bi_janus
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Whitman Among the Baptists
Bi Janus
“What a friend we have in …”
With own eyes level
between heaven and hell
the boy finds his eyes
in the back of the hall.
Easing against the wall,
water drips from his linen shirt
fresh from some baptismal font.
Both hear the crowd’s voices,
raised as one, rattle
the metal folding chairs,
as, eyes closed and faces
turned toward heaven,
it searches for Him —
it could only be Him.
Bird song over the drooping sun,
beards and loose joints,
muscles and sweat smell
break the spell
as the boy pulls his arm
over his own shoulder, shelter
from the believers’ fears,
his needs too close
under his skin, pressing
against crowd conscience,
pulling him away from Him
toward him.
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Young adult fiction about a 14-year-old who is attracted to a slightly older boy from across the tracks, literally. A quick read that deals with issues of parental authority and the conflict between what others think is right and what you know is right. The book deals with Armenian culture, food, and family in an engaging way. A quick read, but a nice first novel by a screenwriter.
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Thanks. Did you ever write a relatively minor character in a longer work that persistently nagged at you for its own story—not only deserved its own story but also bothered you into writing that story?
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A perfect evocation, James.
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Calla Lilly
Bi Janus
You squatted by the fireplace,
a gift to Ann from work family.
We thought you a premie
unlikely to survive.
None of your kind
we seem able to nourish,
none of your kind
in our bright home flourish,
but we will tend you
with the uncertain terror,
with the rigorous care
attending uncertain life.
Then, the miracle.
You turned your insides out
in a profusion of white blossom,
little vulvae with yellow tongues,
perhaps an attempt
to say everything at once
unable to restrain your joy.
Visitors worshipped, awed
as Magi once were.
The silence after that outburst
was more the calamity.
For eight years — only green,
healthy but only green leaves,
your silence in the face of our care
was grievous.
Today as I poured the water,
in the midst of the green,
the single white furl,
more shot through
with your pure voice
than the cacophony
of your infancy,
the whisper piercing us
through accustomed silence.
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If your encounters with an author's works are helpful, that's enough. Having never known Bukowski, I can't criticize the way he lived his life, and all I am left with is the way he expressed himself, in this case, in verse. If, in the quotation in your signature block, he had said, "I am terrorized and flattened by trivialities, I am eaten up by nothing," I would have found the statement more sympathetic. I can't argue with the sense of the first or second sentence.
If my complaint was stroked with too broad a brush, I cheerfully retract it, although I'm not sure who he means by "the average human being" in the poem. Thanks, again, for sharing the work and what it means to you.
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While I have a deep distrust of most conventional religion, I've always thought that the point of Bukowski's work is that the only trustworthy person is Bukowski. He thought that no one who criticized him understood art. That, and I've always thought he was a straight Ginsberg wannabe. If average men and women have average love and genius hatred, I'm screwed, and so are the people I love and detest.
I'm glad, though, to see Cynus bringing even Bukowski here. Just because you don't like someone's work is no reason to avoid it, and even a blind hog (Bukowski) occasionally roots up a truffle.
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You Will Go
Bi JanusWhen the music fades,
when you look him
or her
through the windows
of the soul, yes,
the eyes and even after
the eyes close,
so that all the sighs,
the softness
at your fingertips,
the attar of skin,
the savor of sweat
end equivocation,
and he or she,
drowning in love, asks
from whom did you learn,
I hope you whisper
my name. -
AP reports that Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina publicly comes out.
NAIROBI, Kenya — African literary light Binyavanga Wainaina announces he is gay to protest laws criminalizing homosexuality on the continent.
The prize-winning Kenyan author marked his 43rd birthday with an online essay in which he writes how he regrets not telling his mother that before she died. His story contributes to an increasingly fierce debate about gays in Africa, where it is illegal to have homosexual sex in most countries.
Wainaina told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that he came out to help preserve his dignity.
He lashed out at new legislation further criminalizing homosexuality in Nigeria and Uganda. He also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia's stance on gays.
Gays in many parts of Africa face severe harassment, physical threats and judicial punishment. Kenya has a law banning sodomy.
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I, with the rest of you, salute Nigel for taking on the subject. Although the plot revolves around Islam, I think the central issue is the manipulation of a young man by religious leaders. This kind of manipulation occurs in many contexts and proceeds from many prophets.
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Thank you all very much for the warm comments. The most usual question I got when I was giving polygraphs was whether pressing a thumbtack into a sensitive anatomic structure would fool the machine. The answer is no, however clenching one's sphincter might be a useful general training exercise. There's a reason that polys aren't admissible in court.
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Drifting
Bi JanusOut on the perilous deep
Where dangers silently creep
And storms so violently sweep
You're drifting too far from the shoreDrifting too far from the shore (from the shore)
Drifting too far from the shore (peaceful shore)
Come to Jesus today, let him show you the way
You're drifting too far from the shore—Charles E. Moody (1923)
The shore vaguely recalled
the expanse now home
and no clear path
I shall find my ownStorm spun or glass
no avatar strides
the deep ocean
no idea instructsThe great vehicle
carries me on
I am all and alone
boat and sailorStarless sky comforts
Boundless sea comforts
Shoreless, I came from this
to this I gladly returnFor the shore is a prison
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Having spent little time in the large cities of America, except Seattle, I always thought the title belonged to Seattle, but apparently not.
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Or, you could give employment to former members of monastic orders who produce illuminated manuscripts of your work—a system that encourages patience and also introduces errors that will foster debate among future critics.
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The NYT has published eight stories of gay folk living in a variety of places in Russia under Putin and the State Church.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/world/europe/stories-of-being-gay-in-russia.html?hp
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Take your poets where you find them.
When Reed was a teenager in 1956 he received Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy in part as an attempt by his parents to cure his sexual interest in men. He used the experience to write Kill Your Sons, a song-poem I've always admired.
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On the Stones' 1978 album Some Girls. I don't know, Camy. They're both song writers, although the collaboration with Richards comes through strongly on this one.
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Even bad-boy Brits only run stop signs. Southern boys, now -- .45s and stop signs.
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A nice piece on how, with the help of David Levithan, a novelist became a Young Adult novelist.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/junior-varsity-is-where-the-work-gets-done/
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The Dark Spring
Bi JanusAnd it was almost a girl, and she came out of
that single blessedness of song and lyre,
and shone clear through her springtime-veil
and made herself a bed inside my hearing.
Sonnets to Orpheus, I,1—Maria Rainer RilkeWhat flows from me
when you tap me
as Moses did the stone
before the elders?
Your staff is curved
and pulses with your heart,
unleashing from me
the darkening blood.The note from collision
of rod and stone
floats as a girl's song
above our wrestle.What will you have me do?
I cannot brighten the blood
for our pagan Eucharist.
Listen, mon semblable,We are twins
born of the same girl
asleep in our hearing,
her song floatingAbove us as we strive
in the darkening blood
to understand who we are,
why we are as we are.Don't despair, sweet friend,
when your mad pounding
can no longer summon
my blood in a dry land.The girl sleeps again
in both of us now,
and will sleep in you,
dreaming us as we are. -
Some of us aren't the marrying kind. Maybe marriage should be left to religious institutions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/style/gay-couples-choosing-to-say-i-dont.html?hpw&_r=0
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Any excuse for a hurricane party.
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To be young, gifted, black ... and gay
in Poets' Corner
Posted
To be young, gifted, black ... and gay.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/a-poets-boyhood-at-the-burning-crossroads/?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0