bi_janus
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Posts posted by bi_janus
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Here is the other transgressive painting mentioned in the poem.
http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rmbrndt_1636-1654/susanna_and_elders.htm
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Who gives a s**t about the Niners or the Ravens. Let's hear it for Calvin Klein.
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This must be why fame eludes me:
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On Viewing Two Sailors Urinating by Charles Demuth, 1930
Bi Janus
We are cast as the Elders
ogling Susanna
at her toilet.
But you put us
on our knees
confronting the cocks
instead of leaving us
in the greenery
peering down.
Are you bringing us
to concupiscent silence
at one man holding
both members?
Susanna and all
her sisters
seem to sigh
in acquiescence.
As men we should
perhaps understand
the transgression,
strictly a crime,
but understandable.
You gave not
the sailors to women
as Rembrandt gave
Susanna to lechers –
they are for our eyes.
Only in this way
could you make
equal
the transgressions,
as the sailors sigh
but not in acquiescence.
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What is this "Windows" of which you speak?
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I am currently working on the third installment of the Goldendale trilogy. One of the characters is an adolescent M2F. I see no reason why, given enough research and sensitivity, such characters shouldn't appear in our work. We write straight characters, don't we? Granted, we probably know more straight people than transgendered people. If you find yourself guessing what such a character's reaction might be in a given situation, more research might be indicated. The issue of what age is appropriate to begin transition is controversial as is the place of Gender Identity Disorder in the DSM-IV-TR. What amazes me is the complex array of gender identities any of which may match with various sexual orientations. Chris, you may well find resources in your community who will help you with the accuracy of your portrayal. One thing I've learned is that many transgendered people are tired of being asked to explain their situations and feel the burden of education should rest with those seeking education.
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The beat goes on.
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If you haven't watched this locally produced documentary by KUED in Salt Lake City of all places and supported by the B. W. Bastian Foundation, you'll find it worthwhile. The short film explores homelessness in LBGTQ young people.
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The remarkable film director Oshima Nagisa has died near Tokyo. In his 1999 film Taboo, he dealt with the strong current of homoeroticism present in training centers for young samurai during the Shogunate. I must say that the most beautiful male film actor I have seen is Matsuda Ryuhei, playing one of the trainees. Taboo was in some ways a follow-up to his sensational In the Realm of the Senses. His obit in the Times calls him an iconoclast, and he was all of that in the culture of Japanese film from the late fifties onward.
If you can find Taboo, take a look, although the subtitles are poorly done.
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Recently I read an opus on Nifty recommended by VWL. I thought one of the main characters' voice was much like that of the characters in a book I read in 2001 just after it was published. I'm rereading it now, ten plus years later. The book remains a jewel, a story of friendship, struggle, and setting small goals (in this case involving swimming). The two main characters are poor Irish lads living during WW I and through the Easter 1916 Irish uprising; they discover friendship that turns to love while helping one another define themselves. Life in a very Catholic Ireland of that time coupled with Irish nationalism and poverty made for a difficult life.
If you like Joyce, you'll like this.
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From today's NYT:
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Sex, the Animal
Bi Janus
Sex, the animal,
is but a small part
of us, he says.
Which way we
are pulled
is no great matter,
the soul weighing
what it does,
he says.
I wonder aloud at him.
You’re a fucking liar,
afraid to admit
how much your prick
weighs against
your soul.
Or, you’re not pulled
so much as stuck.
Sex, the animal,
says he, is
an appurtenance,
a dim signal
of magisterial
humanity.
Let’s pull it out
as we might
a vermiform vestige.
You twit, I moan.
Sanctimony draping
pure electric body
won't give you
respite from looking
over your shoulder
to find the wolf
in your eye's corner
and your fields all
overgrown with lavender.
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Loowit (2003)
Bi Janus
Loowitlatkla (Lady of Fire) was, in the myth of the people of the middle Columbia River, an old woman who was made by a powerful spirit immortal, then beautiful, and finally a mountain that white men call St. Helens
The hard paths
vouch us solitude
and we need
solitude to find
what is in us.
On the hard paths
we carry everything
important on us
and we need to see
what is in us.
At the end of day
at the midpoint
of the hard path
we are stripped,
as the thinning forest
is, to necessity.
Unsheltered in solitude
we reach in to see
what we can do
here, naked to
each other
on the mountain,
on the hard path
where no one
other will come.
Your scent and mine
on the hard path
begin an enquiry
in the ancient brain,
the brain of mammals
startled in an act.
We wonder who
takes whom
on the hard path
by the meltwater,
the meltwater almost
flashed to vapor
by what we find
in the solitude
of the hard path
on Loowit’s flank.
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Not sure where to post this. Interesting idea and interesting sound of 3,000 odd voices individually and in different parts of the world singing parts of a composition. They upload their performances to YouTube and the videos are combined and the audio scrubbed to achieve a single huge choir. At the first URL, the composer explains the process; at the second URL, one of his compositions sung by a virtual choir.
http://www.huffingto..._b_2175526.html
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Human Thanksgiving
Bi Janus
I, having waked,
feel you stretching
in contented sleep
as I have felt men do
in contentment,
though you are not a man.
Whether with yang of men
or with nothingness
that is woman’s yin,
I flow to the opposite pole,
and the contentment
just before waking
is the same,
something in the spirit,
if spirit exists,
is the same.
Beneath the heated blanket,
not waking alone,
but not strictly aware
that I am with you,
the sigh and the reach
of your arm to mine
as I draw a breath
is our thanksgiving.
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A Single Word
Bi Janus
For Jack Gilbert
The Orang said
he never thought
a single word
enough for a line.
I did it often enough
that he reconsidered,
but I flim-flammed him
by not pointing to you.
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John Schwartz's book Oddly Normal has just been released. The book, written with his son's help, details the travails of raising his third son who happens to be gay. The book is really about how we treat the different among us and in particular how the school system treats different children. Coming out is only one problem Schwartz's son, Joe, confronts. The story of how parents navigate a system intent on diagnosing and usually medicating every difference brought me to thinking about the uncertainties of deciding when our children should be medicated and when they should not. What degree of difference is pathological? Fortunately, no one suggests that the boy's emerging sexuality is a pathology. The diagnostic issues have more to do with the autism spectrum.
The book is a nice read, and the last chapter is charming.
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Apparently high school locker rooms are not as I remember them.
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Some days are just too wearying.
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Moon on the First Day of Autumn 2012 at the Columbia River
Bi Janus
Moon in moving water
Moon and water shimmer
Water stained clear
No longer look heavenward
Explication:
In the moment
before you complained
before you looked heavenward
you were beyond now and then
Chasing that moment now
is useless
yet you cannot
put it out of mind
and deserve what you get
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Tenuously connected to the post in another forum about a seven-year-old and a t-shirt, this in the NYT ahead of National Coming Out Day on the 11th. The results of the less than rigorous surveys cited in the article point to the difficulties kids are still having. The writer of the piece is soon publishing a book about raising a gay son.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/fashion/helping-a-gay-child-to-come-out.html?ref=fashion
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I like your use of the word, "Missing," which can mean lost, failing to connect, or longing for, particularly as a whole line. The plasticity and ambiguity of the English language makes it superior tool for poetry. Thanks for posting this.
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If you are concerned about controlling the ripples, you had best not drop the pebble into a large pond.
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I have been often enough misunderstood that I feel obligated to short-circuit some reflexive knee-jerking. The following is not a paean to suicide, quite the opposite. The poem comes from an internal struggle about whether or not refusing treatment might be considered suicidal or weak. The struggle isn't about what others might think, but about my own uncertainty given that I reject suicide as a solution to any problem. As well, I want to be clear that I intend no insensitivity to those affected by suicide. If the subject seems painful to you, pass on before reading the verse.
Metaphysics of Suicide
Bi Janus
for Abe Sensei
The oncologist glares.
I’d like to fire you;
refusing treatment
is craven and suicidal,
says he.
No, I tell him --
your equality is in
error.
Suicide itself,
an error
born of
misperception
that the rest of
painful life
is more than
fleeting,
that its own
end is distant
though it comes
the next instant
no matter
what one does,
though not
an unforgivable error.
But, my way kills your hope,
not mine.
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新年快樂 Happy New Year (obvious snake jokes forgone)
in Poets' Corner
Posted
Snake Creeps Downward
Bi Janus
新年快樂
What a pity
to mistake
low things
for evil
things.
That which creeps
upon the ground
is the spine
of what blooms
in the clouds.