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A B H O R E N C E S November 13, 1984 The show did not start off auspiciously, the contestants were nervous and kept fiddling with the wires attached to their privates, the men being especially anxious over the question of balls. The women were more querulous. The first question, a medical subject, was why had the anti-abortionists not mentioned, let alone commented on, the Baboon Heart transplant? One terrified contestant guessed it was because the moral majority’s nervous concern with evolution precluded their bringing it up. That hopeful contestant’s face reflected the malicious light in the eyes of the host who immediately threw the switch A powerful surge shot through the wires and both sexes screamed and writhed, to the delight of the vast viewership, estimated at 100 million, all of whom, presumably, were delighted not to be on the show, because not one in a million knew the answer.

1 Who knew it’s quite all right that I downed three gin-and-tonics (can’t fit male inside female part on fanny pack) at four o’clock the Dyke March day of NY Pride? Who knew Manhattan streets would liquefy and lurch with dames sans bras, sans hair, sans shirt in step with beer-can band led by a skirt- ed trans in green brassiere, led by the cops whose sentries are staid as posts with glasses on, lined up beside the march like S/M tops? (They seem to think Gay Pride’s this weekend’s yawn.) (Pit stop at McD’s, can’t clip pack back on.) Who knew she’d march beside me hand-in-hand and who’d expect me to remember names when Liz’s girlfriend saw us and waved “Hi. It’s . . . Anna”? (CNN shot feed, then frames.) Booze-stymied by the glare of girls and sky, how could I choose? Should I grip hand, or pray wondering: Is today today the day she’ll let me turn the key, lead her inside? 2 Okay, I’m sober now. Today is just the kind of day she talks but feels no lust. 3 Beside her isn’t bad. Fan-stirred, the air is humid and the theater is packed. An ear-cuffed thespian tries to fix the cold, our leading ladies sweat it out in back. A prim man to my right begins to sneeze. My nose is in agreement. The perfume from Queen Mother there could clear the room. This shadow play across her face is fine. Her arm’s near mine, which means exactly nothing. Hope’s hope hums on through separate listening. That skull, opaque to me as Midland’s vault, her silky crop, its pepper dabbed with salt — I chuckle at an apt sardonic line. Her suede complexion, lifts up, checks the time. 4. Les Nouvceaux from La Nouvelle Justine I don’t love her. She doesn’t love me. Neither does this waiter who may think it strange when young girls dine with staid dames twice their age on salade de Bastille and pain de Sade. I don’t like sitting by her like wet cloth. I don’t like restaurants whose queers pawn sex to the bachelor bunch who want a thrill. I don’t like dining with my, well, not-ex, both measuring the humid air for signs of sparks I see by parts will not ignite. I’d rather have a knock-down, drag-out fight that cleared the joint than watch another guy get spanked by Corset Kris, who’d like to grab a tit, not spend hip humping hairy thighs. I’d rather I were twice her age and wise. I’d spin cruel stories of past day of bliss then give my own hands covert exercise and send her home to bed without a kiss. 5. L’Addition 30 for the play and 10 for gins, 10 for two cabs and 40 for the eats, at least the metro home was freezer-cold, at least the Broadway Local still had seats at 96th, the local went express. I blistered home ten sockless humid blocks back to my solo digs for solo sex. I got this poem for my 90 bucks.

Of what sins have you made confession here, Ardent Cecile? Not passion’s intimacy, Or tangles of desire that mutineer A bold way through your maiden ecstasy. Those are not blamed...the penance not severe! Pray rather, with cool-lidded conscious eyes For warm juvescence of those ichored limbs, For laughter checked by no repentant cries, For lips unstained by pattering of hymns. Men’s glances have embraced you. They are wise. They have seen you, cumbent by the ruddy fire, Lending your curves to cushioned wantonness, Or leaping to the stroke of an earthy lyre Twanged in the joy of throbbing noon’s excess And cried no pause for love. You, they require. Of what sins have you made confession here, Ardent Cecile? The wood receives your knees; The organ stirs your prayer. Now you revere The God that made you beautiful among these, The gnarled and ugly. Your book receives no tear.

In the sixth grade I was chased home by the Gatlin kids, three skinny sisters in rolled-down bobby socks. Hissing Brainiac! and Mrs. Stringbean!, they trod my heel. I knew my body was no big deal but never thought to retort: who's calling who skinny? (Besides, I knew they'd beat me up.) I survived their shoves across the schoolyard because my five-foot-zero mother drove up in her Caddie to shake them down to size. Nothing could get me into that car. I took the long way home, swore I'd show them all: I would grow up.

Blackness is a title, is a preoccupation, is a commitment Blacks are to comprehend— and in which you are to perceive your Glory. The conscious shout of all that is white is “It’s Great to be white.” The conscious shout of the slack in Black is "It's Great to be white." Thus all that is white has white strength and yours. The word Black has geographic power, pulls everybody in: Blacks here— Blacks there— Blacks wherever they may be. And remember, you Blacks, what they told you— remember your Education: “one Drop—one Drop maketh a brand new Black.” Oh mighty Drop. ______And because they have given us kindly so many more of our people Blackness stretches over the land. Blackness— the Black of it, the rust-red of it, the milk and cream of it, the tan and yellow-tan of it, the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it, the “olive” and ochre of it— Blackness marches on. The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride is to Comprehend, to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black, which is our “ultimate Reality,” which is the lone ground from which our meaningful metamorphosis, from which our prosperous staccato, group or individual, can rise. Self-shriveled Blacks. Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession: YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone. All of you— you COLORED ones, you NEGRO ones, those of you who proudly cry “I’m half INDian”— those of you who proudly screech “I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins” ALL of you— you proper Blacks, you half-Blacks, you wish-I-weren’t Blacks, Niggeroes and Niggerenes. You.

Say you love the albums with the smoky riffs and downbeat rhythms. Here , they beg, fall in with us . Forget that book , have a whiskey . . . have another . Say you love the books, the words and the silences between the words— faded yellow dashes on a disused highway. Say you love the highway, the blacktop and the bullet-riddled sign that reads Primitive Road where the blacktop ends. Say you love the fields, the black of midnight, coyotes' yipped prayers, and their raw thirst for hens. Say you love the raw salt of powder when its ghost rises from the rifle's breech and settles, sweet with lead, in your lungs. Then breathe what's left back to the world— speak the coyote's tongue, sweat the nitro from your blood, say you love what you've become.

As thro' the land at eve we went, And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss'd again with tears. And blessings on the falling out That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love And kiss again with tears! For when we came where lies the child We lost in other years, There above the little grave, O there above the little grave, We kiss'd again with tears.

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? Ask me no more. Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more. Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love is of the valley, come, For Love is of the valley, come thou down And find him; by the happy threshold, he, Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, Or red with spirted purple of the vats, Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk With Death and Morning on the silver horns, Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: But follow; let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air: So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry: All her maidens, watching, said, "She must weep or she will die." Then they praised him, soft and low, Call'd him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stepped, Took the face-cloth from the face; Yet she neither moved nor wept. Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee— Like summer tempest came her tears— "Sweet my child, I live for thee."