For Those Who Remain Silent

I Held the Coats

Pelted with stones, ragged and worn, bleeding and crying

Stephen looked to heaven, pleading to God

A merciful rock struck his head

“I think he’s dead,” someone said.

The men, soaked in sweat, glowed with righteous pride

Satisfied one of those blasphemers died

Saul was happy his hands remained unstained with blood

He’d only held their coats and watched

The man lying on the ground, dying for what he believed

What had they achieved, justice?

Only God would know

                    ~

Michael glared at Monty

Nose flared, lips curled with disdain

“You’re a fag,” Michael said.

“You don’t belong here, queer.”

A crowd gathered

A chant rose among the voices

“You don’t belong here, queer!

You don’t belong here, queer!”

I was there, standing next to my locker

Holding my coat

I knew Monty from drama class

He had talent, expressive and cool

Now, only a fool would be his friend

I could’ve shouted Michael down, yell he was a liar

But I just stood there, aware of the tears welling in Monty’s eyes

Red cheeks betraying his stoic disguise

He had to walk down that hall

Every day for the next two years

I didn’t chant the words or yell a slur

But I’m sure I bear the guilt of persecution

Because –

I held my coat and stood idly by

                    ~           

I was in the Army

Basic training at Ft. Benning, Georgia

There was a guy in my platoon

His name was Fleer

Soft spoken, articulate, generous and helpful

I wondered why he wanted to be in the Infantry

The word got around fast

“Fleer is a queer”

Even the Drill Sergeant uttered his name with distaste

Suspicion about him came to a crest

Before we marched to bivouac, they gave him two shelter halves

He had to be in a tent by himself

Odd man out

Drill Sergeant threw me another half, also

I cursed the added weight, the extra item

I had to cram into an already crowded rucksack

I knew I could’ve lightened my load, lightened Fleer’s as well

If I could’ve said, “What the hell,”

Volunteer to be his buddy

I didn’t say a word

I hoisted my ruck, bent over from the load

Fleer’s face told me he carried a burden heavier than mine

I could’ve been a friend to Fleer

But people would’ve thought I was queer

He didn’t make it

Dropped out the next week

Rumor was, he told the company commander

He was a homosexual

Everybody laughed

I didn’t gossip or go along with their views

I didn’t say anything

But I do bear the guilt

I held the coats

                    ~

After work one night police officers gathered for “choir practice”

On the roof of the old Wonder Bread building downtown

Drinking beer, laughing, unwinding

We were having a good time

Somebody assessed the turnout

Impressed, he said, “We all made it, all but one.”

“Ah shit,” came another drunken slur. “He don’t count.”

A third voice broke into the fray, harmonized with the other two

“He’s so sensitive,” he said, limp wrist and lisp

The crowd, aroused, soon took up the tune

They crooned, “He’s not one of us.”

They sang their diatribes, voices corrupted to cries

Spreading the lie that fags deserve to die  

I tried to smile, pretended to laugh

Just playing along, I didn’t sing their song

I knew Joe’s reputation was damaged by this

A voice of reason could’ve reversed the sting

But I couldn’t sing on Joe’s behalf

I remained silent

I held the coats

                    ~

Now, I stand here, labeled as queer

I walk my own gauntlets, now

I know I’m a hypocrite when I ask you to speak in my behalf

If you should hear people cursing my life

Throw down those coats, don’t stand idly by

Say something, take action

Someday you may know the pain of persecution

The price of cowardice

When intervention can shift their attention

Away from you

The Struggle of being Queer and Christian

Be Not Afraid 

Oh God, I want to be so good

I want to be a vision of purity

But you see, God, I’m afraid you won’t come near

Because the world would call me queer

If they knew the secret I’m holding deep down inside

I try to abide, God

I try to compensate for the hole I feel

Deep in my soul

I try to walk on water, Dear God

Because I want to be perfect

I want to do all the right things

God, I work hard

I stay clean

I brush my teeth and fix my hair

I try always to be pleasant

Offering an ever-present smile

I do what’s expected of me

I try to walk on water, Dear God…

I sing for you, God, in the choir

Lifting my voice higher and higher

Hoping my songs are twice as nice as ordinary prayers

My voice especially pure

Penetrating the heavens to reach your very own ears

So you can hear my pleading

Wipe my tears, calm my fears

By providing relief, fortifying my belief

With an answered prayer

God, I don’t want to be queer!

I’m trying to walk on water, Dear God…

I volunteer for you, God

I joined the Salvation Army, and I ring a bell

Is it true what people say

Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings?

Well, I’m ringing my bell

Trying to avoid the smoldering smell of hell

I’m ringing my bell for you, God

Like a fire alarm

I am trying to walk on water, Dear God…

I got married, God

Oh God, I got married

Because I wanted to prove my fidelity

You know, one flesh, one spirit

Not necessarily for eternity

But merely, Until Death Do Us Part

But the days of my life

A daze, bedazzled and confused

I really thought I could be happy, God

But I felt the squeeze of truth

The pressure, cramping, contracting

Giving birth

Pushing me, forcing me to come out

Now dear God, I must confess

I Am Queer

And I don’t feel blessed

I can no longer contain this stain of blame

It won’t go away

I am trying to walk on water, Dear God…

I’ve set my feet on a stormy sea of uncertainty

I can manage a step, maybe another

But then I shudder

A wave of rebuke rises high

To crush me

I cringe and fall

Sinking into a vortex of doubt

Paralyzed by fear

I am drowning, Dear God

They say your life flashes before your eyes

When you’re about to die

And I see it

The lie

The life I planned before I could understand my own truth

This pious little life I tried to live

Gone

So God

How do I hold on to faith?

How do I find courage?

How can I be a person of integrity when no one will believe me?

Even though I finally told the truth

I’m sinking into the deep darkness, Dear God…

Into the deep, cold blue

Nothing left to hold on to

Lord Save Me!

Miracles happen every day, I believe

And now I can see how God has blessed me

Like when God commanded the land to rise up
Out of the waters of chaos

God extended a hand toward me

Saved me from drowning in sorrow

Gave me hope for tomorrow

With three simple words

Be Not Afraid!

Suddenly I gained buoyancy

I began to rise

I still can’t walk on water, Dear God…

But I’m learning how to swim

I’m treading water

Holding my head up, looking forward in faith

I can see the mist evaporate in

The brilliant light of the Son

I got a glimpse of the Promised Land

A place of dignity and respect, equality and love

But the waves keep coming, Dear God…

I’m learning to go with the flow

Riding them high and low

And though I may not always be able to see

The promise of eternity

I can still breathe 

That’s enough for me to know

I Am Still Alive

And, with your help, God

I Will Survive

Be Not Afraid

Sex and Sex

Our Big Gayborhood

Disinherited

 

Today, I was disinherited by a Kiowa man on my beat who I've arrested time and again for public drunkenness. Last year I encountered my friend passed out in one of the alleys off SW 25th and Walker in Oklahoma City. It was the morning after a drastic weather change in early December. And if you know Oklahoma, you know temps can drop from the mid sixties to below twenty in the space of an hour or two. He got drunk the night before when it was still fairly warm, passed out in the alley, and was freezing to death when I found him. I called an ambulance, and they tried to revive him, told me he might die. They loaded him up and went code-3 to the nearest hospital.

I didn't see him for a few weeks after that, had assumed he died, but one morning after New Years, I saw him walking a dog down the street, a dirty yellow stray with bitten ears and a mangy coat. He grinned at me, thanked me for saving his life and told me he put me in his will. He told me he had a lot of money because his tribe built a casino on his land near Anadarko. He boasted that I'd be "shitting in some tall cotton" if I treated him right.

Needless to say, I had to deal with him officially today. He had several warrants and was very drunk. I took him to the Oklahoma City Marshall's office. He was very angry, yelling at me the whole way. He chanted a song and called me "Atunga" which he said meant the "Other Side."

Without Love, A Sociopathic Society

Our Big Gayborhood

Over Three Times the Legal Limit

I arrest a lot of public drunks, everything from weekend revelers to daily derelicts. This morning I arrested a guy on SW 25th street in South Oklahoma City. He had soiled clothes, was unshaven, and reeking of Listerine (the drink of choice among my regulars).

Nothing unusual happened. He was fairly happy and easy to handle. I took him to Detox where he blew a .245 on the handheld breathalyzer they use during the book-in process. Over three times the legal limit, .08 in Oklahoma, and yet he was relatively stable on his feet. He kept insisting he wasn't drunk, that he'd slept it off from last night. The drunker they are, the more they insist they're not intoxicated.

Tomorrow, I'll patrol the alleys on my beat like I always do, and I'll probably find the same guy, take him back to Detox and start the cycle all over again. He'll ask for beans and bread, fall into bed and dream of scoring a bottle of real liquor, the good stuff, Kentucky Deluxe.

Drano - A Short Story

The Legendary

One of my Slam Poetry Pieces

Restroom Politics 

I’m tired of making a political statement every time I have to use the restroom

Ladies and Gentlemen

Men and Women

Boys and Girls

I stand before you, living proof
Biology may not be destiny

Gender is not a binary

We are not as simple as it looks

Life is a spectrum

A prism of perspective

Like a rainbow

Good-Evil

Wrong-Right

Day-Night

Black-White

Male-Female

They are not the binaries they appear to be

If right and wrong were so obvious

Why do we have so many lawyers?

Okay, a day –

Begins with darkness

Twilight

Dawn

Morning

The AM changes to PM

Marches through the afternoon

Sunset

Dusk
When the evening beckons the night
In the failing light

Blue blushes pink
Deepens to purple and fades to black

The swirling stars

Twirling in the sky

The moon – full, half, quarter, new

There is no stark change from day to night and back again

Day and night are not binary

They are diversity

And so am I

Yet, every time I stand before restroom doors

I have to hesitate

When all I want to do is defecate

Trembling with trepidation

So, you know how I go?

Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

In which restroom should I go?

Kind of reminds me of Jim Crow, you know?

Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

My mother told me to pick the very best one

And this one is it…
Oh shit, here I go

You know, sometimes civil rights movements start in restrooms

Peace

Equality

Diversity

For you, and for me

Dirty Laundry - A Short Story

DiddleDog

We Don't Get Out of this Alive

I checked an abandoned building, an old hotel in the Capitol Hill district on the south side of Oklahoma City, the other day. I didn't find any transient squatters residing in the maze of rooms, but I did find dozens of dead pigeons.

It made me think of bodies and spirits, souls entombed in flesh like wandering birds looking to roost in a warm place only to find themselves trapped inside an old building, if only for awhile.

A Woman Called Dad

Our Big Gayborhood

The Hubris of a Writer

When I visit a book store, I see hundreds, thousands of books filled with millions, perhaps billions of words, and  I feel like I can write something unique, something notable, something people will remember.
Such hubris.
But, I can't stop. Compelled by passion, deluded with hope, no matter what I do. I must put pen to paper, grope for home on the keyboard and make more words: essays, stories, and (if I work really hard) poetry.
Here's something for the ages, I think, but likely, it's a momentary burst of creativity, a minuscule, microscopic speck of insight, flashing for a millisecond, then gone.

Miss Paula Sophia

http://vimeo.com/6818565

Courage, Flex It Like a Muscle

Our Big Gayborhood

Three Feet Deep - A Short Story

Girls with Insurance, GwI Webzine

Stained Glass

I guess I'd be a good Catholic, at least when it comes to confession. I have a confessing spirit, but I'm not satisfied confessing to a priest in a shadowy booth, masked by curtains, an obscuring screen. I want to be transparent.

That's not to say I'd like to be invisible. There is a difference.

The invisible are ignored, neglected, illegitimate. The invisible inhabit a world of shadows, deception, and obscurity. Sometimes they like the dark, but often, they just hide there afraid of discovery, afraid to stand in the light of scrutiny.

The transparent let the light flow through them, and by doing so, they help illuminate the path for others. Of course, the light gets altered by culture and history, identity and perspective, contorted and changed by movement and distance, but the light shines through them nonetheless.

I like to think of humanity as a grand mosaic of stained glass offering the many colors of truth. Here, I offer my own sliver of experience, hoping to contribute to something that adds to the greater light of being.