Pride Month!

1

The ‘60s postmark rots away
and I’m left in the latter day
so many years distant from you.

The pain of love was one I didn’t feel
before I turned thirty,
and happened to be walking home
from office work one day.

I wrote sports and you drove cars
outside the town’s hotspot.
Deemed too ugly for anyone’s girl
to be swept off her feet -
missing teeth, a bulbous brow,
and gaze forever glum -
the studs all felt secure,
pulling up beside
the valet in his cheap red coat.

But even if you were handsome
you couldn’t have returned a girl’s
least amorous advance.

I saw that, watching you.
Sometimes we know each other’s pain
without need of the thinking brain,
and also I’d seen you before
lingering outside the door
of a hidden bar.

2

We shared cigarettes and spoke
the secret language of the freak.
I gave you hotel money and said
to look out from the bar.

Soon enough I heard the knock, like lead
tipping a cowboy’s boot and kicked
against a car.

As quickly as men flee
you’d pushed your way in me
and so I thought I’d been murdered
until that rush of feeling came
and swept me like rich man’s cocaine
towards a bright-lit paradise.

I like to think I taught you, after that,
how urges can be met
with compassion. How men can treat
each other with kindness, and heat
a potent love outside the vaunted norm.

I told you you were beautiful
and that your dreams
were worthy of respect. You cried,
and then laughed when I didn’t laugh
at you, “for crying like a girl.”

3

It’s now gone fifty years and that old lie, that hate fell down to hell from heaven
back in nineteen sixty-seven,
still leaves me bitter as the lemons
growing on my tree.

What of nineteen sixty-five
when I last saw you, just alive,
attended by two parents who
had seen this day ten years away,
and got my autograph when I
reported that I’d seen you at
the various home games, and that
I’d mention you in my next article...

4

The 60s postmark rots away
but I can still read what’s inside,
simple and crude and capitalised,
each letter written as
if with flashing red lightbulbs.
I LUV U N HOAP I CAN SEE U AGEN.

Not since nineteen sixty-five
have I seen you or me alive,
nor has there been a perfect day
since I last shared a cigarette
with my ugly, and beautiful valet.

i don’t love you because you’re gay
 
i love you because you are kind
and intelligent
i love your warmth
your strength
your vulnerability
 
i love you because you are enthusiastic
your joie de vivre your talents hopes dreams
your compassion
 
i don’t love you because you’re gay
 
i love you because
 
you listen  
without judgement
 
comfort
without advising
 
help
without expectation
 
i don’t love you because you’re gay
 
i love you because you cry when you’re in pain
laugh when you’re happy
skip and dance in celebration
 
i don’t love you because you’re gay
 
i love you because when you’re near
i feel good
i feel energized challenged and invigorated
 
i love you because
when you’re close i feel safe nurtured and loved
 
i don’t love you because you’re gay
 
i love you
because you’re
a wonderful human being
 
 

Pride Month, June 2021

I

I dreamt that I was being held
rather than holding
and that was the source of my shame

I dreamt that I was conquered
as opposed to conquering
and that was the mud on my name

II

the transparent
and brittle heart
of my soul or whatever it is
that makes a person whole
was flooded with light in my dreams
a diamond cathedral’s
thrones and altarpiece
lit up like the space revealed
when heaven’s door opens
while hovering in outer dark

but I could not be proud of it
and crossed with tarpaulin
the many-faceted ceiling
and blocked the very nave
so that it couldn’t be accessed
nor seen

III

what you have is not
a closet
but

a cathedral

He knew what he was supposed to be,  
two stroke raced in his blood line.  
By the age of ten his dermatitis hands  
could rebuild a gearbox and most engines,  
he was good at connecting with his father.  

At seventeen he was still pretending  
in his worn out patched up jeans  
and scuffed up road rashed leather,  
long hair seemed to match the image,  
but he hankered for change and its approval.  
 
A young man's dilemma  
can easily King Kong its way  
to the top of the Empire State.  
In one hand he saw the girl  
and the other, swatting planes away  
for fear of getting caught,  
he needed to escape.  
 
A damp tiny flat was perfect for that,  
the journey from he to she.
Clothes became her bodies’ passion  
nervous of the target on her back.
she burned her brightest into mirrored chrome,  
smiling at a true reflection.  
 
Clubs and drugs took away time  
passing hands and faces in dark doorways  
but the morning paper always unfolded  
with a coffee and a shave.  
I like to think she found a pillion for her scooter,
who tasted the same without the shame,  
a two wheeled screamer that would hug her hard  
and hold on tight to her fish tail.