Jon_Grate

[jfagrate]

It took me 3 days to get to this page, so I'm not entirely new.  True also of my age.  My profile photo is 5 years ago when I had more hair both on my gface and on top of my head.  My face is a little pouchier now, but I am the same inside; the outside is just a little age-worn: vintage.

I like men 35 to 57 or 60, and, though I admire a 6-pack, it is not necessary for my admiration.  Men under 35 are nice, but they probably have better things to do than me, and we probably don't have much in common anymore - am I doing them a disservice?  I have been fat and am shedding the pounds now.  That is because much likes don't run to sipping chubs.  No offence intended; it doesn't turn me on: muscles are appreciated, but not necessary.  

I ran across QueerwordsPodcast.com some months ago; it's a site interviewing queer authors.  It has some great interviews.  One of the interviews was with a young poet, Justin Jannise, whose first book I bought.  I wish it were autographed; it is that good.  How to be Better by being Worse  has some fun poems and some serious ones.  One of the first ones I read is this short one:

When I said I needed more, I meant coffee

but we were midway through "real talk"/ and logically, I might have been responding/ to your desire to see less of me./ The dark film developing at the base/ of my mug was taking me back to Kansas,/ a clapboard bed-and-breakfast, the streets/ that day or night were dead empty./  Between the two of us, we had enough/ to live there for a month./ How many dime-store novels do you think/ we could have read aloud to each other/ in that floral-patterned room, between meals/ and lying down as long as we could stand it, wrapped up in ourselves like the damp towels/ we let fall to the floor? (p. 55.  BOA Editions Ltd., Rochester, NY., 2021.  (boaeditions.org).

And, no, I don't get jack if you buy a copy.  US $17.00