a poem by robert siek

We Go Seasonal


There’s no Santa Claus and we all die—
and this is eleven. Two candles Twin Towers parallel,
mimicking the number of this age another Christmas,
torches in ice cream cake, a sparking tuning fork,
buried handle-first in ground a touch still frozen.
My nephew’s birthday and he’s a year older.
He reminds me he was born at 5:23. His mother
told him once and it somehow stuck.
I never asked my mom that question or if I did
it’s entirely forgotten, unlike spring weather
every shared birthday cake with my grandmother,
the day before, after, or of Mother’s Day, each candle
a maypole, pagan and danced around, each year
things changing, underarms and voices,
so much to look forward to, life to celebrate,
candles blown out to applause, making a wish,
a cloud of soot exploding from the fireplace,
a chain of flowers left dying in the dirt.

"We Go Seasonal" first appeared in Assaracus.

Robert Siek is the author of the poetry collection Purpose and Devil Piss (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013) and the chapbook Clubbed Kid (New School University, 2002). His poetry has most recently appeared in The Good Men Project, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, and VACZINE, as well as the anthology Between: New Gay Poetry. He curates the quarterly new queer poets reading series Newfangled at Bureau of General Services—Queer Division and occasionally blogs at hideandsiek.blogspot.com.

a poem by robert siek

Cartoon Bears and Cotton Briefs


Following my hand wave and evening hello,
the doorman looks up from his latest drawing,
like a grade-school doodler called on in a classroom
when a teacher asks a question about Mesopotamia,
the river-valley civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates.
I press the elevator button. A couple enters the lobby,
a red-head girl in her twenties and a blonde guy carrying a pizza.
I see his tightie-whitie waistband above his low-cut denim waistline.
I’m holding a roll of gift-wrap paper decorated with animated characters—
multiple pastel colored bears playing in clouds and tossing stars.
I stare at the numbers lighting up, signifying each floor from twelve to one.
The doorman mentions holes in the street out front, shooting steam
like Mount St. Helen close to blowing up. Con Ed is working on it.
I think it’s been twenty years since that volcano last erupted.
I imagine lava in the sewers disintegrating rats and garbage,
or valves like truck tires leaking boiling hot water,
borderline launching half of 47th Street,
like mines set off beneath asphalt and traffic.
The elevator door opens, and I say, “Good night,”
following the pair inside. The girl asks which floor I want
to which I reply, “Five.” She says she likes my wrapping paper.
Her boyfriend with the pizza just stares at the ceiling.
“I bought it at Rite Aid. There were more rolls in the card aisle.”
She smiles, remembering bedspreads covered in cartoon bears,
her flannel nightgowns she wore as a child in the ’80s.
And I picture my fingers undoing the button on his jeans,
feeling the warmth of his bulge through white cotton briefs,
as I kneel below and press my face into it
like an ancient ritual not covered in history textbooks,
maybe child games in Babylonia, naked boys in the Hanging Gardens.
Crayon-colored bears fall from the sky while monster-truck tires
are shot past Hawaii. I need an accident in an elevator—
his smell on my nostrils and lips. The door starts to open.
I look away from his crotch. He continues to read
the top of the pizza box, and the girlfriend says, “Good night,”
while playing with the curls in his hair.





“Cartoon Bears and Cotton Briefs” was originally published on Velvet Mafia and appears in Purpose and Devil Piss.






Robert Siek's first full-length collection of poetry, Purpose and Devil Piss, was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2013. Some of his poems are forthcoming in the publications Painted Bride Quarterly, The Gay and Lesbian Review, and VACZINE. Other poems have previously appeared in journals such as Court Green, The Nervous Breakdown, and The Good Men Project. He lives in Brooklyn and works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan.

purpose & devil piss

Check out my review of Robert Siek's amazing new book of poems Purpose & Devil Piss up on Lambda Literary Review.

poems by robert siek

Drum Solo in a Basement


He asked her if it was just bang bang,
sitting behind me on a NJ Transit train.
I guess that’s not dating a mutual friend
but sex here and there, needs filled,
fucking on a couch in a furnished basement,
the unprotected splitting halves on cushions,
wet opening battered, a marsupial pouch fisted
behind a fifty-gallon aquarium, football trophies
on shelves built into walls, displayed since childhood,
his baby arm pounding a drum, lodged pink deep,
a diaphragm for birth control but she’s on the pill.
It’s just his hips against her bottom: bang bang
they say, like gun shots in the Outback,
kangaroos wiping out face first,
buckshot in hides, wet spots,
stains on upholstery. He doesn’t ask
how often this happens, but says do what
you want to do. Three more stops and I’m out
of here. Music not loud enough played from an iPod,
a new term overheard, and it’s not yet St. Patrick’s Day,
the parade happening, couches waiting for company,
all floors in houses or apartments outside of the city,
dinner at Outback, steak and lobster tail, rare,
no salad, the pink inside bleeding on a plate,
something pulled limp from a pouch, dead joey.
Bang bang he said. Her legs still spread.
She’s leaking an aquarium of hungry fish,
fifty gallons of water moving to a drum solo.








Light Fixtures on Thursday


Like rubbing balloons on the side of my head,
I hear hands heating thighs with rapid arm movements,
sounds of petting upper legs in a stall on Thursday afternoon,
and I’m peeing for a fourth time, staring at fluorescent light fixtures,
the rectangles in the ceiling lit like sunshine behind pointillist glass.
One hovers above like three hours till another workday ends
or a frozen camera flash floating sky high and sub-UFO,
causing people to believe in signs from God.
A newspaper is unfolded in the farther stall, and a squeak and splash echo
from the one next door. I frown while turning toward the left-hand wall,
disappointed that I’m not alone, that I’ll need to flush
and return to my office. Someone walks in the bathroom,
whistling a tune, the theme song to I Dream of Genie,
a television series from the ’60s, catchy music notes
historical like The Star-Spangled Banner—
every good American knows the words,
how the flag was still there, imagining baseball stadiums,
Sabrett hot dogs, and plastic cups of beer. The music ends
with a zipper pulled down, a fingernail flicked
over the teeth of a comb, like a child amazed by plastic
or the ease of the button-fly and fishing a penis through
the underwear hole. I lean my head back a second time,
but close my eyes while tapping the last of my visit.
The toilet accepts every drop; I pretend to sleep
while standing up. Three lightbulbs appear,
stuck in white sockets like glowing flower petals
or a trio of pear-shaped balloons knotted together
inside the light fixture of my childhood bedroom.
A circular piece of white glass once covered them,
hiding 100-watt bulbs, eight feet in the air, in arm’s reach
when standing on an office chair. Someone belches
and piss shoots a urinal cake, creating a nonstop drum beat,
like a UFO light beam exploring a human, amplifying the sound
of blood running through the head. I recall the crash one morning,
when the white glass fell for no reason, shattering on the area rug
and altering the lighting, like pin-pricking balloons on the wall
or flushing a toilet in a public bathroom, water and human waste
devoured in industrial strength whirlpools, spraying droplets
on the toilet seat. I unlock the swinging door behind me.
My workday nearly done, with Friday to look forward to,
I wash my hands in automatic streams of sink water,
while a stranger in the center stall hums
the theme song to I Dream of Genie.

Robert Siek is a poet who lives in Brooklyn and works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan. His poems have appeared in journals such as Columbia Poetry Review, Lodestar Quarterly, Court Green, Mary, and Assaracus. In 2002, the New School published his chapbook Clubbed Kid, and in 2007, he was included in the short-fiction anthology Userlands. His first full-length collection of poetry, Purpose and Devil Piss, will be released by Sibling Rivalry Press in October 2013.