Gay American Gothic

GAY AMERICAN GOTHIC

“We didn’t need 

dialogue. We had faces.”

—Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard

The lovely Kansas couple—

Posing for the gay painter

Grant Wood recently

The older gentleman farmer—

In his bib overalls stoically

Holding his hayfork

He’s the RFD sugar daddy—

Standing there with his young

Gay nelly farmwife partner

The New Depression’s here—

Foreclosures are dime a dozen

Way out here on the Great Plains

A couple of Fly Over State fags—

Posing with down-to-earth dignity

Silently staring at nothing

Ghosting Collages

Laurie Hoffman, “Red”

GHOSTING COLLAGES

Very nice. Tres spooky. Coming or going? What a mood you must have been in. "Red" is like the other collage with the boy on the bridge. Your collage ghosting almost makes me want to do a story about it. But then, you could probably tell a much more interesting story about the haunting picture than I could. 

Laurie Hoffman, “Boy on a Bridge”

I got into the Red Riding Hood fairy tale thing through a kind of circuitous route. My online astrologer is psychic I think. http://kristo.com/ 

Actually, I'm pretty sure of it. He’s uncanny… but also I've noticed his coincidences and synchronicities help my intuition to grow in ways I never quite anticipated...

He's a Jungian astrologer into dream analysis, fairy tales, intuition. He did a couple of horoscopes for me and CD disks that pretty much predicted my 2009 open heart surgery episode. His daily horoscope page is synchronistic with his intuitive insights right into my "now." He's not updating right now because he's working on a grant for a book on his Astrology Theory. He's an M.D. in Chicago. 

Anyway, his read on fairy tales and dream interpretation appealed to me & still does. He stresses "intuition" and how to develop your own intuition via synchronicity, coincidences, etc. 

Making the Red Riding Hood fairy tale 'relevant' to my life (growing up in Kansas), the Red connection goes into this poem "Telemachus" giving my parent's divorce a Greek-Fairy Tale twist... 

http://www.snarke.com/2013/10/telemachus.html

It's about the way I felt back then when my father returned from Korea in 1954, found out his wife wanted a divorce & didn't want to take us all back to Japan where he had an assignment as a military attache in Tokyo. 

It wasn't a pleasant divorce. Me and my 2 brothers got whisked away from Emporia and dumped up in Republic County in Belleville where my father's parents lived. My stark lonely memory of being stuck out there on the High Plains prairie not knowing what was going on...  

It had a bizarre nightmare fairy tale twist to it that encapsulated the Red Riding Hood fairy tale. Kinda. Off to Grandmother's farm. Kidnapped by the Big Bad Wolf in his sportscar. Stuck out there in the middle of Nowhereville. In the middle of winter. Nothing but snow and endless flat Kansas prairie. It was just awful.....

I'll probably never go back to the Midwest... but still my Kansas bildungsroman will probably never leave me either. A kind of reverse Thomas Wolfe "Look Homeward, Angel" trope... with the exception being one can never go back home again... but also one can never 'leave' home either. I'm stuck with growing up back there. A sort of sweet-and-sour sauce predicament... :-)

Jungian fairy tale analysis with archetypal interpretation is interesting. My lifestyle back then... Even tho difficult, I can still imagine a gay doppelganger double of me still living back there. 

Ending up a gay librarian or high school English teacher and pretty much a Homonormative recluse like me now. Maybe not a gay published poet... but still back there in that little college town. A couple of blocks from the KSTC campus. Weird, huh?   

Telemachus

Telemachus

“Oh Pallas Athena—

my goddess guide!"

—Francois de Salignac

de La Mothe-Fenelon

Les Adventures de Telemaque

________________

After beating her up—

My so-called Odysseus

Distraught father didn’t

Know what to do

Back from Korea—

His wife wanting a

Divorce, his honor

Lost and his family

_____________________

So he dumped us—

All in his Corvette

And sped to his

Parents place

Young F-86 pilot—

Not knowing what to do

Except dump us three

Boys and then what?

_____________________

Adultery is nothing new—

How many Odysseus men

Have gone thru the same

Thing as war-torn husbands

Homer does his hero-trip—

Whether Iliad or Odyssey

The blind poet telling his

Classic story for whoever

________________________

I was too young to be—

Telemachus only in the

Fourth grade and there

Wasn’t any Pallas Athena

There’s nothing more—

Spectral and incredibly lonely

As an evening in the high plains

Of Kansas with no parents…

________________________

The Prairie leaned down us—

I couldn’t sleep I couldn’t think

I couldn’t do anything except

Exist in the lost RFD moment…

There was nothing to recover—

My boyhood was over and I

Didn’t exist anymore other than

Pretending night was day

________________________

I challenged myself—

In the only way I knew how and

That was my own journey into

The darkness that he went thru

The Nothingness of Exile—

From one generation to the next

Marriage after marriage failures

With or without Trojan Wars

Prairie Queer Fiction

PRAIRIE QUEER FICTION

 _______________

PRAIRIE QUEER FICTION

“Might it not be that all the

people we know are only

what we imagine them to be?”

—Sherwood Anderson, A Writer’s

Conception of Realism

____________

It seems like a—

FICTION to me now

The Fly Over State

Here I am—

Out here on the

Pacific West Coast

________________

Going thru photos—

Old scrapbooks and

Prairie memorabilia

Did I actually—

Live way back there

In the Kansas Midwest?

 

QUEER RFD

“For Theodore Roosevelt,

rural men and women

represented the very “stay

and strength of the nation

in time of war, and its

guiding and controlling

spirit in time of peace.”

—Colin R. Johnson, Just

Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

________

But not just that—

Rural America provided

Soldiers & fighter pilots

To fill the ranks—

Of all those world wars

And overseas conflicts

________

Going back thru some—

Old photo albums that are

Decaying into Forgetfulness

I came across this pic—

Entitled rather adroitly

“Welcome Home Hero”

__________

Yes, my dears—

There I was with Daddy

And all the relatives

Nobody knew then—

I was a ditzy queen…

Queer RFD incarnate

GROWING UP GAY IN KANSAS

“Queer activists and queer

scholars have little use for

“benevolent toleration” these

days.” — Colin R. Johnson,

Just Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

___________

Things changed though—

Once my nelly faggotry

Became quite apparent

Yes, Daddy Dearest—

Once I told him way

Back then in college

________

He cursed me just—

Simply awful, refusing

To ever talk to me again

To my great dismay—

I had a rather nasty

Nervous breakdown

_________

Becoming the victim—

Of a near fatal bleed

Nasty peptic ulcer

So much for str8t—

Small town Kansas

Homonormativity

RFD QUEER THEORY

“Indeed, many of them

understandably question

how “benevolent” toleration

can ever really be in a

society that is structurally

heteronormative as American

society is.” — Colin R. Johnson,

Just Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

_______________

Actually, my dears—

Growing up in a Midwestern

Small college town wasn’t

That much different than—

Being a fag farmboy out

There in the Kansas sticks

_______________

FFA Boys in their butchy—

Cowboy boots and blue

Corduroy tight jackets

They didn’t much like—

Faggots any better than

Daddy Dearest did

_________

Animal husbandry—

Was totally, completely

Hetero, honey

No fucking around—

At the County Fair &

Gawd NO at the Rodeo!!!

GAY INTOLERANCE

“This is partly because

seeking to be “tolerated”

hardly constitutes a

particularly high bar for

meaningful social

transformation.”

—Colin R. Johnson, Just

Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

_________

For a nelly little queen—

Nothing I did could ever

Justify any kind of tolerance

I suppose if I’d have been—

A flaming queenly queer

High School Cheerleader

__________

Like Jimmy Stevens was—

I could’ve got away with

Lots of hanky-panky stuff

Scoffed at and tolerated—

As just a dizzy nelly fag at

All the basketball games

_____________

Sneered at sarcastically—

As just a Pom-Pom Queen

Nothing but a Circus Clown

Harmless, of course—

Just one of the local girls

Having a funny dishy time

DISHY DÉTENTE

“But it is also because

toleration usually ends

up as strained détente—

a highly compromised

form of “freedom” and

an arrangement that

arguably helps to bolster

the social and political

legitimacy of the dominant

faction.” — Colin R. Johnson,

Just Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

____________

One could become a—

Queer hairdresser, maybe

A queer church organist

Perhaps a gay jewelry—

Store owner specializing

In nice str8t wedding rings

____________

Maybe a nelly pianist—

Mincing about there in the

Local little teacher’s college

But still everybody knew—

Especially all the married

Kiwanis small town members

___________

Mocking the bachelorhood—

Of those that stayed behind

To endure the chastisement

The lucky faggot few—

Who didn’t have to tolerate

Nagging wives and brats

HETERO HAUGHTINESS

“Unfortunately dominant

factions are often

responsible for creating

conditions of intolerance

in the first place.”

—Colin R. Johnson, Just

Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

___________

There was this rather—

Effeminate grocery store

Long-time gay employee

Who had to tolerate—

Once a year the prejudice

And effrontery of Str8ts

___________

At the tacky local—

Emporia Kiwanis Club

Evening get-togethers

A small-town rendition—

Elitist British Men’s Club

Snotty Str8t Snobbery

____________

They’d sing this special—

Song to their one and only

Unmarried Faggot Bachelor

Snarky singing their—

Haughty trashy superior

Homophobic intolerance

CYNICAL QUEERDOM

“Thus, queers who openly

express suspicion about

the notion of “tolerance”

are probably justified.”

—Colin R. Johnson, Just

Queer Folks: Gender and

Sexuality in Rural America

___________

After our gay cheerleader—

Jimmy Stevens died of AIDS

In New York City early on

Yours truly tres realized—

Surely gays were doomed

Whether they escaped from

____________

Small-town tacky Kansas—

Or whether they lived in gay

NYC or San Francisco

So much for gay Tolerance—

Hundreds of thousands of

Gays dropped dead like flies

_______________

Even now with safe sex—

And new anti-viral advances

The Band Still Just Plays On

Big City Gay Liberation—

Wouldn’t it be safer to be

Small town KS closet case?

Welcome To Kansas

WELCOME TO KANSAS

Welcome to Kansas—

The Center of the Universe

The lovely Fly Over State

Please don’t let me—

Delay your important trip

From LA to New York City

Pause a moment though—

To gaze down at Paradise

Our lovely Fly Over State

Way down here where—

Nice Sunflowers bloom &

The Cattle shit on the Prairie

Lovely Emporia

LOVELY EMPORIA 

Who can possibly—

Say that Emporia isn’t

The Athens of the Midwest?

Lawrence has KU—

Manhattan has K-State

And Wichita has nothing

____________

Emporia is surely—

The Jewel of the Vast

Lovely FLY OVER STATE

From the Missouri to—

The Rocky Mountains

Emporia surpasses it all

________

What a lovely Showcase—

There’s nothing else from

Olpe all the way to Allen

Home of the Twinkie—

Iowa Beef Somali Wonderland

Cute Mexican Wetbacks!!!

LOVELY SUNKEN GARDEN

The Sunken Garden—

Gone Norton Hall & the

Glum Plumb Hall

So much History—

As time goes on & on

The obituaries growing

______

How was I to know—

That I’d ever feel so

Nostalgic for it so?

SUMMER AND SMOKE—

Tennessee Williams’ play

Alma by the Fountain

___________

Vernon Sheffield—

Playing Chopin sonatas

There in Plumb Hall

Organist there at the—

Congregational Church

He was my gay lover 

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE LIBRARY 

It was air-conditioned—

Such a nice place for a kid

Such a fag little bookworm

It smelled inside just like—

The ‘50s Eisenhower Era

So calm & postwar moderné

_________

I hid away in the stacks—

Row after row of books

Secluded and safe

Reference Room windows—

Tall like some Temple in

The middle of Nowhere

______

How did Kansas rate—

Such an Oasis there

In the middle of nothing

Straight up Commercial—

From the Santa Fe tracks

To kitschy Twelfth Avenue?

THE LOVELY TEMPLE 

Temples come & go—

And, honey, I should know

I worshiped at this one

I hid away in the Stacks—

Hiding from the world

Keeping to myself

_________

It was my Sanctuary—

A calm air-conditioned

Nice Eisenhower Temple

It even smelled like—

The Fifties back then

In the secluded Stacks

___________

The campus so close-by—

A few blocks from my home

There on Constitution Street

The Stacks so open then—

William Allen White Library

Such a nifty Fifties Temple

Kansas Queen Bee

KANSAS QUEEN BEE

____________________________________

KANSAS QUEEN BEE

KANSAS COCK

STRONG CITY COWBOYS

CHASE COUNTY HUSTLERS

Z-BAR RANCH HANDS

COTTONWOOD FALLS COURTHOUSE

FFA BOYS

QUEER QUARRIES

HOT CHEVY PICKUP DATE

LYON COUNTY FAIR

PETER PAN PARK

THE SUNKEN GARDEN

____________________________

KANSAS QUEEN BEE

There once was a Queen from Kansas—

Who dressed up in drag what madness

She liked young cowboys

From the rodeos

Bowlegged ones especially

KANSAS COCK

There once was a Kansas Cowboy—

Who was quite the handsome Boytoy

He was Bowlegged

So cute when Naked

Driving all the Queens just crazy

STRONG CITY COWBOYS

Strong City cowboys are so cute—

Making all the queens simply mute

Strictly buck-naked

Very bowlegged 

Tall, erect in their cowboy boots

CHASE COUNTY HUSTLERS

Way out there is where you’ll find them—

The prairie so very blue-stem

There in Chase County

Where there’s a Bounty

For all the well-hung cute Studlings

Z-BAR RANCH HANDS

After Smith left the Z-Bar Ranch—

Heading back to Kansas City

The cowboys moved in

Gave the Ranch a spin

Butt-fucking in the big Mansion

COTTONWOOD FALLS COURTHOUSE

The old Cottonwood Falls Courthouse—

Stands tall and proud like an outhouse

So gaunt and gothic

A sexy topic

So pale white, erect & phallic

FFA BOYS

Pointed cowboy boots so tres chic—

Stetson cowboy hats that aren’t meek

FFA boy struts

Tight blue jeans cute butts

Their tight blue corduroy jackets

QUEER QUARRIES

Once upon a time there was slime—

An Inland Sea covered Kansas

After many years

Turning to limestone

Churches, courthouses & fence-posts

HOT CHEVY PICKUP DATE

He waited for me after school—

There in his sleek Chevy pickup

After a six-pack

He banged his head hard

Against his back window’s gun-rack

LYON COUNTY FAIR

He won a nice big Blue Ribbon—

And I tell you I’m not fibbing

For the biggest Hog

In Lyon County

What a big Porker that kid had

PETER PAN PARK

Once upon a time way back then—

I knew this Tinker–Bell Fairy

In the Grape Arbor

That’s where he’d slobber

Getting the guys off

THE SUNKEN GARDEN

It was all so tres romantic—

Love back then so cinematic 

The Sunken Garden

Like “Summer and Smoke”

Getting off hot Earl Holliman