Nick Comilla, “Pure Form”

Author: Poetry Editor

August 28, 2012

Today, two poems from Nick Comilla, forthcoming in Assaracus #8 this October.

MONTREAL SESTINA

I can’t believe you started fights over places like Unity.
I wasn’t allowed to go with you, “period!” Parking
was out of the question too. Neither of us liked Sky
and one time it was over that sketchy bar (…ew) Taboo,
referring to underage boys. No money for cover – and the bar Stud
wasn’t of interest either. All these names make no sense: Oasis.

Why call a bath on St. Cath “Oasis”?
Right across the street that other lie: Unity.
As if a sauna could offer refuge from aberzombie studs
whose bodies clog the streets like bad cars, bad parking.
Here’s some truth. Dancing at clubs or in bars like Taboo
you’ll see everyone, except the person in front of you. The sky

isn’t black enough for all these shooting stars. That summer at Sky
your shimmer dimmed quickly, stumbling drunk alone to Oasis.
Sucking the dick of some lonely vieux monsieur for cash. Taboo
to mention that pederast, eh? You candyass. Couldn’t kiss me after, unity
we created, or faked it, pissed away at places like Parking – parking
everywhere except at the drive in. Imaginary: you whispering hush, stud,

as I ponder life’s leather complexities, fucking so hard tire studs
imprint the earth, my chest pressed against yours like how the sky
presses star signs down onto us. Reality: non-monogamy, ie, Parking,
Sagittarius sans Gemini, your fickle heart merely a man’s oasis.
A place briefly lit, a cigarette, the way you suck it and stub unity,
stripping off love quicker than the clothing of nouveaux-danseurs-nues à Taboo.

It was shocking at first. Slicing you off of me, too, like a bad tattoo,
withdrawal from you was worse than stupid stuff we do: acid, poppers, studs
if we’ve drunk too much, sex over love, designer drugs and that false unity
flooding my brain in serotonin waves. Cigarettes like telescopes, the sky
revealing a thousand plastic wax bitch Icaruses. I want a real oasis,
to dance from star to star avec un autre Rimbaud, passing over Parking

and hardly caring! I’ll wake up in sunlight someday. You? Still at Parking,
flirting, searching, lying beautifully in two languages, feeling blue, taboo
just to hold his hand for longer than a minute. You’ll get older then, at Oasis,
neon blonde hair thinning early. Your hands clean from never holding, an STD,
however, is a very real possibility. In Montreal boys fade out faster than the sky
turns black, turning on the night life. As for that club, burned down twice? Unity

is still standing, bass thumping, Parking too. Another young stud
tastes the taboo things this city offers, entering a sandcastle Sky
no longer lonely as an oasis. Brief feelings. Fast flickering lights. Unity.

PURE FORM

The problem with sex is that it makes me stupid.
No one really talks about Sartre or Camus naked.

And if they do, they’re probably faking it.
That sound of pretense when they’re – oooh – naked.

The problem with sex is… well, Foucault. He ruined it.
Social construction is not of much use, naked.

Except this: how many people do we go with just to make it?
A boy from Du Bois (pronounced Do Boys) that moaned “dude” naked.

First of all, I told him, it’s French. It’s pronounced Do-Bwah.
It means “some woods.” Some Americans make me say “ew,” naked.

Accept this. Oppression is pervasive. Sexual revolution has been academized.
And calculated, compromised. Now the goal is marriage: sexual déjà vu, naked.

And yet I can’t help but feel that clothing is a cage. Our only solution
to our sweatshop tattoos is to be totally unglued. Naked.

I just wish we could do it gracefully. So many things get in the way.
Have you been tested? The awkward shuffle for a condom and lube, naked.

Promiscuity is Russian roulette. I don’t want to be bound to anyone,
the problem with “a couple” is that it’s only two. But can we be too naked?

Stripped to fakeness? As if I want to be nineteen again. Waking up next to a man,
the taste of beer still on my tongue, where am I? who the fuck are you? Naked.

I still want to be an animal, yet with a more pure form. If the body is art,
naked suggests negation. I want to be complete. Completely nude, naked.

——

Born on a military base turned ghost town in Rome, NY, NICK COMILLA grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and has spent the last five years in Montreal, where he graduated from the Creative Writing program at Concordia University. He is now working on his MFA in poetry and fiction at The New School in NYC. Poems are forthcoming in Poetry is Dead and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry. A forthcoming short story will appear in the December 2012 issue of Sibling Rivalry Press’s Jonathan.