Kansas Gothic Intelligentsia

KANSAS GOTHIC INTELLIGENTSIA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6piI5-Is0so&list=PL54E6FCC882BE1B32&index=33

—for Connie, Roberta, Theresa,  
Jan and Kenton
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We’ve all been tainted by it—
America Gothic deep inside us

There’s no such thing as the—
FLY OVER STATE aesthetic
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It’s deep inside us & it’s not—
gonna budge or go anywhere

Just look at this lovely photo—
such exquisite young naivete
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Dearest Connie and Theresa—
lovely Roberta and gone Jan

The intelligentsia, my dears—
such young Emporia literati
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Elsie Pine took one look at me—
told me to come back to her

From then on we talked—
tea time there in her home
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She was the Grande Dame—
the true Librarian Goddess

Long before the Eisenhower—
William Allen White Library
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She gathered her coterie—
young Kansas writers together

I was unique though—
I came to her with credentials
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Talented lesbians sensed that—
I was quite capable of knowing

Mildred Kaff and her lover—
Vina Hillerman the Artist
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They knew my mother—
Amy Jane was their student

And suddenly I popped up—
totally unexpected by them
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The Lesbos goddesses—
sailing by high overhead

Here is our gift to you—
this nelly prairie boy
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Help him to be who he’ll be—
it will be difficult for him

We’ve chosen his home—
Athens of the Midwest town
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Let him to be the Voice—
of summer cicada evenings

The boy of Peter Pan Park—
the kid who Mary White was
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WAW laid the groundwork—
the Park, the Lake, the Muse

And so the Voice came—
all the way from Kensington Park
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The wrestling team knew it too—
as we worked out after school

Down by Peter Pan Lake—
there on the mats after school
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Arnold Lopez in YMCA showers—
knowing all too well who I was 

Shoving my face against the wall—
a bar of soap stuck up my ass
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Knowing me better than—
I could possibly know myself

There in the moody YMCA—
I became who I am
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Later Marjorie Sullivan sensed it—
Jaquith and Doxtator knew it too

They knew I was different—
But what could they possibly do?
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How could they know—
I still don’t know who I am

What do I know about Kansas—
other than it’s MYSTERIOUS
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MYSTERIOUS SKIN—
like Scott Heim says

But then what do I know—
am I gay Kansas poet laureate?
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