Extraits

Chapter One Poem for Matthew Shepard * * * Jaime Manrique In the final moments when the station wagon pulled away, I shivered and was thankful to feel something. Blood glued my eyes. I thought: the last thing I want to remember is not the look of hatred in their eyes. I breathed in the smell of the grass that grew before winter set in; I heard the song of nocturnal birds. In my mind's eye I saw shooting stars the waning harvest moon the light of dawn. The wind swept over the plain yanking the matorral, a coyote howled-- perhaps a wolf ... a field mouse scurried in the dark. Later, I imagined the birds lifting off after the planets, rising in the silvery skies. As the warmth of day neared I didn't dare hope I'd be rescued. Then my soul began its upward ascent a sigh traveling to the arms of God where I'd find a peace I'd never known on earth. Taxicabs * * * Eileen Myles Jonathan's back from the country of Tod and I'm back too. You get out of work on Irving Place, I mean everyone at dusk in this long pause and then the green eye an old game board of lurches and howls I should be so secure while I'm riding I am. We deliver Coors He's dead. Matthew Shepard's simply gone little scarecrow with his scarecrow desire left us here to sing his song. In the moments before dawn, Matthew hears a coyote cry * * * Michael Lassell Is that a coyote call? It must be late. If I could see, I'd lift my head, but the blood has frozen my eyes shut. The sound always frightened me before, the wild yelp that marries a cry before its dying fall. Tonight I find it more like a song than a howl. It won't be long. I'll never last our here where Aaron and Russell beat me for loving men. The coyotes know I'm going to die and when. They seem to care. They know that presence is comforting; you isolate to make a kill. Still, I, too, made the usual human mistake: full of anger or sadness, maybe hate, I slandered them, more for being outcast than for their reasonable appetite. I should have loved their bark, my canine sisters, brothers ... twins. The snow is so white except for the red. And the black tracks that break into a run before disappearing into the dark. Once again, the predator wins by might. I'll never be kissed or held close to a heartbeat. True carnivores hunt on two feet and carry a fang in each fist. What really kills is not the difference between you and me, but the difference between what a man is and who he is told he ought to be by people who profit from lies. Lies. The bludgeon, like the Bible, is only a prop. Someday they'll be caught and brought to justice. Perhaps I'll be missed. I want to be. Is it the alpha female calling the charges in her pack?-- Afraid the men have done to them what they have done to me: roped me to a fence and left me alone to die? Nothing in nature would believe why even if we had the language to explain our sins or the will to atone. I wish I could answer back. She seems so overwrought, as if she needs relief. At least I'm part of something here, an icy moment before dawn. Soon the sun will rise and I can sleep. I hope they find me alive-- I've already been devoured by those who feast on grief, and my mother, weeping, will want at least to touch the thing that was her son. I wish she didn't need to see what the lies have done. If only the pain would stop, I could die in peace. If only the lies would stop, we could live there, too. 2 January 1999 NO TEARS FOR QUEERS / NO FAGS IN HEAVEN * * * Dean Kostos The speakers throbbed with red music.          He will fill your mouth with laughter,          and your lips with shouts of joy. "What do you want? Where can we take you?"          He did not create a chaos . They gunned the engine, wind whipped black as they sped,          And ask for the ancient paths where          the good way lies, and walk in it... passing corn and wheat and barley fields to a threshing floor: fists pummeled his frame, fists hammered a pistol butt into his skull, jeers stabbed the icy air, his face collapsing on their rage.           O prosper the works of your hands . Arms roped cruciform to a rail, legs, spread-eagled, he torqued, fell limp. While the pupil-dark sky loomed in witness, the light of his body dimmed.           And all of us, with unveiled eyes, seeing           the glory of the Lord           as though reflected in a mirror           are being transformed into the same image... Breath wheezed through swollen nostrils and lips, all identity crushed but his name.           Protect them, O Lord, in your name .... The title refers to slogans carried outside the church where Matthew Shepard's funeral service was held. WASTE NOT * * * Joan Larkin We're using every bit of your death. We're making a vise of your mouth's clenching and loosening, an engine of your labored breathing, a furnace of your wide-open eyes. We've reduced you to stock, fed you to the crowd, banked the pearl of your last anger, stored the honey of your last smile. Nothing's left in your mirror, nothing's floating on your high ceiling. We're combing pockets, turning sleeves, shaking out bone and ash, stripping you down to desire. Your beloved has folded your house into his-- I'm wading the swift river, balancing on stones. ELEGY FOR ST. MATTHEW SHEPARD * * * Harold Norse     (1976-1998, martyred by criminal bigots blinded by hate) Matthew, dear brother, sweet kid, a slip of a lad, 5'2", effeminate youth,   your parents loved you and knew you were gay and were born that way    like children all over the world in all countries, all times, barely visible     in a child though predestined in puberty. Jesus never condemned you.      But the Church hasn't heard the Good News: love is no crime. It's a force      of attraction beyond choice or will. For this you were killed, lashed       to a fence like a scarecrow, stripped, savagely beaten and left to die. Crucified like Jesus who also looked like a scarecrow nailed to a cross, who   most likely was not blue-eyed and pink-skinned with Breck-shampooed hair,    who was also perhaps 5'2"--but awesome and wondrously gentle and holy.     Jesus Christ didn't wear a white collar, preach sermons for hate crimes      of violence versus the innocent. Perhaps he was always high on the       mindblowing sacred mushroom in his saintly Essene youth. He did        not get uptight about sex. He preached charity, decency, love. A poor Jew born in a manger, a stable on the outskirts of Bethlehem, he taught   that each life was sacred, more precious than gold; and although he may have    had dirty feet, long hair, hippie sandals, he made the ultimate sacrifice for     his merciful teachings that conquered the pagan religion of Rome. O false     Christians, you do not love Jesus, you love to exploit him, to sell him      for profit, get rich in his name. "No queers or dykes welcome in church!"       You laugh and you mock as you murder Jesus, Matthew and Dr. King. Copyright © 1999 Scott Gibson. All rights reserved.