by Gregg Rowe
This dis-ease rummages through
the body of my soul
cosmetic companies
like Mary Kay
now design make-up for men
I am a regular at Cabaret L’Entre Peau
and watch
Miss Behavin’
impersonate Vicky Richard
who used to impersonate
Marilyn Monroe
before this dis-ease
claimed his/her life.
Queens look better
than my ex-girlfriends
It’s no longer make-up
just for Montréal drag queens
Everyday men stand in front of mirrors,
build layers of foundation
upon their faces
to hide the
Kaposi's sarcoma—black and blue
penny, dime, quarter - sized dots
their complexions
like light brown freckles
Sex for them,
for us,
for me
is limited.
Alternative to one-on-one :
Celluloid images
of men with men
flash on a screen
in a dark theatre
Shadows of left and right hands
dance on the side walls
Moans and groans
drown out the video
A shadow juts forward
to spew stained sperm
onto an already soiled floor
MUC police arrive,
burst through the theatre door
flash flashlights
angelic lights
blind me into forgiveness
and he is caught on his knees
my fantasy fades
from my eyes
as he is arrested
On Mont Royal
he swings from a
green birch branch
naked
sticky liquid dried
between his thighs
jeans and plaid
lumber-jack shirt
carelessly thrown on the forest floor
Discovered by a 10 year old
Afro boy
who got lost during
the Sunday tam-tam
MUC police chase everyone away
I had been thinking of going there
the night before
Author notes
Written May 10th, 2004
In a list
- HIV and AIDS • next in list
- Gregg's Silver Cups • next in list
- Gregg's Bronze Cups • next in list
- Pop Culture • next in list
A contest entry
- How Dark Are Your Dreams? by RobertZirschky.
300 points, ended March 29, 2005, 22 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - As Logic Stands You Couldn't Meet A Man Who's From The Future by Be My Rushmore.
350 points, ended December 11, 2006, 4 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 21 of 21
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Wow this is really good, very interesting and I'm a Shakespeare fan so I liked it a lot! Thanks so much for entering my contest! Best of luck to you in it,
Hannah -
good stuff! i love this!
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I loved this piece so much.
The use of dis-ease was a very nice touch.
But most of all I liked the style of writing and the subject matter. I was a little shaky about this when I saw the title because I never really liked Hamlet but...I was truly amazed by this.
It is slightly disgusting with the sperm and all that but I thought it was very necessary for it to be written that way and it also fits the kind of tastes I have.
Hopelessness definently runs strong.
Don't know what else to say
Great work -
Dark, sordid cynical. Difficult to relate to the 'regional' references at first, but a universal message.
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A very informative piece. Something I don't think about much, because I don't know anybody in this situation anymore. Your words will haunt me for some time. Thank you for teaching me something.
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Urgh! You make such a great point. They are trying to turn men into women with their "bronzer" as they like to call it. What a disgrace indeed. Look what the powers that be have gotten us into.
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Now this one has more chill than the other entry. The hopelessness sure is surmounting in every word...
Hmmmm... *ponder* Let's see how this will fair
Thank you for entering, Gregg,
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Excellent
It strikes me as such a cruel world when they can turn their backs on the plight of people in their own countries
My son is gay and I would be lying if I said I didnt worry about him, but he was born with common sense. These things do happen oh so often,this was beautifully written, thank you for sharing
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This was an interesting read....written with great passion...and well thought out...however i find it a bit hard to fully relate too considering i live in Australia...and although similar things happen here...it is rare to hear about it...thank you for entering my contest...and good luck
dark search -
I loved certain images, like "the body of my soul" which just about sums up humanity's long standing and almost silly body/soul issue. And "dis-ease" was brilliant - I love when I get to look at words as if they're fresh, as if I'm an immigrant to the language, and I can understand a little of its new and miraculous order.
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Everytime I read your stuff.....I am amazed. The photo in this makes the whole thing eerie. Cheryl
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hon im sensing a real darkness about you lately, are you ok? sigh it is a shame, or a blessing you can talk this beautifully about something so increadibly horrid, i will never understand this type of intollerance. maybe one day i will tell you how a church treated the child of a friend of my mothers, he received tainted blood at three days old and lived to be 11 anthony was an increadible child. and changed my mothers way of thinking when it came to aids.
bless you as always... -
excellent musings on the emptiness, the desolation that sometimes inhabits the pot at the end of the rainbow.
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Amazing, This is one of those poems that you read and just..when your done.. It leaves you speechless. Wonderful!
~Catherine~ -
OMG this is a very exquistie poem! I love this one I have read some of your earlier but this is by far a fav
~RaeLynn~ -
Yeah, usually it won't be until a committee is set up, because with a committee you can have loybists, which will effect mayoral votes, and police commisioner votes. Luckily Toronto is very liberal, and homosexuals don't have to be afraid (or at least not as afraid) to walk down the street, but we have a large problem with gang violence, but instead of the the police and municpal government turing their attention to the real issue of why it's happening (poor education, poverty, drugs, the easy accessability of firearms), they blame it on the immigrants trying to make a living.
It's a shame. Everyone needs to just wake up. -
Well written, Gregg. I was caught up in the raw grit of this. I liked the Dis-ease...frother than disease, it say the same and more. "flash flashlights agelic" "lights blind me..." is how it came out when i read this out loud...i know its sposed to be "aloud"...but this shouts OUT LOUD these things are wrong. Blessings, ~richard
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August 2003, I have every case of gay-bashing documented in the gay community since 1985 and at one point we had a serial killer in the community. Police did sweet fuck all until we set up a committee called Gays Against Poilce Brutality (think ACT-UP, it's the same people anyways who formed it. Now we have rebuilt the community and the relations between the police department and ourselves, although some still slip through the cracks, but we have made advancements. This is just one example of slipping between the cracks.
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That's crazy. How long ago did this happen? I live in Toronto, and for some reason Montreal isn't very important to our media. Either the focus is on us, ottawa, or some random east cost village fishing community. They never focus on the real problems.
I know what you mean about just going along for the ride. That's what happens with me most of the time. I'll have the first couple of lines planend out, and I usualy just freestyle the rest, and fix up the mistakes and formatting at the end. I like it better that way. It sounds less manufacutred. -
Professionally means I get paid for my writings, right. If yes, then I have to say no, I don't get reimbursed in monetary value for these writes, what I do get is a release of the demons that the world is full of when I do pen them.
It's difficult to see the end of the poem for me until I get there, I just go for the ride and see where it takes me. This is a true story of a man who was caught in a porno theatre and arrested by the police. He disappeared and two days later they discovered his body on Mont Royal after being gang raped (the area where he was discovered is a gay-cruising area at night and gay-bashers go there to beat the shit out of gays). Except it went to far this night. The body was discovered by a 10-year old boy who got lost from his parents during a Sunday tam-tam session on Mont Royal.
Edited on May 10, 10:49 because ''. -
OMG. I'm glad I get to comment first. First off, I just want to ask, do you write professionally? This is a fantastic piece of work, and out of the three I've read of yours this morning, this is by far my favourite. There are so many little idiosyncracies in this that just make me giddy (not because their connotations are giddyful, it's just the vocabulary and syntax). Yeah, so don't change anything. I'm in awe.
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