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      Before Gene Mahoney is even a third of the way through his opening poem in The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, he has invoked the spirits of Genet, Celine and Rimbaud, just so there will be no mistaking exactly how depraved things are about to become for the rest of the collection. 

      First we get a small roll call, presumably quick portraits of the Thai lady-boys who haunt Bangkok’s rough trade districts (Chynna Blue, Thai Niki, Zola and Nha Trang among others) whom Mahoney weaves into his haunted night fever dreams, before kicking into high gear with poems like Postmodern Love, 5 A.M(which is an all time classic love poem/flash fiction piece) and Aubade: 

                        “that morning in Bangkok

                        the pulverizing pile-drivers

                        of the high rise developers

                        woke me from a dead sleep;

                        their thunderous thumping

                        didn’t faze her in the least.

                        As the harsh sunlight

                        pushed through the heavy

      hotel drapes, jealous shadows

      fell across her sleeping face.

      Childish questions jumped

      up, began running in circles

      through my pounding head:

      Why hasn’t she shown me

      her sexy new underwear?

                        Who’s she saving them for?

                        I threw back the covers,

                        bolted into the next room.

                        I drew back the curtains,

                        looked down at the construction

                        site, pile drivers slamming

                        steel into the earth.

                        My stomach

                        knotted painfully.

                        When she finally joined me

                        at the window

                        and asked what was wrong,

                        I replied: “It’s nothing, just stupid

                        thoughts ripping through my gut

                        like rusty knives.” 

Mahoney goes from portraitist to the mode used by so many talents in the small press, dressing his short stories up as poems, and in the world of dress up he depicts the form lends itself beautifully.

      The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys could stand on its own as a single poem (again, like so many small press chaps.)  Mahoney balances his little blocks of sometimes joyous, sometimes euphoric with lean, sharp proclamations: 

                              I pushed

                              my penis

                              into this

                              pretty

                              black

                              boy’s

                              ass

                              and

                              rode

                              it

                              like a

                              redneck

                              biker

                              rides

                              his

                              favorite

                              mule

                              in the

                              Mississippi

                              moonlight. 

• Mules in the Mississippi Moonlight

The effect of these poems arrangements creates a rhythm that works like the effect between a long, bittersweet caresses punctuated by hot, fast & nasty exchanges of bodily fluids.  Not particularly a new technique in the small press, but Mahoney’s setting of his (temporary) expatriate stories in the exotic East and his craftsmanship are impressive.  He is clearly an accomplished, “plain-spoken” poet, not unlike Doug Draime or Michael Grover.  The bottom line is you don’t have to be gay, transgendered, or just curious about Lady-boys to appreciate the broken hearted darkness in these pieces. 

• • 
    
    -Paul Corman-Roberts