 This is my new book. It's called Triptych Caliform. On the front is a San Francisco drag queen called Kutcher Smirnov Sky and the photograph is by Jose Colon, who's a fantastic San Francisco photographer who's worked a lot with RuPaul and people taking photos of drag queens. So I'm really happy with the cover. The book is in three sections. The first section is cinema and all about the movies and the second section is about BDSM or kink lifestyles and the third section is just about California generally and they all kind of dovetail with each other. There's like recurring themes and stuff. So the poems are all short. I'm gonna read two from each section, that's six. So start with the cinema ones. The first one is called How on the silver screen of her dream, matinee idols in cloaks of darkness swoop down like bats and do unspeakable things to hapless maidens in gowns of velvet, curtains and helmets. How warriors in helmets, sandals and swords wreak terrible vengeance. How gods are invoked. How she manages to be ravaged just out of frame. How cats are to blame, the evidence hovering in the corner ripped bodice, discarded scarf, dropped suede glove, bottle of hard liquor lying on its side, contents spilt like tears. How she pursues those bad, bad boys, those laconic mechanics, those hardworking farm hands, those dapper gents and sure footed dancing princes, those articulate diplomats and sons of captains of industry. How she settles for chain smoking clerks, unemployed drag racers and actors working as waiters. How they usually leave when the going gets rough. How she wonders if there is something wrong with her. How she is suddenly 30, then even more suddenly 40. How the squalls of babies drive her mad. How the smell of diapers makes her sick. How she ends up semi-comatose, Xanaxed, in front of the TV watching Ellen and turn a classic reruns of Pretty Lady. And how she wonders what the hell happened to her life. The next one, I've been fascinated by Eileen Warnos, the alleged serial killer and that film monster and I ended up doing a lot of research into Eileen and I went down a bit of a wormhole with Eileen and this poem came out of it, it's called Serial Eileen. Because you tied me face down on the red backseat of your Cadillac civil and Volusia County and took away my power and made me float above myself and watch like some scuzzy bird, a pigeon, because no fucker would give me a job, not even waiting tables. So I had to turn tricks on the highway and because you had that 22 in the glove compartment waiting there just for me, I shot you. Because the robbing alcohol, because you had that cheesy mustard polo shirt with a little guy on a horse with a golf club that said stuff to me about a world I would never understand because everyone said, you don't belong here because Edgewater, Florida. Because you can stick your golf club up your ass. Because you said a hundred in Brevard County but you only gave me 50 and how am I supposed to pay the motel for me and my lady with 50? And there was 300 in your wallet, thanks for that. Because in Daytona you smelt like lister mint like my grandfather and you had those ugly tombstone choppers, probably dentures. Because you didn't rape me in Suwani County but you were gonna, given half a chance, because it was a defensive preemptive strike, your honor, like the natural world, eat or be eaten. Now, here's a couple from the kink section. The first one's called Cross Dress about enforced feminization. Somebody's gotta do it right. Thank you, Virgie, I love your life. Let me glue down your man brows. Let me pan stick shade grease paint and contour you. Let me spangle shadow and eyelash you top and bottom. My flirtatious slave. Let your mistress line you outside your natural lip line for the appearance of a big glossy mouth, welcoming and wet, open and luscious. I will now just glue down the lace front of this voluminous chestnut wig to your forehead, my sexy slush, to give you big hair, natural, tousled and ready for bed. Ease into this elasticized slip, tight, firming, and assist me to slither your long legs into both these pairs of nude flesh pantyhose. Don't you look lovely? Slip into these five inch heels. Walk for me, very nice, slower, provocative. You are so enticing, so sexy, you little slut. Let your mistress zip your slender frame into this vermilion-rushed cocktail gown, skin tight, so inviting. You are asking for it, aren't you? Anyone can take you, do what they want. In fact, I think I will. Or not, this one's called Rope. I am beyond excited the first time you tie me up, your hands fast over serpentine red nylon and hemp. Your constrictor knot restricts my chest, your daisy chains makes my buttock pop. You send me home to practice my midshipman's knot, my fisherman's, my sailor's coil. My scaffold knot and figure of eight will be used to bind other slaves under your direction, of course, my mistress. My monkey's fist and common whipping knots are clean. I rehearse on my own thighs, rope up my own cock and balls with a highwayman's hitch, a clove hitch, a cleat hitch, as instructed. In my dream, you lash me up quick smart, hog tie me in butterfly knots, distal hitches, the turks turban in the center of my back, you attach to a hook, winch me up by ratcheted degrees, suspend me in the eye of the room, dust motes dancing in the ray of sun, a sight of beef slowly revolving in your power. Here's a couple from the California section, House of Sticks. Yes, I'm lying on a flattened box outside the bout, handle with care, product of Vietnam, this way up. They call me homeless, but I like to think of it as electively residential address free. Yes, my legs are mighty swollen, pitting edema slash compartment syndrome, not elephantiasis caused by a worm in Africa. I learned about that when I worked in admin at the county hospital. That was before I got laid off. That was before I got a bad credit score, before my boy Mikey got himself killed in Afghanistan and before my husband hung himself in the garage one Tuesday afternoon in bare feet in his suit and tie. One minute I'm working at county hospital and next I'm a patient on a gurney, the dirty lady in curtain seven. I can't afford any shame. I built myself up on a scaffolding of grade score average and credit rating allusions, but those stats don't mean jack. Those stats are cotton candy sitting on top of a house of sticks, pull one out at the bottom and the whole damn thing comes tumbling down. House of sticks, house of sticks, the whole damn thing's just a house of sticks. I don't need your pity. You can put it back in your organic backpack, honey. I've busted out of this house of sticks. I'm gonna spread my wings and take off, soar over this city, shit over Nob Hill, float out to Marin County on warm undercurrents. I'm gonna be free as a fucking bird. The last one's called Give It Away. I don't want my Mercedes Sports Coupe ice blue or my three bedroom condo with ocean views. You can have it too. I'm giving my designer clothes to you, my Versace's and my Gucci's that still fit. I don't want any of that shit. Take the lot at bargain basement prices free. Take my designer shoes, my Jimmy Chews, my bed, bathroom, beyonds, my curling wands, I've got two. I'm gifting a signed warhol print condition mint and an artisanal macrame wall hanging or two. Do you know what? I'm giving away my titanium hips, my silicon tits, my microchips and all that shit. I don't even want the skin I'm in. It's been inked and lasered to within an inch of its life and resurfaced, burnt, cut with a knife. All the sunspots have been burnt off. Take it, use it, feed it to the dogs. I don't need it anymore. I'm stripping my assets down to the core to reveal my authentic self in a yogic gesture of Buddhist rebirth. You can have my diamond engagement ring, three carrots, no inclusions, clear as a bell and lots of other stuff as well. I'm not gonna be a collector anymore. I'm going off to a mountaintop to survive on granola and a bowl of rice, an occasional apple and chamomile tea. I've got a whole lot of books I don't read. I'll pack them up in boxes or give them to the library. I've got a set of bentwood chairs, Viennese. If you want them, they're yours. Take them, please. Want some Leica cameras, designer watches, Russian nesting dolls, Japanese lacquer wood boxes, a microwave, a crock pot, an iPad, a set of six fucking steak knives. I'm getting rid of my hair to a good home. Also my acrylic nails, my reconditioned liver, my kidneys and various other organs, one eye and a heart in good order, pristine. I'm gonna dance around in my bones for a while then totter off in a skeleton boogie to the graveyard club or the mountaintop. I won't even need the granola or rice, the begging bowl or the saffron robes. I'll be stripped down to nothing and I'll be leaving only footprints and you can have those too. I'll be fashion conscious ashes to ashes and dust to dust, dust or bust. Thank you.