If he asks about me, trace on the ground a cross of silence and ashes over the impure name that afflicts me. If he asks about me, say that I have died and that I am decaying beneath the ants. Tell him that I am a branch of an orange tree, the simple weather vane [...]
Categories: Uncategorized,gay,imagined histories,photography,poem,word
Tagged: bathtub, Emilio Ballagas, gay, man, vintage photo
What I had wanted was to be chaste, sober and uncomfortable for a sprawling episode on a beach somewhere dirty, perennially out of fashion; let the smell of cocoa butter drive deep memory wild as the sun goes down through a bottle of pop some kid half-left to turn warm in the sand. The train [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,poem
Tagged: August Kleinzahler, vintage photo
Susan Boyle’s graceful, prepossessing rendition of the Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses just hit the airwaves. Here, I’ve matched it up with a 1930′s photo of a man who, in my mind, won’t leave his lover, despite everything. Click to listen: [Audio clip: view full post to listen] I watched you suffer a dull aching pain [...]
Categories: imagined histories,music,photography,word
Tagged: America's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent, horseback, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones, Susan Boyle, vintage photo, Wild Horses
It’s been hot, Also very sweet. And I’m not usually indiscreet. But when he sparkles, The earth begins to sway. What more can I say? How can I express How confused am I by our happiness? I can’t eat breakfast, I cannot tie my shoe. What more can I do? If I said I love [...]
Categories: Uncategorized,gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Falsettoland, gay, vintage male affection, vintage photo, William Finn
I have a love, and it’s all that I have. Right or wrong, what else can I do? I love him; I’m his, And everything he is I am, too. I have a love, and it’s all that I need, Right or wrong, and he needs me, too. I love him, we’re one; There’s nothing [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Stephen Sondheim, vintage male affection, vintage photo, West Side Story
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet. But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,poem
Tagged: gay, vintage male affection, vintage photo, Yeats
I only met one other homosexual in the army. That was in Le Havre in 1917. We was on the boat coming home. I don’t know how these things work, whether it’s through conversation, or whether it’s the attitude of the individual concerned, but we seemed to come together, see. All of a sudden his [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: gay history, male affection, vintage photo
I do not know if they talked or went to bed together on that first night. For a long time they just held each other out there under the stars. And people say they noticed how tightly O was holding Boy, pulling him closer and closer to him, as if he was clutching at him, [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,word
Tagged: Neil Bartlett, Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall, vintage male affection, vintage photo
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,poem
Tagged: gay marriage, maya angelou, paper moon, vintage photo
We don’t cry — Tim and I, We are far too grand – But we bolt the door tight To prevent a friend – Then we hide our brave face Deep in our hand – Not to cry — Tim and I – We are far too grand – Nor to dream — he and [...]
Categories: gay,imagined histories,photography,poem
Tagged: Emily Dickinson, male affection, vintage photo
