Echoes: Verse 12, Carlos Segura

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.

Red Ink, Chapter 3

I stood shivering in the rain outside the hospital.  My throat was raw from the sobs that had racked my body for that last hour.  I was spent and alone in the dark, but I could not go back to that room. 

“God,” I whispered through chattering teeth. 

“Why?”  I asked. “Why?”

I looked up to the heavens, but the only answer I got in return was a rumble of distant thunder and the pitter-patter of rain on my face. 

“Fuck!!!  FUCK YOU!!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.  It was clear my questions and threats were going to go equally unanswered.

I had to escape.  It did not matter where I wound up I just had to get as far away from this place as possible.  I chose a direction at random and began walking.  By this point my clothes were completely soaked, but I did not care.  I did not care about my clothes, the rain, or anything.  I just needed to keep moving, to do something other than sit and wait.

“Is this Mr. Dupri?” 

Cars zoomed by me as I wondered along the side of the road lost in the haze my thoughts.  My path zig zagged on and off the sidewalk as I replayed the night in my head.

“Mr. Dupri, sir.  There has been an accident…”

The sound of a blaring car horn startled me back into reality.  I hesitated for a breathe as the car barreled towards me, but jumped back onto the sidewalk expelling the air from my lungs.  This was no good.  I could feel the helplessness of earlier creeping back to the surface threatening to unsettle my momentary composure. 

I looked on either side of the street and spotted a bar with its lights still on.  I darted across the street, this time paying careful attention to the oncoming traffic.  There was light music seeping out of the bar onto the street outside. 

There wasn’t a bouncer so I just walked in and grabbed a seat at the bar and looked around.  It was nearly empty except for a couple sitting at a table in the corner and a few old timers sitting at the end of the bar talking to the bartender.  It was exactly what I needed.

“Well you look like shit,” one of the old guys barked with a grin.  “Didn’t your mama teach you to come in out of the rain.  You are as wet as a dog.”

I looked down at my soaked clothes, “I guess your right.”

“Lay off the boy Mike,” the bartender said as he walked over to me.

“What ya havin’?” he asked.

“Jack.  Straight up,” I replied.

I watched as he poured the drink and handed it to me. 

The lobby smelled like Lysol and I could feel my hands sweating. 

“So, what you doin’ at a bar in the middle of the week looking like you feel in a pool wit ya clothes on?”

“If you don’t mind, I didn’t really come here for conversation.” I spat back.

“Have it yo way.  You just looked like you needed to talk a bit,”  he said.

You can go in, but you should prepare yourself

I downed the whiskey and let its warmth thaw the chill in my chest before responding. 

“What is the use of talking it won’t change shit,” I said.  “All I want to do right now is have you refill my glass.  That would be a big help.  And this time make it a double.”

I offered him a crooked grin that didn’t reach my eyes along with my now empty glass.  He gave me a look, not buying my bullshit grin for a minute, and refilled my glass.  I picked it up I knocked it back without a wince.

“One more please.  You can put this one on ice,” I said smooth as silk. 

The bartender simply poured and headed back to the old timers.  I wrapped my hands around the glass and stared at the amber liquid. 

I stood in front of the door trying to will myself to take one more step.

I took a sip from my glass.  I could feel the effect of my previous two shoots starting to take effect and sighed as I could feel my mind drifting off.  Hiding from that room even in my thoughts. 

***

I don’t remember how long I staid at the bar, but I do know I was good and drunk when I left.  The bartender wanted to call me a cab, but I refused and stumbled my way back down the street.  The walk seemed even longer on the return trip and by the time I got back to the hospital my legs were about to give out. 

It took all of my remaining focus to retrace my earlier steps back through the winding corridors of the hospital.  Left.  Right.  Left. Right.  Until, I found myself standing back outside the door just as lost as before.  My hand trembled as I reached for the door handle, but I willed it still.  I opened the door, took a breathe, and walked in. 

-----------------


I promise to reveal who is in the bed at the hospital in the next chapter.  Lol, I know I have been dragging it out a bit, but I was trying to decide between a few things that I hope will make the wait worth it.

Echoes: Verse 9, David Frechette

Safe Harbour by David Frechette

Though Destiny did not decree
That we become lovers
It's in your arms I find
Safe harbour from
A tidal wave of woes
Threatening to engulf me.

Your smiling eyes are my lighthouse,
Your lips seal out chaos.
The smoothness and warmth of your body
Keep the coarse chill of
The everday world at bay.
And I'm not afraid to christen you
My temporary shelter from the storm.


Frechette, David. "Safe Harbour." Brother to Brother: New Writing By Black Gay Men. Ed. Essex Hemphill. Conceived b Joseph Beam. Washington: RedBone Press, 2003. (80).

Get Ya Mind Right: To Be Black, Gay, and Happy

Question:  They say we're all on the same political boat.  We should be brothers.  But, before I accept his kinship, political, or otherwise, this is what I want to know.  Where does his loyalty lie?  Priorities, that's what I want to know.  Come the final throwback, what is he first, black or gay?

I was going through one of my old notebooks and stumbled across this question.  I am pretty sure I got it from a book somewhere, but I didn't make a note of where I got, but I do remember when I wrote it.  It was about three years ago when I was first struggling with my sexuality and its implications for the rest of my life, my friends, my family.  I had just taken genuine ownership of my Blackness and wore it like a coat of arms, proud and majestically draped in shades of green, red, and ebony.  And yet, here was the possibility that I didn't quite fit the mold of the strong Black man; a splash of fuchsia thrown across my mosaic of afrocentricity.

I was afraid to ask questions of myself or my family.  Afraid of rejection.  Afraid of having to choose between my life and culture for this foreign part of myself that I still didn't really understand.  Then I came across a film called Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs and he gave me an answer to my unasked question.

How do you choose one eye over another, this half of the brain over that?  Or in words this brother might understand, which does he value most, his left nut or his right?

Simple and yet profound.   As I sit and write I actually think I might have pulled that earlier quote from the same film (and if I didn't it sure as hell would have fit).  For a very long time I kept trying to figure out how I would manage to incorporate this new thing about myself to the life that I had created.  How would I choose and it wasn't really until that film that I stopped to ask who was making me choose.

I came up with a laundry list of society, my culture, my family, but the truth was that the only one who was really making me chose was myself.  I didn't need to change.  I had always been this foreign thing and it didn't detract from the good of my life.  Oh that is not to say that there were not moments of...adjustment.  Like the first time a guy kissed me in public.  Or the moment when I finally told someone other then my first partner.

But those moments came and went.  And I survived.

For anyone still struggling with the question of how to live in both worlds I leave you with these words by Kendall Thomas from his article "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real thing": Black Masculinity, Gay Sexuality, and the Jargon of Authenticity published in Wahneema Lubiano's anthology The House that Race Built.

For all it's ambivalence, the example of "slender gay" James Baldwin taught some of us ohow to be gay men in, and of, black America.  the life and work of James Baldwin thus give the lie to the notion that black and gay identity are hostile to one another at all points.  They show, too, that while "[i]t is difficult to be despised," black gay men and lesbians must resist the demand (heard in some quarters) that we must choose between these two sources of the self and commit a kind of psychich suicide (Thomas 122).


Peace.

I.M.


Tongues Untied, prod. and dir. Marlon Riggs, 55 min., color, 1985, videocassette.

Thomas, Kendall.  " ' Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing': Black Masculinity, Gay Sexuality, and the Jargon of Authenticity."  The House that Race Built.  Ed. Wahneema Lubiano.  New York: random House, 1998.  (122).

Red Ink, Chapter 2

"Hey.  You getting in or not?" the cab driver asked.

I did not reply and instead simply climbed in the back seat of the car.  I had been standing outside for the last 10 minutes trying to hail a cab and I was dripping wet from the rain.

"You deaf or what?" the cab driver asked.

"What?" I said in a faint whisper.

"I said, 'Where to?'" he repeated.

"I need to go to Washington Circle.  Down by I and 23rd."  I replied.

"Down by the hospital right?"

"Yes," I said.  I was surprised by how calm I sounded.  I had spent the entire time pacing back and forth on the street trying to stop my brain from thinking.

The cab driver just nodded his head and pulled away from the curve.  I looked straight ahead while  trying to ignore the loud Arabic music coming from the radio.  I could see the cab driver looking back at me through the rear view mirror, so I turned my head at stared out the window.  The cab driver could sense my mood and did not attempt to engage me in conversation.  

The ride was uneventful and allowed me time to relax my nerves.  The woman on the phone had been vague.  It could be anyone at the hospital.  

"I could be anybody," I whispered to myself.

It was not long before the cab driver pulled up outside the hospital.  I tossed him a few bucks, hopped out, and made my way to the lobby of the emergency room.

"Hello sir.  May I help you?" asked one of the nurses behind the desk.

"I am not sure," I said as my voice unsteady.

"Well let's start with the basics honey.  What's your name?"

"Dupri.  Adonis Dupri," I replied.   

"Well, I am sure that we can figure out what you need.  Are  you hurt or sick?"  she gently asked.

I simply shook my head, not trusting my voice.

"Okay.  Are you here to see someone else?"

I gave a slight nod.    

"Do you know the name of the patient?"

"No."  I answered.  "I mean, I don't know.  I just got a call and they said there was an accident and I needed to come down.  Here."  I could feel my earlier calm slipping away.

"Okay sir.  Not to worry," she said.  "Let me just check my log book and we can see where you need to go.  You just go take a seat there sir and we will get you taken care of.  How does that sound?"

I walked over and collapsed into the seat she had indicated.  The lobby smelled like Lysol and was making me feel nauseous.  I looked down at my phone waiting to hear Chrisette's voice trying not to get nervous as I waited for the doctor.  

'Mr. Dupri?" I heard a voice ask.

I looked up and saw a young man in a white lab coat holding a clip board with a bunch of papers on it.

"Yes.  I am Mr. Dupri."

"Hello Mr. Dupri.  My name is Dr. Tate."  He reached out take shake my hand but I simply looked at him until he lowered his hand back to his side.

"Earlier this evening we had a patient who was brought the the ER.  They had been in a pretty serious car accident and suffered a great deal of trauma.  The patient has been in surgery for the last 3 hours and is now in recovery,  Now there..."  

I interrupted him and said, "I am sorry sir, but I still don't know why I am here."  

"Oh.  I am so sorry," he said.  "When the patient first arrived we couldn't find any identification.  The only thing we found was a cell phone.  We scrolled through the most recent calls and saw your number listed several times."

I tried to swallow but I could feel my throat tightening.

"We were hoping you could help us identify the patient."  The doctor looked at me but I simply looked at the ground avoiding his eyes.

I took a breathe to steady myself.  Then I looked back up to meet his gaze.  

"Alright then.  Show me where I need to go."

"Please follow me," he said leading me through a winding set of corridors.

"Now, I worn you you might want to brace yourself.  The patient suffered massive trauma and has been in surgery for the last few hours.  It's still very touch and go and they are very heavily sedated."

Sooner than I would have liked we were standing in front of one of the trauma rooms.  I could feel my chest constrict as he opened the door and stepped into the room.  I tried to fall him, but my legs wouldn't move.

'Mr. Dupri?  Sir, if you could just step into the room."

I tried to take another step but halted as I glanced into the room.  All I could see were tubes and bandages.  Black swollen skin and the smell of sickness.  And then I saw it and my foot froze mid-stride.

"I can't.  I can't I can't.  Can't can;t," my words began to jumble together and my resolve shattered.  All of the worry and pain I held been holding in swelled to the surface as my eyes focused on the hand lying on the bed.  On the index of the right hand I could just make out the gleam of a silver ring with a onyx setting.  I would know that ring anywhere.

"Mr. Dupri," the doctor urged.

"Can't..." I said as I burst into sobs and fled back down the hall blinded by the image of a silver ring against black skin.

Under Construction

So, it has been a hot minute since the last time that I posted anything up here.  If you're wondering why please see my post entitled "The Resurrection of Calypso".  Anyway, I have decided to do a new feature, my Under-Construction pieces.  these are poems and short lines that I am working on.  More than any of my other pieces, I WANT PEOPLE TO COMMENT AND RESPOND TO THESE PIECES.  THese are raw poems that are in their infancy.  I am putting them up to see what people think and to get feedback on what I can do with them.  Please feel free to say what you want about them.  Remember, that this is still my damn blog so I will use what I want and ignore the rest.  I will try to at least respond to all comments, but what will make it to the editing table is up to me.  Thanks in advance.

Untitled 1

You step into the room
and my eyes swerve
for a side glance to
enhance my perspective
on this perception
of heaven
that strides, no
glides
as I sigh from the inside
releasing the tension
within and outside
my body.
Then palms meet
great
touch
clutch
and linger
with pssibilites unknown.
Only to part
leaving me alone
lost
unsure of unsure thoughts
about self:
self that was
self that is
and the self I want to be.
Lost for a time only
to meet again
to share a meal
and open the door to
self discovery.
You lead me
palm to palm
touching
clutching
and lingering
through the portal to new
ventures
that start with a kiss
lips on lips
lips on lips
lips on lips
reflections
dancing in dim light.
Angelic fingers
start from the ground
up
tracing the fault lines
of my doubt.
What is this between
He and Me?
This reflection of myself
tht touches
clutches
palm to palm
slides
and glides
while sighing from
my inside
lips to lips
hips to hips
anglic fingers
tracing
possibilites unknown
and bringing me
to joy
to self
to other
only to part
and meet again
What is this thing between
Me and He?
It' is concrete
poured into the falt lines
of my soul
cementing
the self that was
the self that is
the self yet to be
with the reflection
that
is me but not me
that touches
grasps
clasps
slides
glides
and sighs
from my inside
at the possibility.

Red Ink, Chapter 1

The lights were dim as I crept into the bedroom, the sound of my feet muffled by the steady beat of the rain outside my window. Despite the downpour outside, I was determined that everything be just right. It had been three months since I last saw Terrell and everything had to be perfect for our reunion. I wanted to call the airline one more time to check and see if his flight was still on time despite the heavy rain and thunder, but I had already called twice and knew I was just anxious. Instead, I turned on a little Erykah Badu, closed my eyes, and tried to relax.

Just as I started to calm my nerves, my cell phone began to ring. Unconsciously, I quickly glanced down to see who was calling. I did not recognize the number, so I immediately pressed ignore. Didn’t they know I was waiting for Terrell to call and let me know he was in a cab and on his way home? I didn’t have time to waste talking to some random ass caller.

I gave up on trying to shake my anticipation and nervously looked around the room, checking everything once more. As I turned around our apartment, my gaze fell on an old picture of us sitting on the dresser.

Terrel was wearing a snug pair of dark blue jeans, a fitted white tee that accented his tight frame, and a trim chocolate sports coat that complimented his caramel complexion. Everything about him dripped of urban sophistication and you couldn’t help but get caught up in his brownie-tinged eyes and ever present smile. Even two years later, a photo was enough to get my blood pumping. With all of that Hershey’s goodness to gaze at, it was easy to overlook the guy standing next to him.

I picked up the frame to get a closer look. My hair was a lot shorter in those days. Just a small neatly trimmed afro; nothing compared to my now shoulder length locks. Clean-shaven except for a well-groomed patch of hair nestled on my chin. Skin the color of roasted almonds, I was all business in my navy blue dress shirt, black slacks, and tie.

My phone began ringing again. I reminded myself that Terrell’s special ring tone was Chrisette Michele’s “Love is You” and quickly preceded to ignore the phone, loosing myself in the picture.

I started to smile to myself as I remembered the day we took the photo. It was the beginning of my junior year of college and I was at a New Student Orientation event, tabling for the Black Student Association. I hated doing these events and would have much rather been at home curled up in a chair with a book and Lauryn Hill playing in the background. I had already been sitting there for two hours, when in walked Terrell.

“Helloooo everyone. My name is Terrell Davis a.k.a. Mr. Personality a.k.a. The Truth. Nice to meet all of y’all,” he declared with a slightly southern drawl.

Conversation stopped as everyone turned to take in our new arrival. To say he woke me up would be an understatement.

I could hear as everyone, myself included, shook their heads and mouthed “This Negro.”

Terrell was not to be deterred though; he confidently walked into the room and proceeded to parade around introducing himself to everyone. I watched as he walked up to each table tossing his brilliant smile and hugs around like M&M’s, allowing them to slowly melt and spread their sweet taste all over the room. I sighed to myself.

I could not stand him.

I can not help but laugh as I recalled that little fact. It’s funny to think about it now, but when I first encountered Terrell he urked my nerves. I generally did not have a problem with people with an abundance of confidence. I was a Black man at an elite university, I was used to encountering people with an over abundance of self-esteem, but I felt Terrell was just being extra and making the rest of us more mild mannered Negroes look bad. I was tired of playing the role of the welcoming upperclassmen and decided to call it quits before I had to deal with another outburst of Mr. Personality.

As I began to pack up my flyers, I was interrupted by a voice.

“Hi. My name is Terrell,” he said with his hand extended.

“Hi,” I replied while silently thanking the powers that be that he didn’t attempt to put me in one of those hugs he was tossing around earlier. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, in case you didn’t notice my mocha complexion, I am a Black student and you seem to be from the Black Student Alliance. I want to know how I can sign-up.”

“Sure, here is our e-mail sign-up sheet,” I responded and pulled out the paperwork I had been putting away. “Let me grab you a pen.”

I was reaching for a pen in my bag when a girl with a camera interrupted us and asked, “Can I take a picture of you two for the paper? We are running a story on diversity programming during New Student Orientation and I need to take a picture of all the ethnic clubs.”

Before I could object Terrell shouted, “Of course, girl.”

He slipped around to my side of the table and put his arm around my waste.  I tried to subtly slip from his grasp, but he had a firm hold on me and I did not want to make a scene.

“How is this?” he asked.

Ring. Ring.

“Shit!” I said to the empty room, my daydream ruined. “Damn phone.”

I set the picture frame back on the dresser and reached for my phone more than a little irritated that my moment of nostalgia was being interrupted.

“Hello. This better be important,” I growled.

“Is this Mr. Dupri?”

“Yes. Who is this?” This had the makings of a telemarketing call and I had no time for that shit tonight. My beau was on his way home.

“Mr. Dupri. Sir, there has been an accident. We are going to need you to come to the hospital.”

My heart froze and the phone tumbled from my hands.

“Mr. Dupri? Mr. Dupri, are you still there sir?”

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.

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.

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.