Robert Steven Prattico, J.D.
On the Right Side of History
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"indeed, to a logician, spiritualism is self-delusion,
not unlike believing in a self-constructed reality.
god to you is not god to me, if reason succeeds;
for its cannonball will smash hard into the building
and leave nothing but fear and a handful of dust.
‘everything happens for a reason’ presupposes
ethereal thinking and commits Aristotelian treason,
yet it can prevent us from fearing inevitable oblivion." - RSP
Kept for Keeping
History Ready With Glitter in its Fist
Excommunicate Me
I Pass Your House Every Night Before I Sleep
not long ago, homosexuals were convicted
for the gay content written in their journals,
concealed sentiment used as evidence in trials.
a heart-throbbing pen held tight to describe
internal candlelight, or what it felt like
to taste masculine reluctancy in a tongue,
wet from welcomed seduction.
“our parted lips met as if foreplay steps
were their invention, ”he wrote,
savoring the last unevaporated pearls of
the evening, recorded and kept for keeping
as permanent-ink-memory. police,
religiously motivated, raided and intended
to arrest the sensitive suspects
wanted for charges
of obscenity or same-sex activity.Oscar Wilde was sentenced two-years
hard labor for artful indecency .
Geoffrey Dudgeon, Nicholas Toonen,
and Newton Arvin all kept diaries, and these
private files of romance were used against them.
Cyril Wilcox, a Harvard undergraduate
during the ‘20s, inadvertently unveiled
an underground queer fraternity
after he had been expelled from school and
committed suicide. He had been caught
with an older man, so his brother turned him in –
including the words he kept for keeping.
Cyril’s letters revealed one in many,
far from one in ten. Harvard convened a court,
infested with insolent investigations in secret,
to suss out what they called an epidemic.
these intelligent, paradigmatic, promising,
creative, athletic, driven young men
were expelled without dignity. Some, like Cyril,
chose to end their own humiliated lives willingly.They were nothing but human,
and I write openly because they couldn’t.
They are no different to the eyes of an animal,
yet they suffered for being mercifully sexual.
Their agony can now stand for volant activism,
soaring open and exposed to those still invisible
who are unable to be themselves amidst
the lingering intolerance of today’s world.
A nature no longer defiled, but canonized immortal.RP © 2013
History Ready With Glitter in its Fist
History sits in the back of a chamber -
anxious (pockets full of glitter/
counting down from ten),
while scales weigh the definition of marriage.
our administration of justice (unbiased)
heard arguments from the recently visible public
against a minority of religious sickness.
do we not have fingers to place rings upon?
do we not have together a bed to sleep on?
Scalia’s big breeder shits versus
Kennedy’s emerging consensus for love;
Jesus is there wearing a tolerant glove.
Underground rendezvous,
a captivating flee from society,
has helped define moist
between legs for individuality
that needs moral justification to survive.
like an airport terminal layaway, in and out,
there are sweet swelled lips (a right of passage)
where romantic lightning bolts flash fast,
and secrets are never forgotten.
(certain moments always last).
It is time for us now to unveil our flags.
do we not take the same hot water showers?
do we not take America seriously?
history has a tendency to all things forward,
and this day will not open doors to bestiality
without passion for each other,
we’d have nothing to fight for.
history knows that privacy precedes equality
(fist clenched with glitter/
counting down from 3),
and that it takes drag queens in heals to change policy;
international credibility is at stake for not agreeing.
history sits quietly, smells the ignorant sweating
rank in the courtroom air, ready to set rainbows free.
RP © 2013
Excommunicate Me
rabid animals lust after salivating bodies
while bouncing to dark bass pounding.
in a cesspool of zero degree separation,
each carves a knick into their personal history
as if it is a trophy. a new set of eyes
is a challenge, not a fragile heartbeat.
sex-drive objectification is a blockade
de-mooring any meaning or connection.I’d rather spend time in a cemetery,
walking among rotted corpses indifferent
to my stepping lightly. they are immune
to a culture so sadistically deceiving.chiseled bodies and sexual categories
perimeter any exchange of substantial poetry,
value is placed on the size of anatomy.
online take out orders are customary, and
repeat performances are near obsolete.
this has to tell you something when you
see the same cock on the same screen
frozen and ready to penetrate another
new unsuspecting wide-eyed slab of meat.I’d rather walk on water at night with
the threat of drowning as a meal in shark territory.
splashing hard without blood leaking
will help get my mind off my damage not healing.excommunicate me. castrate me,
if it means that I could be happy.
terrified insecurity outweighs romantic longing
when behind your back, everyone is fucking.
I’d rather climb a tree away from it happening,
atop a canopy where I can erase constitutional
arguments, because civil rights are irrelevant
with sewage so heartless.RP © 2013
I Pass Your House Every Night Before I Sleep
sometimes I pass your house and the door is wide open,
stone masonry is perfectly positioned and clean (flawless,
sexy) even my sneakers, upon seeing the pathway feel
lighter and welcomed unconditionally; windows open,
I hear ambient music softly playing from a candlelit room.
inscriptions carved into your cornerstones whisper wisdom
to me: self-assertive ecstasy in control of your own destiny.
on your property, I have felt safe, relaxed, grown, and free.other times I pass your house expecting you to see me
gazing longingly into your wide brown eyes so intoxicating,
but the shutters are closed unknowingly and you turn away
from behind the sheltered frame without me even seeing.
I am left in the street wondering, waiting for a light – a sign,
so I sit patiently without shouting or throwing stones,
showing you that I am letting reason take the reigns for me…but emotion has always been my security, a blessing really;
flowing creativity, empowering my empathy with the means
to see deep into the soft, well-protected regions of your heart.
In the street, all this seems wasteful and unnecessary,
especially staring at a stoic house with all the lights out.
absent, the cold-colored steel of my second guessing (racing
thoughts) poison the essence to which I am never parting.polluted like the Earth I care so much about that I feel guilty
for having the need to be warm inside with you holding me.
paradoxically, I am what you often decry not to be, an intuit
spirit trusting to make decisions based on innate feeling
rather than thinking. silence then creates doubt which is
insecurity, the vice as air blowing hard while tightrope walking
with all imbalanced stale baggage I still carry with me, the
sword that will eventually arrest me for irrationally trespassing,
until I am thrown into a four-lane highway of nightmares,
from which only you have power to (reassure) lead me to safety.I pass your house every night before I sleep hoping you see me.
RP © 2013
