Fantasy
BY BEN FAMA
Forever is the saddest word
The poem’s not worth it
I’d like to read to you
What Andy Warhol said
About the traps of the rich
But my tastes are changing
This is a love note
To a Fire Island lifeguard
Tuscano shearling
And mauve champagne
I should never talk
Even after two sips
Though that’s when I can
I hate the George V hotel
But I would take you there
Then walk to the open market
Some thoughts are not that great
The Internet is my home
Where it’s easy to be beautiful
And seen and new
In the glow
In the spell
I thought I was better
I guess I won’t ever be
God wants us to make out
‘Cause I’m in this airport
Where nobody’s important
I just wrote a letter
Explaining all of this to you
In my head
The prism refracts
But the stone is cloudy
All that comes through
Are the deeper obsessions
Arvid Nordquist and dry shampoo
Cocaine and Pellegrino
This weather should have an entry
In A Lover’s Discourse
A fully enclosed private garden
With direct access to the pool
Hardwood floors
Perfect light
I, like, crave you
Doesn’t it ever just make you sad
Plans you had with different people
And how it all can’t come true?
I want the extremes
Of pleasure
Boredom
Watching my lovers cry
I really want to show something
To the lifeguard from Fire Island
Thoughts like nectar
International cities
To stand here a young prince
Unique in spirit
Replete with hospitality
Aren’t you even curious
To see my hotel room
After I swim?
Sitting on my bed
I typed
Principal Dancer
Into YouTube
And drank
To see the discourse
And the honor
Feels good
Standing at my window
What I think I will miss most
When I die
Is color
And the light
Sometimes it just comes to you
Amidst occasional instances
Of radiance or darkness
I mean
Everyone has their shit
Then enough time goes by
That’s your life
Maybe I expect too much
I wouldn’t know how not to
In my room
With these portraits
In gold frames
Feels like theater
MGM Pictures
The bronze light of Hollywood
1928
The future isn’t real
I should walk in golden rays
Past rows of motorcycles
To Coney Island
Because I know grace
Is more real than love
It feels so real
In the morning
On Fifth Ave.
With the lifeguard
From Fire Island
Weightless in badinage
Whatever comes from
Art and life
Being can be too easy and common
Like soda
I let him come inside my world
Because they gave me a key
To Gramercy Park
Maybe tonight
I’ll have a breakdown
Sometimes
I use this French product
To soften the water
When I soak in the bathtub
It is silent there
Like a tomb
Sometimes I wish
I was already in mine
Sometimes I wish
The world had a face
I could touch the cheek of
When I feel
I could be a part of it
When I cannot
And I lie in the hot water
Sometimes I wish
The pearlescent steam
Could sublimate the malaise
And the lassitude
That is there inside of me
Maybe it does
I believe it is that way
When the light touches down
Upon bunny lawns
Of Fifth Ave.
I don’t care at all
About the lifeguard so much
Gravlax or Paris
I should call this friend
In Los Angeles
An aesthete who hosts parties by the pool
Ben Fama, “Fantasy” from Fantasy. Copyright © 2015 by Ben Fama. Reprinted by permission of Ugly Duckling Presse.
Source: Fantasy (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015)