Sex, Lies and Stereotype

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Most if not all gay men and women remember the horror of that damn closet, whether we are there for a long or short while. It has to be one of the 21st century’s greater tragedies that many gay people stay there all their lives because certain judgemental societies and/or socio-cultural-religious factors in the home continue to work against our Human Rights world-wide.

This poem was retrospective when it was written in 1995 following an exchange of closet anecdotes among gay friends, and is as relevant today as it was then.  Only a few months ago, here in London, I saw two young men kissing in a crowded gay bar that, according to the person standing next to me who pointed them out, had been with a ‘butch’ crowd he’d known since schooldays that regularly yelled homophobic abuse at him in the street. Obviously, they hadn’t yet realised that it really isn’t ‘in’ to be with an in-crowd that’s very much the wrong crowd. 

Mind you, I’ve often wondered about openly homophobic types. As Shakespeare, might well have said, methinks they do protest too much...

SEX, LIES AND STEREOTYPE

Billy was a shy boy

who lived in my hometown,

did well at school,

never played the fool,

had a voice as thick as honey,

kept his head in a book;

that first time he smiled

and said ‘hello’ I didn’t quite

know where to look

Early one morning

I went fishing at my special place;

Billy was already there,

tongues of red hair licking

at my face as I told him

to go, the sacrilege all his,

but he stood his ground;

I flung him down, a heat in us

rising like the dawn

Our lips brushed

as if meant, his sweet body sighed;

mine paused, replied

until spent, spiritually content

for finding sanctuary

in the lap of a songbird,

no willows weeping

or fish biting nor any hint

of unease or dissent

Down at the pub

one evening, drinking with the lads,

poised to win at darts,

my girl cheering … Enter Billy

with a mate, and I score

a bull! Crowd’s roaring my victory,

my girl adoring me

as I'm drowning in a swell

and, oh, so hurting ...

like hell

Copyright R. N. Taber 1995; 2012

[Note: Thus poem has been revised from an earlier version that has already appeared on the blog and in  my first collection,  Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]