Lodestar Quarterly

Lodestar Quarterly
Figure reaching for a star Issue 1 • Spring 2002 • Poetry

Kama's Clay

after Howard

Daniel W.K. Lee

For the adored,
mine is its own fanged mutiny, expectant
like age.
Yours, a venerated mandate unacquainted
with its sway.

Mine wakes -- the tardy bird.
Yours reclines -- maharajah.

As in war,
mine plays the flag-bearer -- hapless
contender.
Yours seizes, more like Caesar.

Fashioned so
mine borders a fool -- gambling without
the Devil.
Yours, a philosopher -- circumspect
practitioner.

That is to say,
mine is a monologue awaiting echoes.
Yours: mouth to mouth.

Daniel W.K. Lee is a New York City-based artist and writer on a one-man mission to restore the great love and appreciation for love poems. His work has appeared in Masque: A Journal of Queer Expression, ShoutOut Magazine, spoonfed: amerika, Vice, Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian Pacific America, and Fourteen Hills. A retired go-go dancer / stripper, he now volunteers his talents as the Editorial Content Manager at HOOK -- a non-profit outreach project for, by, and about men in the sex industry, and as the writer of "The Brady Diaries" at Amateur Bastards.

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