December 14, 2011
December 5, 2011
THE YOUNG WIDOWER
The young widower arises
From the nearly flat
Oceanic expanse of blue and white sheets
And wishes for roiling, as they had been before.
The young widower arises
Cold feet to cold kitchen
And takes down a cup, one of many
Matched by color, in one of two names.
The young widower arises
To claim the daily paper
Marking another passage of the moon through night
And the haughty arrival of another day.
The young widower peruses
The deaths and the courts
And also births and weddings, faint smile
At the easy procession of unquestioned routine.
The young widower reflects
On their meeting in college
In knowledge that, had they known the brevity,
They still would have artfully managed to live.
The young widower recalls
The seeking of blessing
From God and humanity, constructed in stone,
A simple marker in a weeded field.
The young widower sighs
At the mad whirl of faces,
Dancing in a space paid for dearly
And held dearly in memory ‘gainst the cold grip of earth.
The young widower glances
At the gleaming container
Hard fought for the right to have, burn and cherish
So many broken bones now brought to ash.
The young widower turns
To go forth in the world
that anonymously killed one thought anonymously loved…
But he proclaims their names in love.
December 5, 2011
September 12, 2011
new poem
IN A BETTER WORLD
Kurt Cobain married Calvin Johnson
And raised baby kittens on a cartoon spaceship,
While Courtney Love stayed with Falling James…
And if they ever fought, it was over him stretching her dresses.
And Amy Winehouse lived to a saucy old age,
Singing ‘Cupid’ down at her local pub
And the worse thing she ever put in her veins
Was the slimy grease from pork ‘n’ beans. Oy vey!
And Dusty Springfield looked in the mirror
That hung inside her walk-in-closet door
And saw Mary O’Brien as she truly was…
The beautiful girl who could be Dusty as well, and lived.
If Jeff Buckley ever swam, he disrobed, lovely boy.
He could wait to meet the father that he never knew…
And while he never made another ‘Grace’,
His muse took him elsewhere, lovers met but no journey’s end.
Scott Wannberg became the cranky old man
That Kerouac did not, and Burroughs should not have
And hung with Henry, Exene…and Viggo. Why not?
And spun surreal poems on looms of paper and pen.
Sylvia Plath used her oven to cook
As an independent woman with seventeen cats,
For she told her fascist Daddy that they were through
And he became an Iron Giant, a male artist all on his own.
Akhmatova saved her son from Stalin
And became the poet of slumber and summer.
Some would argue they were lesser verse,
But they can have winter and open red eyes and mass graves.
Virginia Woolf put practice to theory
And left Leonard for Vita in 1928
And summered in Paris with Gertrude and Alice
And if she ever swam, had no rocks clutched close to her heart.
Matthew Shepard left Wyoming in haste,
Or perhaps he stayed and married a Phelps.
Life is crammed and packed with twists,
And if God has the answer, the vector brings more than one.
Tipton and Teena share a trailer together,
Grandparent and grandchild in a quiet life.
I have seen their ID, and whatever it says,
Your ID is yours, to share or to clutch to bound chest.
Carlos may have regretted her candour,
Thinking curious playboys wanted to know…
But what they wanted was to feel
They could check off a box – and check one out as well.
I am not a puzzle for you to solve.
I am no riddle to parse in the dark.
I am no joke for you to wheeze, laughing.
I’m a story in progress, and the ending is mine, so just wait.
September 7, 2011
Kurt Cobain married Calvin Johnson
And raised baby kittens on a cartoon spaceship,
While Courtney Love stayed with Falling James…
And if they ever fought, it was over him stretching her dresses.
And Amy Winehouse lived to a saucy old age,
Singing ‘Cupid’ down at her local pub
And the worse thing she ever put in her veins
Was the slimy grease from pork ‘n’ beans. Oy vey!
And Dusty Springfield looked in the mirror
That hung inside her walk-in-closet door
And saw Mary O’Brien as she truly was…
The beautiful girl who could be Dusty as well, and lived.
If Jeff Buckley ever swam, he disrobed, lovely boy.
He could wait to meet the father that he never knew…
And while he never made another ‘Grace’,
His muse took him elsewhere, lovers met but no journey’s end.
Scott Wannberg became the cranky old man
That Kerouac did not, and Burroughs should not have
And hung with Henry, Exene…and Viggo. Why not?
And spun surreal poems on looms of paper and pen.
Sylvia Plath used her oven to cook
As an independent woman with seventeen cats,
For she told her fascist Daddy that they were through
And he became an Iron Giant, a male artist all on his own.
Akhmatova saved her son from Stalin
And became the poet of slumber and summer.
Some would argue they were lesser verse,
But they can have winter and open red eyes and mass graves.
Virginia Woolf put practice to theory
And left Leonard for Vita in 1928
And summered in Paris with Gertrude and Alice
And if she ever swam, had no rocks clutched close to her heart.
Matthew Shepard left Wyoming in haste,
Or perhaps he stayed and married a Phelps.
Life is crammed and packed with twists,
And if God has the answer, the vector brings more than one.
Tipton and Teena share a trailer together,
Grandparent and grandchild in a quiet life.
I have seen their ID, and whatever it says,
Your ID is yours, to share or to clutch to bound chest.
Carlos may have regretted her candour,
Thinking curious playboys wanted to know…
But what they wanted was to feel
They could check off a box – and check one out as well.
I am not a puzzle for you to solve.
I am no riddle to parse in the dark.
I am no joke for you to wheeze, laughing.
I’m a story in progress, and the ending is mine, so just wait.
September 7, 2011
July 24, 2011
June 20, 2011
BEAR LIKE ME by Jonathan Cohen (in review)
I confess to having read this book back in 2003 when it was published by a now sadly defunct company. I think I prefer this cover a bit to the original, though I'd rather see the model recoiling in horror from the razor. ;)
In that now-distant era, I was fairly new at Bear identity. However, I've never held identity as this precious thing beyond humour or critique, especially since my general experience with the queer community has required that I both be able to laugh to keep from crying or retching and to realize that some people think that their product resulting from what bears do in the woods does not stink. Therefore, I loved this book then, if only because it is true that you are a bear if you say you are...until ten other bears rip you to shreds.
This fun romp through the main character's adventures when he sets out to go undercover as a Bear in order to write a piece about that subculture, with the resulting changes in his life, is romantic, hilarious, sardonic and shockingly true-to-life. Though I must confess that early on I thought perhaps things like beauty contests and A-lists would be something foreign to a community made up primarily of exiles, I should have realized that, no matter what some Bears actually say, we ARE gay men, and there does seem to be some cultural tendency towards bitchiness (or butchiness, if you will). And the passage of eight years has allowed me to stop cringing at the notion of a Bear named Ben, fortunately. :).
Like the best books that would seem to have an audience in mind, this book could appeal to a wider range of people interested in humorous but pointed satire, which I tested by leaving the book out in a pile of leaves in the middle of the woods. Soon, several women and straight men ventured along, flipped through it, and guffawed, so I know it could have a broader appeal (no girth humour intended).
May 22, 2011
NOISE QUEEN, 1997 piece
Hanson Vs Velvet Underground - MMMbop/Sister Ray Medley to the Death
By Tim Murphy
There are eerie parallels between these two groups that cannot be discounted easily, much as you might desperately try to. In the name of revealing truth, and as proof that my job is both boring and brain-damaging, I present you with the inevitable skewed comparisons I thought of while there...
(1) Each has been captured on film by a gay director.
(2) They are on PolyGram Records, as are the Velvets.
(3) Hanson has a blonde, long-haired singer with an odd voice, much like Nico of the Velvets.
(4) Hanson are a bunch of kids singing simple, catchy harmonies; Lou Reed started in a doo-wop group as a teenager.
(5) Hanson has immeasurable talent, as do the Velvets (there may be sarcasm in effect on one side of this equation).
(6) Both have had string arrangements on their songs.
(7) Each has a long, depressing song about isolation with deathly overtones on its debut album.
(8) Each mentions a deity in its lyrics.
(9) Aspersions have been cast on the instrumental skills of both bands.
(10) Hanson are cute, as was Lou Reed in his heyday (subjective, I know).
(11) Image and voice wise, members of both bands have been gender-misidentified.
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