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I have come for my culture
because you have told me
it is the bacteria in your sterile dish.
I have come for my culture
because you have told me
it is killing off yours - at which I must laugh.
You have sealed yours in plastic
as though you were worried
it might go bad if exposed to my air.
You have sealed mine in stained glass
so as to seem pretty
and throw off suspicion from spoilage you do.
You are greedy, my darlings,
and I must disabuse you
of notions of ownership couched in abuse.
You are greedy, my darlings,
and I will correct that
and pry from you things that are doing you harm.
The lion's share of barbers
I shall take to my pride now -
for natural artifice, I shall claim as my own.
The lion's share of barbers
you would not want anyway
because we have scissors which we know how to use.
I shall swallow the patriotic,
though swiftly spit it,
for the verse of Whitman shall be torn out.
I shall swallow the patriotic,
no matter how misguided,
as my people died in battle to be free in your chains.
Much high math is lost
(no great loss, I grant you)
as Alan Turing's books are gone, recycled into dust.
Much high math is lost -
you say we never counted, true -
The pills you forced on Turing? Choke on them, my dears.
The stages shall be emptied -
we will not be laughed at your expense -
the only plank for such as you is pirated, from now.
The stages shall be emptied
of Albee, Orton, Hansberry, Azar
and you shall be the poorer for our reclaimed riches.
Your hospitals more careless
(they have often been for such as us)
as many of the orderlies shall let disorder reign.
Your hospitals more careless -
we will visit vengeance on you -
and you will beg for hands you knew not where had lately been.
You shall not feel your heart melt
at Wilde's "The Happy Prince".
I am taking it back; I am plucking your eyes.
You shall not feel your heart melt
then turn it to stone once more
by burning your disapproving gaze on his life.
I have seen you in darkness
writing and encoding
the boulders that burdened Virginia Woolf down.
I have seen you in darkness
putting on righteous raiments.
Well, rocks fit those pockets quite equally well.
You have care for your children
and your protection stands kiss-like.
Your attention is syphilis - your thirty-piece kiss!
You have love for your children
and would you kindly kill them?
Your words are my warrant - I must have an arrest.
You are two-faced like Janus -
like the most tragic comedy -
but the upper and lower face look quite the same.
You are two-faced like Janus,
and I have no time for sorting.
I would blacken your eyes, were they not willful blind.
You appeal to my honour,
a farce you wrote and then deny,
and you tell me how my brothers have kneeled in their place.
You appeal to my honour
(you rip it from me everyday)
and I swing a fire-hydrant with the grace of a queen.
Am I a lawbreaker?
Every time I kiss, I am
to many states and continents - and I don't give a fuck.
Or, rather, dear, I fear I do
and you would say that I cannot
and if I am a sodomite, you fucked me first, my love.
I am coming for your culture.
I am fucking to conceive
an end to notions of nature that serve the bottom line.
I am coming for your culture
(I will not live in a colony -
and that includes a queer one, dears, so pink cash, go away!)
I am ripping the labels
off the chairs of academia
and you can come to arrest me, but I have come to start.
I am ripping the labels
off the muscle-shirts and drag-queen rags.
These are merely clothes - we are wearing minds and skins.
I have come for my culture
as Mark Antony came for Caesar
to bury it and grow a new one from the shitty waste.
I have come for my culture
and my sisters and my brothers
because I love them dearly, and a dear price is too high.
I have come for my culture
before we all collapse with hate
so that all may find a place and not be turned back from the inn.
I have come for my culture
guided by a shining star
that glows within my forehead and (I hope) within some hearts.
I have come for my culture.
Join the secular crusade
to say that this space needs expanding, as do many thoughts.
I have come for my culture
because I do not wish its death
but, rather, for a phoenix that will last as long as be.
I have come for my culture
but many of yours may come along
because among you are my brothers and my sisters too.
I have come for a culture
because I am weary
and I wish to rest, but I cannot rest here.
March, 1996
Comments: I know - a little over the top - but I am a drama queen, after
all... Need I point out that the Boyfriend cringes a bit at the idea that higher
math is not much of a loss? *grin* (he's a mathematician)
And I could speak at length of the sensual slide
of the pale slim fingers and beautiful hands
as they caress the shaft of the rich wood bass -
but this would be disservice - not my goal.
Behind the thin curtain that scarcely conceals
I hear the sound of more than one voice -
though, in fact, an arranger would tell me I err
and that I could not - just one live man plays bass.
The moan of the prisoner - we have all heard that sound.
The ascent and descent by the day, year and life.
The thrust of the rapist and lover - would they were not so the same.
The soothing drone of the ending lullaby - mother or lover or god.
And as Andre plays his bass, I do not know where are his thoughts.
If our perception is the text, it matters not.
I want to say I feel some love, but for which I do not know,
and my instruments are old and sputter when they try to speak.
Lines on paper do not match the lines of note and rests.
They do not draw a sounding portrait
nor admiration's flames from crowds -
but they are mine, all the same, and I offer them up in song.
Orpheus and lyre - Billie Holliday and voice.
Beauty and sadness mix and match like any type of limbs.
Both voices of Andre are deep and hold sorrow
but are rich enough to sing and bear a strange, fair fruit.
Comments: You'd be surprised how many people fail to notice the high-art
sleazy lust of the first verse *grin*
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