Assoto Saint's anthology The Road Before Us is a must read. It is full of wonderful pieces that are like snapshots into the gay man's psyche. Love, hate, hopes, and death all framed in a finger-snap. I wanted to continue the relaunch campaign of this blog with a piece by Carlos Segura that really resonated with me. The only line change I would make is about white men. None have submitted applications for long term residency in the past, despite me being open to the possibility. (Just saying.)
I have just been thinking a lot about what I want in a partner and Carlos' words come pretty damn close.
Classifieds
by Carlos Segura
wanted
a man
to hold me
during thunderstorms
so i won't shiver anymore
fuck
through blizzards
so i could keep warm
white men need not apply
knowledge of snap-finger theories
girlfriend language
or cha-cha queenologies
need not apply
philosophies of
bebopism
dick holdism
or home boy talkism
not required
occupation a must
kissing a must
he needs to know
and be comfortable
with him
wanted
a man
who will sit between my legs
describe his dreams
lay besides me
tell me he's afraid
cry
it'd be fun if he were ticklish
one
who will come home
to our apartment
throw his bag
his coat
across the room
and me
on our overstuffed sofa
forget about
nine to five
white people
black people
miss things
got mugged
raped
evicted
fired
bashed
pop finger
bullshit
every day
and kiss me down
one who will want
me
love
me
applications being considered
Carlos Segura was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City. His work has appeared in The Pyramid Periodical. At the time this poem was published, Carlos worked as a health educator for the Minority Task Force on AIDS in New York City.
Showing posts with label echoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label echoes. Show all posts
12 May 2012
28 November 2010
Echoes: Verse 11, Robert Westley
A warning...
What's Happening
by Robert Westley
It is not necessary to wait long
To see it happen -
Happening in the streets
Red with black blood
Happening in hallways
Littered with semen stains
Happening behind doors
Where babies loll on the floor
Scream with pain and tear each others hair.
It's happening right now.
A young girl surrenders her secrets
To the boy she loves, but
When they rise from her bed
Nothing remains between the sheets but
Vaginal secretions, some dark decaying spit
No love and not even a condom.
Everything she will know of him is inside her now
Her bones are light beams
Her arms are wings
And if the bedroom widow won't do for a fall
The butcher knife is in the kitchen drawer.
It's hapening.
Happening, by the way, in your neighborhood
You of the fresh-dew flowers
You of the scornful looks who hide
Behind your money it's pulled
Not just your petty crimes
Like murder or theft
A simple toke of some smoke or coke
Cheap sins that wash off on Sunday
Someone's abusing your mind
Fucking your son
Deceiving your daughter
Filling your house with shit
As if I care
You could take the dare
End the affair
Eat a pear
Turn to prayer
Stare into reality like a basin
Full of heavy water
And cleanse your skin
Of the evil that's within
But forget it.
You are not what's happening.
What's Happening
by Robert Westley
It is not necessary to wait long
To see it happen -
Happening in the streets
Red with black blood
Happening in hallways
Littered with semen stains
Happening behind doors
Where babies loll on the floor
Scream with pain and tear each others hair.
It's happening right now.
A young girl surrenders her secrets
To the boy she loves, but
When they rise from her bed
Nothing remains between the sheets but
Vaginal secretions, some dark decaying spit
No love and not even a condom.
Everything she will know of him is inside her now
Her bones are light beams
Her arms are wings
And if the bedroom widow won't do for a fall
The butcher knife is in the kitchen drawer.
It's hapening.
Happening, by the way, in your neighborhood
You of the fresh-dew flowers
You of the scornful looks who hide
Behind your money it's pulled
Not just your petty crimes
Like murder or theft
A simple toke of some smoke or coke
Cheap sins that wash off on Sunday
Someone's abusing your mind
Fucking your son
Deceiving your daughter
Filling your house with shit
As if I care
You could take the dare
End the affair
Eat a pear
Turn to prayer
Stare into reality like a basin
Full of heavy water
And cleanse your skin
Of the evil that's within
But forget it.
You are not what's happening.
Westley, Robert. "What's Happening." The Road Before Us: 10 Gay Black Poets. Ed. Assoto Saint. New York: Galiens Press, 1991. p. 136-137.
Bio from The Road Before Us
Robert Wesley was born November 10, 1962. "I am a native of New Orleans where I spent my first seventeen years. I graduates from Northwestern University in 1984 with a B.A. in philosophy. I attended graduate school at Yale University for the following three years, and then started law school at the University of California, Berkeley, in f1987. I am currently working towards completion of my dissertation in philosophy and the final year of law school. My career plans include teaching, law practice, and economic development in the black community."
26 March 2010
Echoes: Verse 10, Ted Hughes
Theology
by Ted Hughes
No, serpent did not
Seduce Eve to the apple.
All that's simply
Corruption of the facts.
Adam ate the apple.
Eve at Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.
The serpent, meanwhile,
Sleeps his meal off in Paradise--
Smiling to hear
God's querulous calling.
Hughes, Ted. "Theology." Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813).
----------------------------------------------------------
Examination at the Womb-Door
by Ted Hughes
Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lings? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.
Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.
Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.
Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
But who is stronger than death?
Me, evidently.
Pass, Crow.
Hughes, Ted. "Examination at the Womb-Door." Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813-1814).
------------------------------------------------------
Ted Hughes was born in Mtholmroyd, South Yorkshire, England, and was raised in Mesborough, a coal-mining town in South Yorkshire. He won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, but served two years in the Royal Air Force before matriculating. He studied English, archeology, and anthropology, specializing in mythological systems (an interest that informed much of his poetry). He later worked as a gardener, night watchman, zookeeper, scriptwriter, and teacher. In 1956, he married the American poet Sylvia Plath, and the couple spent a year in the United States before moving to England in 1959. Plath committed suicide in 1963. In 1970, Hughes settled on a farm in Devon. In addition to poetry and books for children. He also edited numerous collection of verse and prose, and was founding editor of Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. He was poet laureate of England from 1984 until his death. His poem vividly describe the beauty of the natural world, but celebrate its raw, elemental energies. He often embodies the primal forces of nature as mythic animals sch as the pike, the hawk, and "Crow," a central character in a long cycles of poems. His translation and recasting of Tales from Ovid was published to critical acclaim in 1997, and less than a year later he broke his silence on his relationship with Plath with the publication of Birthday Letters. He received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II only twelve days before his death, from cancer.
by Ted Hughes
No, serpent did not
Seduce Eve to the apple.
All that's simply
Corruption of the facts.
Adam ate the apple.
Eve at Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.
The serpent, meanwhile,
Sleeps his meal off in Paradise--
Smiling to hear
God's querulous calling.
Hughes, Ted. "Theology." Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813).
----------------------------------------------------------
Examination at the Womb-Door
by Ted Hughes
Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lings? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.
Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.
Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.
Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
But who is stronger than death?
Me, evidently.
Pass, Crow.
Hughes, Ted. "Examination at the Womb-Door." Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813-1814).
------------------------------------------------------
Ted Hughes was born in Mtholmroyd, South Yorkshire, England, and was raised in Mesborough, a coal-mining town in South Yorkshire. He won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, but served two years in the Royal Air Force before matriculating. He studied English, archeology, and anthropology, specializing in mythological systems (an interest that informed much of his poetry). He later worked as a gardener, night watchman, zookeeper, scriptwriter, and teacher. In 1956, he married the American poet Sylvia Plath, and the couple spent a year in the United States before moving to England in 1959. Plath committed suicide in 1963. In 1970, Hughes settled on a farm in Devon. In addition to poetry and books for children. He also edited numerous collection of verse and prose, and was founding editor of Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. He was poet laureate of England from 1984 until his death. His poem vividly describe the beauty of the natural world, but celebrate its raw, elemental energies. He often embodies the primal forces of nature as mythic animals sch as the pike, the hawk, and "Crow," a central character in a long cycles of poems. His translation and recasting of Tales from Ovid was published to critical acclaim in 1997, and less than a year later he broke his silence on his relationship with Plath with the publication of Birthday Letters. He received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II only twelve days before his death, from cancer.
16 March 2010
Echoes: Verse 8, e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
by e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
alot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
umm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
cummings, e.e. "may i feel said he." The Norton anthology of Poetry. ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2005. (1395-1396)
-------------------------------------------------
since feeling is first
by e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays attention
to the syntax of things
wille never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fae
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
our eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
cummings, e.e. "since feeling is first." The Norton anthology of Poetry. ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2005. (1394-1395).
Edward Estlin Cummings was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Edward and Rebecca Haskwell Clarke Cummings. His writing style is one of the most innovative of the twentieth century. He uses distorted syntax and unusual punctuation to illustrate simple, and often satirical themes on either the decay of modern society, or on love.
Many say that cummings' multitude of love poems stem from his many marriages. On March 19, 1924, he married Elaine Orr, who he had had a daughter with some years earlier. He divorced her on December 4 of the same year. In 1927, he married Anne Barton. He later divorced her to marry model and actress Marion Morehouse, with whom he remained married until his death in 1962.
When considering the writing style of e. e. cummings, one must note his use of punctuation, sarcasm, rhyme and enjambment. The poetry of e. e. starts with the basic principle that punctuation is an art form all its own. He uses punctuation like a second alphabet, to add to the intensity of his poems, and to make points without using words. Perhaps a more commonly used form of poetic device is called enjambment, or the running-on of a sentence from one line to the next. Not only does e. e. use enjambment, but he uses it so freely that one sentence might be the entire poem, and might take up fifteen lines with nine words.
by e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
alot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
umm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
cummings, e.e. "may i feel said he." The Norton anthology of Poetry. ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2005. (1395-1396)
-------------------------------------------------
since feeling is first
by e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays attention
to the syntax of things
wille never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fae
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
our eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
cummings, e.e. "since feeling is first." The Norton anthology of Poetry. ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2005. (1394-1395).
-----------------------------------------------------------
Edward Estlin Cummings was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Edward and Rebecca Haskwell Clarke Cummings. His writing style is one of the most innovative of the twentieth century. He uses distorted syntax and unusual punctuation to illustrate simple, and often satirical themes on either the decay of modern society, or on love.
Many say that cummings' multitude of love poems stem from his many marriages. On March 19, 1924, he married Elaine Orr, who he had had a daughter with some years earlier. He divorced her on December 4 of the same year. In 1927, he married Anne Barton. He later divorced her to marry model and actress Marion Morehouse, with whom he remained married until his death in 1962.
When considering the writing style of e. e. cummings, one must note his use of punctuation, sarcasm, rhyme and enjambment. The poetry of e. e. starts with the basic principle that punctuation is an art form all its own. He uses punctuation like a second alphabet, to add to the intensity of his poems, and to make points without using words. Perhaps a more commonly used form of poetic device is called enjambment, or the running-on of a sentence from one line to the next. Not only does e. e. use enjambment, but he uses it so freely that one sentence might be the entire poem, and might take up fifteen lines with nine words.
02 March 2010
Echoes: Verse 7, Elvira A. Gasser
I have been wondering if I will have reason to say this anytime soon....
Don't Worry My Love....
by Elvira A. Gasser
My love, our time is coming near
I can't wait until we are together
Sometimes you may feel lonely, but I am here
And I will be your best friend forever
Until the end of time my dear
Until the end of time, I will be here
To hold you in my arms
And kiss your soul
And we can walk holding eachothers hands
I wish you were here right now, my hands are cold
You're my best friend and the lover of my soul
Don't worry my love, the time is almost here
Soon we'll be one flesh, and together we'll grow old
I get desperate sometimes, I know
Because I miss you, my sexy soldier
And my love for you I can't wait to show
Do not worry my soulmate, that we will be together forever.
Don't Worry My Love....
by Elvira A. Gasser
My love, our time is coming near
I can't wait until we are together
Sometimes you may feel lonely, but I am here
And I will be your best friend forever
Until the end of time my dear
Until the end of time, I will be here
To hold you in my arms
And kiss your soul
And we can walk holding eachothers hands
I wish you were here right now, my hands are cold
You're my best friend and the lover of my soul
Don't worry my love, the time is almost here
Soon we'll be one flesh, and together we'll grow old
I get desperate sometimes, I know
Because I miss you, my sexy soldier
And my love for you I can't wait to show
Do not worry my soulmate, that we will be together forever.
10 February 2010
Echoes: Verse 6, Audre Lorde
So, one of my readers called me out on the fact that I had yet to give and Echoes feature to a female poet and I realized they were right. Here is my first attempt to correct that with a poem from one of the fiercest sisters to ever pick-up a pen.
*drum roll*
Power
by Audre Lorde
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.
A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
"I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color." And
there are tapes to prove that, too.
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
"They convinced me" meaning
they had dragged her 4'10" Black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white approval
until she let go
the firs real power she ever had
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as a an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping a 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
"Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are."
Audre Geraldine Lorde was a critically acclaimed novelist, poet and essayist. She was born on February 18, 1924 in Harlem and died on November 17, 1992. Her parents were immigrants from Granada who seemed to continually plan to return to the Caribbean throughout most of Lorde's childhood. Lorde recalled that as a child, she spoke in poetry. When she couldn't find existing poems that expressed her feelings, she began to write poems at age twelve or thirteen. She attended Hunter College High School and then supported herself with low paying jobs. Her first lesbian affair was with a coworker at a factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She attended the National University of Mexico for a year, starting in 1954. Upon her return, she entered the "gay girl" scene in Greenwich Village but was often the only Black woman in the bars. She recalled that she did not try to build ties to the other three or four Black women in the scene as it seemed to threaten their status as exotic outsiders. She began to study at Hunter College, worked as a librarian, and, of course, wrote poetry. She attempted to join the Harlem Writers Guild but the overt homophobia of the group led her to leave. She received a BA in literature and philosophy from Hunter in 1959 and an MLS from Columbia University in 1960.
Lorde, Audre. "Power." The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. New York: W.W. Norton & Comapny, Inc., 1997. p. 215-216. Originally published in Between Our Selves. Eidolon, 1976.
05 February 2010
Echoes: Verse 4, Michael Knoll
Prison Letter
by Michael Knoll
You ask what it's like here
but there are no words for it.
I answer difficult, painful, that man
die hearing their own voices. That answer
isn't right though and I tell you now
that prison is a room
where a man waits with his nerves
drawn tight as barbed wire, an afternoon
that continues for months, that rises
around his legs like water
until the man is insane
and thinks the afternoon is a lake:
blue water, whitecaps, an island
where he lies under pale sunlight, one
red gardenia growing from his hands --
But that's not right either. There are no
flowers in these cells, no water
and I hold nothing in my hands
but fear, what lives
in the absence of light, emptying
from my body to fill the large darkness
rising like water up my legs:
It rises and there are no words for it
though I look for them, and turn
on light and watch it
fall like an open yellow shirt
over black water, the light holding
against the dark for just
an instant: against what trembles
in my throat, a particular fear,
a word I have no words for.
"After spending seven years in prison I wonder if the sameness of life here is so much different from the sameness which (Wallace) Stevens felt, and which fueled his desire to write. In one of his poems, 'The Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,' Stevens speculated that God and Imagination were one. He envisioned a central imagination, a kind of room, in which all human beings were connected, a place where the candle of the imaginatin shone over the darkness of separation and discontent. Here, for Stevens, the 'world imagined' was the 'ultimate good,'...
As it did for Stevens, writing has given me the power to alter the dimensions of this world, to see beyond the myopia of prison into whatever exists beyond. My poems, most of them, begin with a concrete, literal imge, and, when they work, expand outward to illuminate the territory of the imagination" 'a brief light in a sky above guntowers.'" - Michael Knoll, May 1983
Knoll, Michael. "Prison Letter." The Light from Another Country: Poetry from American Prisons. Joseph Bruchac. New York: Greenfield Review Press, 1984. Print.
by Michael Knoll
You ask what it's like here
but there are no words for it.
I answer difficult, painful, that man
die hearing their own voices. That answer
isn't right though and I tell you now
that prison is a room
where a man waits with his nerves
drawn tight as barbed wire, an afternoon
that continues for months, that rises
around his legs like water
until the man is insane
and thinks the afternoon is a lake:
blue water, whitecaps, an island
where he lies under pale sunlight, one
red gardenia growing from his hands --
But that's not right either. There are no
flowers in these cells, no water
and I hold nothing in my hands
but fear, what lives
in the absence of light, emptying
from my body to fill the large darkness
rising like water up my legs:
It rises and there are no words for it
though I look for them, and turn
on light and watch it
fall like an open yellow shirt
over black water, the light holding
against the dark for just
an instant: against what trembles
in my throat, a particular fear,
a word I have no words for.
"After spending seven years in prison I wonder if the sameness of life here is so much different from the sameness which (Wallace) Stevens felt, and which fueled his desire to write. In one of his poems, 'The Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,' Stevens speculated that God and Imagination were one. He envisioned a central imagination, a kind of room, in which all human beings were connected, a place where the candle of the imaginatin shone over the darkness of separation and discontent. Here, for Stevens, the 'world imagined' was the 'ultimate good,'...
As it did for Stevens, writing has given me the power to alter the dimensions of this world, to see beyond the myopia of prison into whatever exists beyond. My poems, most of them, begin with a concrete, literal imge, and, when they work, expand outward to illuminate the territory of the imagination" 'a brief light in a sky above guntowers.'" - Michael Knoll, May 1983
Knoll, Michael. "Prison Letter." The Light from Another Country: Poetry from American Prisons. Joseph Bruchac. New York: Greenfield Review Press, 1984. Print.
04 February 2010
Echoes: Verse 3, Don Charles
Comfort
by Don Charles
When you looked and
saw my Brown skin
Didn't it make you
feel uncomfortable?
Didn't you remember that
old blanket
You used to wrap up in
when the nights go cold?
Didn't you think about that
maplewood table
Where you used to sit and
write letter to your daddy?
Didn't you almost taste that
sweet gingerbread
Your granny used to make?
(And you know it was good.)
When you looked and
saw my Brown eyes
Didn't they look just like
home?
Don Charles, twenty-nine (at the time this poem was published), lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was born and raised. "My poetry reflects my personal experience as an unemployed gay black man trying to survive in a hostile society. I'm sexually attracted to other men of color, and not ashamed to say so."
Charles, Don. "Comfort." Brother to Brother: New Writings By Black Gay Men. 1991. Essex Hemphill. Washington: Red Bone Press, 1991. Print.
by Don Charles
When you looked and
saw my Brown skin
Didn't it make you
feel uncomfortable?
Didn't you remember that
old blanket
You used to wrap up in
when the nights go cold?
Didn't you think about that
maplewood table
Where you used to sit and
write letter to your daddy?
Didn't you almost taste that
sweet gingerbread
Your granny used to make?
(And you know it was good.)
When you looked and
saw my Brown eyes
Didn't they look just like
home?
Don Charles, twenty-nine (at the time this poem was published), lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was born and raised. "My poetry reflects my personal experience as an unemployed gay black man trying to survive in a hostile society. I'm sexually attracted to other men of color, and not ashamed to say so."
Charles, Don. "Comfort." Brother to Brother: New Writings By Black Gay Men. 1991. Essex Hemphill. Washington: Red Bone Press, 1991. Print.
24 January 2010
Echoes: Verse 1, Rory Buchanan.
So, I have decided to officially launch a new feature on the blog that I am going to call "Echoes". Echoes will be poetry and short story posting from friends and artist I admire and think that the rest of the world need to encounter. I have done a few of these in the past but I want to provide the feature with a little more structure.
Here is the plan. Once a week I am going to feature an artist. I will give a little biographical information and post one of their works that speaks to me. Please feel free to send me recommendations of people you think I should add to the list.
Daddy Lied
by Rory Buchanan
my daddy taught me
i must be perfect
i was weak if i cried
i had to know everything
that feelings only get in my way
my daddy told me
whie men don't like me
then he drank until I knew
he didn't like himself eiher
my daddy pushed me
to be better than everyone else
forgetting to tell me
i could set my own standards
instead of working toward theirs
my daddy talked to me
but never told me how he felt
never seemed to care what I felt
he only talked about what interested him
and told me to look the rest up in a book
my daddy showed me
that being a man meant being aloof
catering to white man dreams
raising kids that didn't understand you
until they were thirty
and then didn't want to
m daddy lied to me
but i forgive him
he lied to himself too
his daddy taught him how
Rory Buchanan is thirty-four years old and lives in Brooklyn, New York with his sixteen-year-old son. His work has appeared in Pyramid Periodical. He is an AIDS educator with the Minority Task Force on AIDS in New York City.
Here is the plan. Once a week I am going to feature an artist. I will give a little biographical information and post one of their works that speaks to me. Please feel free to send me recommendations of people you think I should add to the list.
Daddy Lied
by Rory Buchanan
my daddy taught me
i must be perfect
i was weak if i cried
i had to know everything
that feelings only get in my way
my daddy told me
whie men don't like me
then he drank until I knew
he didn't like himself eiher
my daddy pushed me
to be better than everyone else
forgetting to tell me
i could set my own standards
instead of working toward theirs
my daddy talked to me
but never told me how he felt
never seemed to care what I felt
he only talked about what interested him
and told me to look the rest up in a book
my daddy showed me
that being a man meant being aloof
catering to white man dreams
raising kids that didn't understand you
until they were thirty
and then didn't want to
m daddy lied to me
but i forgive him
he lied to himself too
his daddy taught him how
Rory Buchanan is thirty-four years old and lives in Brooklyn, New York with his sixteen-year-old son. His work has appeared in Pyramid Periodical. He is an AIDS educator with the Minority Task Force on AIDS in New York City.
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