envisioned
a sufficient level of violence.

Try again.
Get mean.
Make a face.
Imagine someone who really deserves it.
This is YOUR moment.
Nope. Nope.
Pathetic attempt.
Girlfriend:
You are soooo lacking in motivation.

Have I ever struck a man in the groin?
Why yes. Yes I have.
Here. Take my hand.
I will lead you to the dark side.
It’s just up these stairs.
There behind my eye sockets.
Nice big comfy chairs where you can
sit back, relax and soak in
all that ultra-violence.

Oh, and being as you’re sharing my inner eyes
and they being prone to disturbed cognizance,
please note that my visual acuity is quite crisp.
Everything is HIGH DEFINITION.
Indeed, I have refrained from alcohol
because I knew you were
gonna wanna see this some day.

Shhh… Quiet now.
The show’s about to start.
I’m getting ready to open my eyes.
I’m at this party, see.

Okay. Turns out the girl we were just…
Wait… Again,
note that I’m including you in this
as you are now part of the decision process
and therefore must share in the guilt.

Anyway…
Turns out the girl we were just hitting on
has a live-in boyfriend.
Big guy. He’s upstairs.
There’s children upstairs.
She just went upstairs because he’s upstairs
and there’s children upstairs.
Course you and I don’t know this is an issue just yet.
Up until now, he’s just a quiet bodybuilder
you’ve seen off and on at the gym.

The party’s pumpin’. The music’s blarin’.
From where we are all sitting,
you can see down a long hallway
to observe the two of them have come downstairs
and passed through a screen door
to stand a few feet outside.
All you can hear is the music
but there on her face,
you can see she’s screaming at him.
He says something.
She reaches up and slaps him hard.
He reaches out and shoves her with such force
that she flies off her feet
and lands hard on the concrete sidewalk.
You stand up.
You start moving towards the door
which seems a lot further away
than it did a moment ago.
She’s tough.
She’s quick.
Before you’re halfway down that long hallway,
she’s gotten up,
took off one of her high heel shoes
and brought its spike down on the top of his head.
Impressive you think, and pause for a second.

And then, in slow motion,
you see his fist pull back,
fly forward and there explode into her fragile face.
As you pass through the screen door,
you see her hit the ground again.
The red of her lipstick
has been obliterated by another form of red.

He turns to face you and from his lips comes,
“I’ll kick your motherfucking ass too.”
And for the next thirty seconds he tries to do
just that.
Me?
I try my best to keep you guys
from getting knocked out of your comfy chairs.


Let’s cut to the quick.
She gets up off the ground
in yet another attempt to attack him.
I go to shove her aside
and it’s at this point that he jumps forward
and puts you and I into a forward headlock.
There in our muffled ears we hear him mumble,
“What do ya think of that?!”
Yup. He’s got us pretty tight.
Now bear in mind that from this vantage point
(I with my eyes and you in your comfy chairs)
we can see two things pretty prominently.
There to the left,
and sprawled across the ground,
she with her face a spattered mess of blood.
There to the right and just within reach—
his groin.

At this point I will pause.

I’ve a question I want to put to all you women out there.
There’s a decision to be made here.
Being as you are female
and morally superior when it come to
choosing peace over violence,
all you have to do
is come to a group consensus of “stop,”
and the poem ends right here.

So what’s it gonna be?

Yes?
Fuckin’ A right,
I slammed the inner edge of my hand
full force into his tender nuts!
Felt his testicles part
as my hand passed through
to crunch bone to bone.
Didn’t stop there.
Nosiree.
Grabbed ahold of his junk and squeezed.
Not only that— I twisted.
Felt his squishy gonads
pass through the ringer of my finger joints
to pop out on the other side.
One this way. One that way.

Oh, and he went down.
Me with him being as I was attached
appendage to appendage
in the worse
hands-on gay experience
he would ever have.

And he commences with this gagging noise.
Now normally,
a gagging noise isn’t pretty, but…
this one was.

And I feel hands grabbing at me.
Pulling me away.
There through my eyes…
There through your eyes…
There on the ground,
you see a man curled up in a fetal position.
And you ask yourself:
“Did I make the right decision?”

Well girls… did we?

©06 Jack Hubbell

Absolutely Flaccid
Girls. Girls. Girls.
You want them.
We got them.
They hang from poles for your delight.
And if we only had meat hooks,
the slaughterhouse of your somewhat
sexually confused dreams would be complete.

Did I say meat?
You bet I did!
But not the other red meat.
Not the other white meat either.
Nah. How’sa bout some shade of meat
dead center them thar two
titillating tones o’ pulsating protein?
An exact shade of pink
smack dab your object of desire.
This is what you want, right?
Not to worry.
We’re flexible.
Just watch.
We can tweak our taunt to penetrate
all the way to the center of your
erect wad of George Washingtons.
And just look at the size of those pockets!

Have we paused to tell you
how much you’re appreciated?
Why you’re our favorite idiot,
and we will indulge your every whim
as long as you can sustain that there bulge of…
Just how are
all those Georgie Washingtons?


Oooo, I bet you’ve got
something bigger in there don’t you?
Something huge.
Andrew Jackson huge.
Have I ever told you
how sexy Andrew Jackson is?
Oh and you?
You so remind me of Andrew.
Yes. That look on your face is
dead ringer for the seventh president.
Why, Mr. President!
What big eyes you have!
Indeed, there in your ample pockets live
six inch after six inch after six inch of
flat dead presidents,
and as wooed as I am by your
exquisitely greased mullet and
Andrew Jackson potential, dare say
I can sense the presence of a President Grant
lurking there in your wad o’ sex appeal.

Like you, our eighteenth president was a man of
such insatiable appetite.
Plop your six inch Grant in my hand
and the three of us will take a stroll
to the promised land.

But no. What’s this?
It would appear your pockets
have gone lame duck.
No Grants or Jacksons.
No Hamiltons or Lincolns.
Not even one
single solitary remaining
Mister Washington.

Oh, I’ll grant you you’ve got six inches of
some sort of George there in your pocket.
Grant that you deem it worthy of
forty seconds of something.
But I regret to tell you that your
forty second George is
and never will be
a worthy President.
Your six inch of George
ain’t nothin’ but flaccid dick.

Indeed, we regret tell you,
that your George or Dick or
whatever vice you care to call your
concept of presidency… they
are just about worthless.
Lame Duck or
Lame Fuck…
Either way, it is time
for you
to go.

©06 Jack Hubbell

Aidan is a Fish
At the moment, Aidan is a fish.
She has fins.
She has gills.
Of course, what I see
is a small girl of four years
communing with one solitary fish that’s
been placed in a pitcher full of water,
but these are mere facts.
Nothing to be confused with reality.
No.
What’s real is that Aidan
is a fish.
So much so that it does not occur to her
that she cannot breathe underwater.
A ridiculous observation in her point of view.
Why would a fish dwell on such menial things?

At this moment I am a human being.
One of the adult sort, I sit with other adults
some twelve feet distant from Aidan.
We mature humans
relate just as mature humans
are supposed to relate.
We co-exist in the bodies we were given,
and yet…
As I glance over at Aidan,
a part of me wants to peel away
and join her .
Here at this table we discuss issues of
such heavy import
while there at Aidan’s table,
wondrous things are happening.
Aidan is a fish!
How can you not see the marvel in this?

Perhaps you envision Aidan
pretending to be a fish, but no.
That is an adult assumption.
Though we might see a small girl
there on her elbows,
mere inches away from a pitcher of water,
that… That is not Aidan.
No.
Aidan is in that pitcher.
Aidan is there in that water.
She is at one with all things aquatic.
All things piscine.
She is so much a fish
she doesn’t know that water exists.
There is no her inside water
for water simply is.
It eases through her mouth
with each subconscious gulp
to pass through her gills as mere…
…sigh.

Why waste her time pondering frivolities
when there are better fishbowl conundrums
to puzzle over.

Aidan moves to the inner edge
of the pitcher’s thick glass
and looking out sees a small girl
gazing in.
Far beyond that girl
a man sits at a crowded table.
Swishing her tail,
she nudges up against some hard invisible barrier.
And there in her piscine mind a question forms,
“What? What does that human desire?
He looks such an old man.
So old, yet surely he longs for… something.”

Isn’t the answer evident?
He?
He desires that return to innocence.
That forever sense of awe and wonder.
He?
He
wants to be Aidan.

©07 Jack Hubbell