THAT SMILE
Your lips spread just a bit in pleasure;
sunlight floods your eyes.
COURSE IN CONTEMPORARY LIVING
You smile too often.
Stay alienated.
Your homework for today is not to smile.
Your homework for tomorrow is to smile only once,
quickly, so it won't be noticed.
A DREAM OF DS
In place of a t-shirt and midnight jeans
you wore an outfit I’d never seen,
gray sport slacks, light blue open collar dress shirt
pure as the soul in your tall slender form.
You bent your brown eyes and black hair to me,
our lips touched in stillness, lingering tender.
Workshop director and secretary of the homophile NewTown Writers, Barry Frauman writes not only short poems (examples blogged on O Sweet Flowery Roses, One Night Stanzas and Word Slaw), but longer verse narratives, including WEST-EAST, an American/Taiwanese gay male romance; GAY DON JUAN; and SONS OF NEW TOWN, celebrating the area of Chicago for which NewTown Writers is named. Barry’s current work-in progress is CRUSADES, a volume of two verse narratives, one each on the First and Third Crusades.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
If Only They Knew (How Many of Us) by Walter Beck
How many of us
Are fighting
Just by existing?
Just by working
In the grit & dirt;
Scarred skin
Slicked with sweat
Given in dedication & service.
How many of us
Feel forbidden love,
Have forbidden spiritual beliefs,
Hold forbidden political views?
How many of us
Wait, pray, hope, dream
Of the day
When the acid chains
Will dissolve?
When we can stand proud
And say in unison
"On my honor..."
Walter Beck is from Avon, IN and is a graduate student at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, IN where he is heavily involved in the GLBTQ activist community both as an independent activist and with groups such as Equality Speaks and Wabash Valley Pride. He is also a mainstay in the emerging Terre Haute poetry scene where his intense verse and performances draw crowds and criticism at such venues as Coffee Grounds, the Halycion Art Gallery and the Sycamore Lounge at ISU. He is a long-time camp staffer at the historic Boy Scout camp, Camp Krietenstein in Center Point, IN where he is Camp Commissioner and the Poet Laureate of Camp Krietenstein.
Are fighting
Just by existing?
Just by working
In the grit & dirt;
Scarred skin
Slicked with sweat
Given in dedication & service.
How many of us
Feel forbidden love,
Have forbidden spiritual beliefs,
Hold forbidden political views?
How many of us
Wait, pray, hope, dream
Of the day
When the acid chains
Will dissolve?
When we can stand proud
And say in unison
"On my honor..."
Walter Beck is from Avon, IN and is a graduate student at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, IN where he is heavily involved in the GLBTQ activist community both as an independent activist and with groups such as Equality Speaks and Wabash Valley Pride. He is also a mainstay in the emerging Terre Haute poetry scene where his intense verse and performances draw crowds and criticism at such venues as Coffee Grounds, the Halycion Art Gallery and the Sycamore Lounge at ISU. He is a long-time camp staffer at the historic Boy Scout camp, Camp Krietenstein in Center Point, IN where he is Camp Commissioner and the Poet Laureate of Camp Krietenstein.
Why I Write by Archy Jamjun
Two things are clear. First, I must write. The fact that I must write is a product of nature and nurture. The urge was born inside me. It must have been passed down through chromosomes and DNA because the urge is no less deniable than the slant of my eyes or the swish in my hip. What was born inside me has been nurtured by others: the English teacher who first told me I had a talent for writing, by my parents who attend every reading they can.
Even when I resist the urge, when I leave it in a corner and place a cone on its head; it reacts like a child who won’t go quiet. It first pulls my shirt. Then it threatens to go blue by holding its breath. If for whatever reason I still haven’t gotten the message, if I think I’m too depressed, if I’ve thrown myself into mini-age of gluttony and irresponsibility; it gets on the floor in the middle of Target and screams, “it ain’t ever gonna be better til you do this!”
Writing anything, even if it will only ever appear on my laptop screen or in my embroidered journal, quiets the demons that nag me about my purpose and emboldens the voice that calls me to make a proud fool of myself by daring to pursue what I love and loves me back.
Second, I must share. Part of this is egomania. I want to get up and be heard. I was that annoying kid in English class that wanted to read out loud. I am that disappointed child who wanted to be in musicals but was born completely tone deaf. But the reason to share goes beyond a need for attention. When you learn, you teach. Everyone has a something to share—something to say or do that makes someone, some people or everyone’s world a little better, a little worse or a little more understood. Good or bad, bad and good…it is everyone’s duty to interact, engage and hopefully enliven.
Archy Jamjun is a writer and performer based in Chicago. He is the editor of this blog and has performed at Solo Homo 8 & 9, Essay Fiesta, and The Chicago Lit Fest. You can read more of his work at http://www.concubine13.blogspot.com/.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Welcome To Swell
Swell is the online branch of NewTown Writers, a Chicago based collective of GBLT writers. NewTown Writers was founded in 1980 by Randy Gresham. Swell is currently edited by Archy Jamjun. Submissions of short stories, essays, and poetry can be made to Swellzine@gmail.com
To learn more about NewTown Writers, please visit our homepage at http://www.newtownwriters.org/
To learn more about NewTown Writers, please visit our homepage at http://www.newtownwriters.org/
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