Aftershock and Ernesto by Barry Frauman

AFTERSHOCK

 

My years of sureness are gone,

the brightness of my youth,

which began in ’76

when I was a man of thirty-two:

surging community after Stonewall,

smiling Brothers amid the sex,

gay theater flowering, action groups,

resplendent health paraded every June,

the nights of disco till 3 AM, and then,

“Come home with me?” “Hey, sounds fun.”

 

Now we’ve entered the time of AIDS,

joy eludes me, I can’t keep rewards.

My hands may hold them, but not my mind,

which says farewell

to poems before they're written,

operas still unsung,

and every horny guy before we cum.

 

I live in death‑shadow under the sun,

gazing at firm sweet asses of jeans

in a poisonous breeze of fear.

 

Latino man asleep on a bench

under thick black brows:

His legs sprawl gently in lightning‑white Levi's.

Oh to unzip him, nuzzle him nude,

take all of him in my mouth,

to feast until I die.

 

 

@2012 by Barry Frauman

 

ERNESTO

 

Eleven‑year‑old Mexican man

hardened by wrestling baseball swimming,

midnight thatch of hair to crown

the almond glint of Aztec eyes,

dashing Iberian smile flaring

an angular jaw and slender lips,

protected by knives of older brothers.

 

Shapeless hand‑me‑downs hide you, Ernesto

but, if we were naked, alone,

your buttocks clenched under smooth olive skin

I straddle you, I pry and pry

your fists reach round to pummel my sides,

your face aflame with boyish rage –

No, never.

 

 

 

@2012 by Barry Frauman

Until We Meet Again by Randy Gresham

Episode 2: The Elegant Gentleman

.The Elegant Gentleman

He sits at a low table covered with a white linen cloth in the courtyard of a charming old, ci-devant Florida resort. He is taking tea with his dear friends, three elderly ladies he has known for decades of “the season.” He balances a paper-thin, china cup with supreme aplomb. His hands are strong, yet fine and aristocratic. They are punctuated by manicured nails filed into perfect little crescents and buffed to a high gloss.  He wears three matching gold bands on his right middle finger and a monogrammed gold ring on his left pinkie. On his left wrist there is an antique gold Cartier tank case watch. His appearance is that of a true thoroughbred, his bearing and distinguished manners those of the early years of the last century. He holds his chin up just slightly in a gesture reminiscent of Hyde Park patricians.  His attire is the very picture of restrained old world elegance: white linen suit, Egyptian cotton shirt, white silk bow tie, Panama hat, polished black tie-up shoes.  He sports an ebony black walking cane with an elaborate gold knob.

His age is hard to determine.  Though his hair is completely white, his face is almost completely unlined, his skin as smooth as porcelain.  His face retains an angularity suggesting youth and virility.  His eyes are steel gray and though they flash with mirth and subtle fire, they occasionally register sadness.   His movements are graceful and deliberate and do not suggest the burdens of age.  He seems to possess a vitality lacking in the resort’s other guests. His clothes, though as vintage as those of the other vacationers, do not imply an involuntary stoppage in time, but appear as more of a costume.  He stands out.  There is an energy, a vitality concealed beneath the white outfit.  He is the very portrait of a well-bred gentleman.

To describe him as a portrait is most apropos. There is something studied in his behavior. Though engaged in animated talk, he looks as though he is also busy posing for a painter.  He sits, delicately sipping his tea, chatting, dropping bons mots on the blue haired matrons with whom he shares the afternoon ritual. They flirt with him in the manner of the elderly.  They dote on him and reward him with chuckles of amused delight, laughing at his every comment.  

His table’s conversation spills out into the courtyard.  He is obviously someone used to an audience.  The resort’s other patrons overhear, take note, laugh, and occasionally walk over to his table where he holds them enthralled. They add a witty comment or two and delight in his clever retorts.  He acts like a person of note, perhaps a celebrity or personage.  He encourages and enjoys the attention he receives. He smiles at everyone but something in his features fleetingly registers a keen sense of loss.  Loss, experienced throughout the decades, glossed over and dressed up in pretty pastels and brilliant smiles, runs through the throng of older vacationers. His loss, however, seems recent and still sharp.

Someone has stopped at the courtyard gate.  The gate divides this refined little world and that other realm, the outside modern world. A young man, perhaps in his late twenties, is looking in on afternoon tea.  He is deeply tanned, well- built and clad only in a red Speedo.  His nipples are pierced.  He seems perplexed and captivated by the scene he is witnessing. The resort guests no longer notice the intrusion of the outside world on their sacrosanct courtyard and afternoon rituals.  No one bothers to look up from tea to register shock, disdain or indignation. Out there, manners are lost and everything has become coarse with the passing decades.  The members of this charmed and polished circle have found ignoring offenders their best strategy.  To them the outside world simply doesn’t exist and should not be acknowledged.  Our elegant gentleman, however, notices.  He glances over and catches the young man’s eyes.  Too much is revealed in the exchange, an electrical charge, yet on both sides, utter perplexity.  An unknown, unexplored continent of the imagination emerges.  A clash of cultures, a leap through generations, insists on recognition.  The elderly gentleman appears bewildered and deeply pained.

The elderly gentleman returns to his companions.  It is all so very lovely.  Really it is.  He hopes it will stay this way always.

Until We Meet Again by Randy Gresham

Swellzine proudly presents Randy Gresham's new series, "Until We Meet Again"

Randy Gresham is the founder and president emeritus of NewTown Writers.  He is founder and original editor of Off The Rocks anthology.  His novel, The Palace, was serialized in the Atlanta Midtown Times from 1991 through 1992.  He is author of several plays, including Boys Night Out and All's Fair. He is an actor and has appeared in several venues in the Chicago and Atlanta area.  He is an artist.  Included among his works is an original interpretation of the Tarot.

As he has for decades, an elegant gentleman takes tea with friends in their habitual Florida winter resort.  Familiars of many years, following their seasonal out-of-date traditions, he and the group seem a relic of the past  to the current world.  Time remains frozen until one afternoon the elegant gentleman spots a handsome young man staring into the courtyard.  Startled at what he sees, the young man's appearance reminds the gentleman of...something...and everything changes.

The story unfolds in a series of vignettes or “snapshots”.  It travels back and forth between the present and events from the elegant man's past. Two men of different generation seem drawn together through destiny.  A tragedy from the older man's past is revealed, and the two discover something that surprises both of them. 

The resort’s disintegrating old courtyard is enclosed by painted concrete walls whose original salmon color has faded.  On the side facing the ocean, an old wrought iron gate gives to the beach.  Seasons of relentless Florida sunlight have left their legacy. Decades of tropical rain and hurricanes have streaked and discolored them.  Bougainvillea drips down their facades. In the middle of the courtyard, there is a washed out ocean-themed mosaic consisting of sea horses, crabs, fish of various colors, and young boys riding dolphins.  In its center a chipped fountain trickles. Afternoon shadows inch their way across multi-colored, uneven marble slabs marking the passage of time. At regular distances small cement planters, turning moss-green with age, support fragrant tropical flowers.  Larger vessels, one in each corner, contain cycad palms, trees known as living fossils.

Surrounding the fountain are little cabanas providing shade for the guests sitting at the small low tables found within the booths.  The tables are covered with white linen cloths, napkins, and china. Slightly removed in a shaded cove, a harpist plucks fond memories. There are little clinking noises and the soft buzzing sound of conversation punctuated with an occasional laugh or exclamation. Accents of every variety, from all sections of this country and Europe, spill out into the open air.

The visitors are taking their afternoon tea. The guests drink from eggshell thin cups bearing the monogram of the hotel.  Everything is very fine and delicate like the elderly guests themselves, who claim this resort as their own, and enjoy this daily ritual.  They are a study: hair, light gray or white, perhaps a rare golden girl dyed blond, pastel outfits, porcelain skin. Although this is Florida, not one of those gathered here appears to have ever spent time in the sun. Many have been coming to this resort for the season since their youth. Some sport the fashions of their earlier years. Were the surroundings not so declined, one could easily imagine this occurring sixty years ago.  Those here seem completely oblivious to the time that has passed since then.

Waiters hover around the patrons. The wait staff is made up of men of near uniform height and appearance. They are of advanced middle age and serve in tuxedos and white gloves. The exchange between server and customers suggest the manners of a former time, a curious “on holiday” camaraderie that doesn’t violate the old standards of propriety. The waiters are attentive without being obsequious. They bow ever so slightly as they place the tea service on the tables. It is all very gracious. The waiters, passing each other en route to or from the resort’s kitchen, exchange knowing glances, as if in on a commonly held secret.

There is a slightly musty smell in the air, barely discernible.  It is the smell old resorts get in hot, humid climates, an odor that persists in spite of antiseptic cleansers and regular scrubbings.  It is something primal, not disguised by artifice.  It suggests salt water, brackish ponds, the elemental and forbidding jungle. This scent is mixed with that of spices, citrus, seasonings and flowers.  The heavy combination produces a sense of somnolence.

Beyond the walls, outside, there are the sights and sounds of the other world, the modern world: flashing neon, traffic, skateboards, the roar of automobiles, motorcycles, motorboats, all impinging on this insular world of tea in the courtyard.  The sun is hot and glaring on the beach.  Dark, near naked bodies lie on towels, or walk by, speaking of things and in tones that are vulgar beyond example to the ears of these elegant patrons. The smell of tanning oil, cheap liquor, tobacco and pot waft into the cloistered space, bruising the afternoon ambiance.

Occasionally, a pedestrian or a group of them, en route to sand and ocean stops and glances inside the courtyard.  A young, highly tattooed woman looks completely puzzled, a group of rail-thin teenagers finds the ritual ridiculous and laugh as they walk away from the curious scene.  A deeply tanned, young man with pierced nipples reacts with curiosity.  A graceful patron, balancing his paper thin china cup with supreme aplomb, glances at the youth.  For the briefest instant, the guest stops talking and assumes a very strange expression.  He and the young man seem to react with complete and utter astonishment.  Each to the other must seem a peculiar specimen of alien life, and yet something makes it all but impossible for their eyes to part.

A quick sniff, a tightening lip, the patron returns to his partner at tea, and resumes his conversation.  It is all so very lovely, really it is. He hopes it will remain like this always, always.

.SISTE VIATOR by Robert Klein Engler

Summer by Lake Michigan goes by so fast.
So many bodies on the sand in afternoon naps,
as if the grave were just a fable from the past.
Above the beach, gulls ride, their eye on scraps.

Robert Klein Engler is a Chicago area poet and writer who sometimes lives in New Orleans. Links to his recent publications are below:

SHIRTS OF FLAME:
http://www.bigcitylit.com/bigcitylit.php?inc=spring2011/articles/engler
POEMS IN DEAD MULE:
http://www.deadmule.com/poetry/2011/03/robert-klein-engler-six-poems/

Poems by Barry Frauman

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.

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.

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/.