Some Poems for My Friends: . 1. My Wish For You Is to feel the soft roundness of rose petals Without knowing any thorns. To move effortlessly as a butterfly Stretching it's wings for the first time. To age gracefully with rebellion. To know mornings soft as snow And nights bright as moonlit skies. To be amazed with delight At a single blade of grass While frolicking through Forests of deep emerald green. To have uninterruptible joy And happiness too. And to have the courage To be guided by a gentle will. To live fully and love deeply. All things bright and blue. That's my wish for you. . . 2. Meeting Wilbur T. 1977 ( My Life Partner ) Love Love found in an Ohio Student Union Pair of easy chairs Facing each other. Well, I'd seen you a few times in the hall After G.A.A. meetings. You were an artist like me ( "He's an artist like me!" ) And like me too, were painfully shy. "Want to see some slides of my paintings?" "Sure, y- y-yes I would" I managed to whisper. I knew I loved you Loved you already. And there they were, your paintings Bold and bright and beautiful Like "The Bright Bird Of Technology" The little owl bird of orange and blue Fluttering wise and lively Amid technological babble machines. I knew I loved you Loved you already. You had a old army surplus bag, and invited me To learn chess ( which I didn't know ) At Larry's Pub across High Street While Jazz played on the juke box. One afternoon, we walked over to the Olentangy And fed some ducks pretzels with cream cheese. Then laid side by side on the river bank, Gazing curiously at passing clouds Vividly imagining they were UFOs. I knew I loved you Loved you already. . . 3. Coming Out 1974 ( As A Gay Man ) Have you ever tried looking for something You didn't know quite how to find? Like walking over intersections of Tight ropes while chasing clouds That vaporize into moving fog or Trying to catch your breath While running the 50 yard dash Before the finish line? I was coming out I was coming out as a gay man. . So I picked up a copy of The Columbus Free Press And looked under organizations Finding Gay Activist Alliance. "Our meetings are 7:00 pm Thursdays In Ohio Union Ballroom 8." The voice announced over the phone. So off I went to see for myself A room full of gay men. I was coming out I was coming out as a gay man. Afterwards, I attended a party In German Village Not realizing just how much The punch was spiked All the time wondering If I was pretty or perfect enough. Suddenly wishing I had The body of an Olympic athlete And the face of a movie star. I was coming out I was coming out as a gay man. Dennis Richards ( A former disc jockey who was quite obese ) Took me home that evening I recall Tripping up the stairs Before watching The Wizard Of Oz With Dennis Who wore ruby sequined clogs He'd found at a thrift store. As I looked down the hallway At the open closet door mirror Wondering how handsome I'd be with a beard. Extraordinary isn't it? I was coming out I was coming out as a gay man. . . 4. Summers On Westgate Ave. ( 1960s ) Sitting on that overstuffed porch swing At my grandparents house, 197 S. Westgate Watching grandpa roll cigarette papers Blowing smoke rings Into the evening Thickness of sweaty summer firefly air. Watching Mitch Miller's Big band sing alongs On the old living room B&W After skinning my knee on the Hot summer sidewalk that morning. Squinting through afternoons Past the Broad St. railroad tracks Where the Planter's Peanut Man Winked across the parking lot At barbershop poles Swirling red white and blue. Eating crackers with grandpa And gazing at Life magazine Cover pictures of the Vietnam 1960s As the barber buzzes my hair While clippings fall profusely over the chair Onto the green tile floor. . . 5. Thankful ( For Wilbur T. My Life Partner, Age 72. July 4th, 2016 ) I'm thankful for every day I have you in the world with me. Thankful we're talking on the phone right now ( Am I pronouncing my words clearly? ) Thankful for the July 4th cookout we shared At the nursing center yesterday. Thankful you were sitting beside me On the patio filled with old lawn furniture ( Colorfully striped, but faded ) Thankful for the birds who flew overhead And the green shade trees nearby. Thankful I touched your hand As we drank lemonade together Thankful for that tender spark in your eyes. Thankful for the way you held your paper plate ( The way you always hold paper plates, With your glasses falling slightly down your face ) Thankful for the patients' chatter Thankful for the nurses drifting in and out Among the yellow marigolds. Thankful for the friendly, warm summer sky With it's parade of clouds. Most of all, I'm thankful for our memories And all the times we've had together. . . 6. Grandfather ( For Michelangelo ) With your sexuality the same as mine You carved marble obsessively And perfectly. Chiseling your sculptures Against the light. Traversing the inner life of the human figure Portraying man as god In the glory of all his nakedness. Then with paint dripping on your face You looked up at that ceiling for four years. Like some super human colossus Creating a universe While holding up the weight of the world. Yet keeping down to earth As the dust on your shoes. . . 7. Listening To Tchaikovsky's "June" in May A little playful. A hop skip and tumble Tip toe pace. One two One two. I wonder, is June in Russia Like May in America? With bushes bursting forth In bloom? With birds chirping Just to congratulate themselves On their spring nests? Shall we dance under striped awnings With ice cream men who pride themselves In popsicles and Drumsticks? Can you hear the pitter-patter of raindrops Falling on rooftops and awnings? Sweet as a spring sprinkle When the ice cream men are dancing? I hope we won't miss the sunshine Beaming down on cement sidewalks After a cool June evening Of looking for the Milky Way. ' ' 8. My Mother's Eyes ( With Love To Mom, Mother's Day 2016 ) My Mother's Eyes Saw the light at the end of Depression era tunnels of blue. Ran past the heavy old wooden kitchen door Across my grandparent's living room carpet To hear that distinguished radio host From Chicago every evening. Sat next to the dinging room Flowered wallpaper and Waxed fruit bowl at the table. Mixing sounds of cool breezes With screen window silhouettes. Listening to Benny Goodman records Dancing with that old phonograph in her room. With hair cut sensibly short for summer ( bobby pins falling on the floor ). Going off to college at OSU Meeting Dad for dates at Mirror Lake Posing for photographs with elephants At state fair circus tents. Carefully taking everything in When I came out as a gay man In the 1970s. Speaking softly into the clouds With a sky full of memories. Vividly reverberating Through her mind's forever landscape. Enlarging life Until everything became Slightly outrageous. . . 9. Free Is The Sky ( For The Reader ) Colors across the sky Cloud dancing. Bathed in heaven's light. Great is the sky Never-ending Backdrop for earth stories. The ever changing sky. Different each moment Just like a thousand years ago. The sky's an enigma: Close as our tomorrows Distant as yesterday. The sky's free For you and me. Write your name in the sky Make it your own. The sky, the sky Filled with noonday blues. Or majestic golden hues Of every conceivable sunset. Sun or rain That's the sky. There's a rainbow in the sky. Rejoice in the sky. . . 10. Riding The Bus With Joan Crawford . 8 am Tuesday Morning: Camden New Jersey, San Francisco Bound. Getting on the Greyhound Bus With you Joan Crawford. Seeing silhouettes of Severe hair rounded high With no nonsense glamour Of chiseled cheekbones And shoulder pads of Dream factory reinvention. 4 pm Wednesday Afternoon: Rolling through Dayton, Ohio on interstate 70. "Is there enough room in the seat?" I wonder aloud. Wearing my headphones radio As we cross the mighty Missouri With a Kansas City backdrop Of 24 hour laundromats And penny arcade roller derbys. The bus is like a traveling theatrical company The woman one seat back brushes her hair As the boy across the aisle plays a video game. "Can I sit here, little lady?" ( pronounced with a squeaky drawl ) That rancher from Iowa! He had some some nerve, I'll say. And don't forget those newlyweds Who got on in Chicago. 3 pm Thursday Afternoon: Now we're entering Reno, Nevada "The Biggest Little City In The World" Joan, did you know they have slot machines In the powder rooms here? Suddenly we're whizzing past Wyoming And gliding through The garages of Sacramento Dotting the freeways With midnight tire sales In paradise alleys. 1 am Friday Night: The Golden Gate Bridge is beckoning up ahead. There's the city, Joan we've made it! And there's the TRANSamerica Pyramid All lit up, beaming brightly. Are you ready for your close up? Let's take some pictures, where's your camera? Joan, I've been meaning to tell you You're the dearest… Joan? Joan? Now where did she go? . . 11. Digging For China ( 1963 ) Sheets on a clothesline With mom's tumble down wicker wash basket And wooden clothespins. On the white wire fence That I'm striking a stick against. While riding my red tricycle Down Langham Road Over the bumps in the sidewalk To the mailbox and stop sign just beyond. Not really knowing what side of the street I'm on while kicking up dust In the garden Or chasing cabbage butterflies And digging for China. Can you see me? I'm here: tiny, tiny Between the waving sheets In the breeze. With shadows of a small rubber ball Hitting up against the wall. . . 12. Autumn Wrapped in majestic robes Of crisp fall mornings And brightly painted afternoons Before winter's frost finds us And all the world's asleep In it's hushed and quiet sound. Here's a grand chorus Roaring gloriously Through meadow and wood Singing out with great summation Before nights grow long And the good earth Tips her hat To the closing year. . . 13. Making Marks ( For Keith Haring ) There you were Born the same year as me ( 1958 ) NYC by way of Western PA. Filling subways with white chalk Graffiti cave drawings Urban jungle man Of universal symbols. Sleeping with men While talking like a self proclaimed artist Experiencing art universally Finding Dr. Suess in Walt Disney. The world was your laboratory A singular kind of graphic expression Holding your paint brush upside down While drawing dogs and flying saucers. When you passed away from HIV Two days after Valentines Day (1990 ) It was a precious loss of life and art To be experienced and explored. There you were Radiant baby democratic child Making your mark everywhere. . . 14. Alone With Homeless Astronauts Back Alley Astronaut Navigator of narrow streets Eyes fixed on starry skies And the greasy pebbles below. Sleeping on benches Or in doorways Praying to God's Higher intelligence While eating sandwiches From lunch line handouts. Icy cold winters, Blistering hot summers, Or maybe just a cool spring shower. It's "the poverty of being unwanted Unloved and uncared for." Guiding spaceship grocery carts Out of shelters Before the guy on the bottom bunk grumbles And the security guard says He'll throw us both out On the asphalt. No one should be homeless and alone Not in America, not anywhere On Mothership Earth. . . 15. Hearing Ghosts Hushhhhh... Can you hear them? Those ghosts They're having a party Chatting each other up! There's a hoot owl Neath my window And the curtains are alive With wind tonight. Listennnn... Can you hear them? Somewhere in the Silvery moonlit distance There's singing and clapping Going down tonight. Feeling the etheric dance Drifting separately Drifting together Celebrating the night Tonight. . . 16. Red Vinyl Sofa (1965 ) "I think you'll like it" Mom muttered when she Brought home the red vinyl sofa From Lazarus dept. store "Just don't slouch On the couch." A comfortable condition, While watching TV ( Our old B&W TV sat in a nearby corner Of the family room ). Or eating snacks Or riding out the flu. Or a day home from school With a weekend feeling blue. Red vinyl Red vinyl Isn't it fabulous! I bit some off in first grade Then poured orange juice down the side. And my box turtle hibernated Underneath one long winter. Red vinyl family discussions Red vinyl Freudian analyzations. Then there was the time our dachshund Peppy, chewed on one of the cushions So we flipped it to the other side. The day they took that sofa away For a replacement Suddenly, I felt so sad. Like I'd lost an old friend And wondered: "Is there a sofa heaven? Where all the sofas Walk around on their legs And reminisce, or maybe Just have some good ol' pillow fights With the cushions?" . . 17. Love Letter To Lee ( Liberace ) Mad about the boy Through Vegas driven Sunset strips With sunglasses Of palm tree reflections. And child prodigy Piano lessons From The Wisconsin College of Music. Performing with orchestras Playing in movie theaters Endless night club evenings Of radio city rhythms. "He has an effeminate manner, Glittering with sequins" Pop go the classics To Paganini's Variations. "He has attractive hands Which he spotlights properly and, In his dramatically lighted Warm and wonderful ways Is well-presented With a sincerely yours To the audience." Crying all the way to the banks of the Colorado. I'm now imagining driving with you Through western drive-ins In your 1956 Chevy Convertible ( With the top down, naturally ) Into the Mojave Desert. Why Lee! Your wearing A muscle T. And some greasy jeans. And oh, for a moment I mistook you For James Dean. Hey! Wanna watch me while I do Somersaults among these Red rock formations? . . 18. Theo In Tahiti ( Reflections during my time in Groveport, OH.) "Artists are like fish They only shine when they're rotten." . Dear Theo: Here's my letter to you Younger brother and confidant of Vincent. Did you see Vincent painting In nighttime cafes on starry nights And fields of sunflower mornings Through landscapes with cypress trees And wheat fields? Or in rooms filled with self portraits Silent, sensitive and thoughtful? Wrote Vincent : "Gauguin agreed to visit Arles I hoped for friendship, And the realization of his Utopian Idea of an artist's collective All the way from Tahiti. This August I painted sunflowers And Christmas Eve I mutilated part of my ear. In the asylum of Saint Paul I suffered much for my art. Where each morning the sun Greeted the sky." "I look for you In every sunflower. In all the doorways of my heart. I dream of painting My dreams. And seeing the stars each evening Helps me to dream." Hey You: ( You, whoever you may be reading my poem ) Will you be my Theo? Can I chew on the brushes? Is this my Tahiti? . . 19. Who Needs To Live Forever? Like a Greek wandering Through the age of Pericles Or a picture on some Gilded ancient urn On a shelf. Beautiful enough, Varied enough, That we could read it's form From the aisles of a play Before the third act. Or a sweet unheard melody From some Homeric golden age. No longer a part of the struggle Of the world of their time. Let's leave it to them. Like Pegasus, You are my beautiful Radiant winged steed. Are you smiling? Didn't we have a good time? Come here. I'll be the wind beneath your wings. Draw a curtain across the horizon And unfold the sky. Let's make love to the stars. . . Come with me now, to the ancient Aegean Sea to the year 569 BCE. To the Isle of Lesbos near the Greek mainland to hear a song by legendary lesbian poet, Sappho, who's playing her harp while reminiscing about her life partner. . 20. She Who Strokes My Heart ( An Imagined Song Of Sappho ) Dear Friends: She who has Stroked my heart. She who is capable As the dawning sun She who fills each day With dreams And every night with Luminance. She who waits for me Who laughs When I laugh Weeps when I weep. She who keeps me company In hours of doubt. She who shares my hope and joy She who is life's companion In all seasons. And every season Upon my tender Bosom. . . 21. Franz Schubert ( Died Age 31 ) That dark Romanticism Of a blood red rose Dark with Vienna cream. As you walked humming Leiders in art song pubs With bass baritones. Or wandering with Schubertiade friends Through a city of Freud. Well of course you Got the clap in time For your final performance. On this round good earth A last curtain call Before the second act. . . 22. Georgia On My Mind ( For Georgia O'Keeffe ) American landscapes Ribboned highways Across western flattops Pure as prairie flowers Blooming through Magnifying lenses. Trading crowded places For open spaces 1949 New Mexico ghost ranch Lines etched into the land And your face Painting deserts Like rivers Caressing landscapes Out of dust. . . 23. Heroic Journeys ( For Salvador Dali ) "The artist begins A heroic journey" With a youthful self portrait And the neck of Raphael. "The difference between me And the Surrealists Is that I'm a Surrealist" Without apology to Apollinaire. Some sumptuous pearl Gliding the ocean's surface Through subconscious deserts Of elephants on stilts And burning giraffes. Sitting at universal centers Sipping tea with Freud Wearing umbrellas With persistence of memory. Laughing with Gala At the face of pride On all the melting clocks Ticking away Into eternity. . . 24. Minotaur ( For Pablo Picasso ) A painted Spanish dove Flown to the left bank Seine To open the 20th century In cold water flats Of opium dreams With periods blue and rose And modern monsters Ancient as the shining sun. Russian ballerinas Dwelling in labyrinths With cut paper fragments And a Spanish civil war Of hopeless brutality. Half human half bull Ransacking the past To capture the future Looking forward And forever back Listening to the rain Drowning out The Blvd. . . 25. Chaotic Motion ( for Jackson Pollack ) Rebel rebel Three parts reclusive One part James Dean Cody Wyoming volatile Ornery alcoholic. Influential American painter Of Long Island cowboys And western sunsets looking east Moving with chaotic motion Putting lines through space. Hardened brushes Sticks paint cans anything Paintings that don't come From an easel or wall But from the floor. "I need the resistance of a hard surface." An alcohol related single car accident In August '56 with your Oldsmobile Driving drunk with chaotic motion You let it go You let it fly. Just the surface of the canvas And the spirit of your mind's Fierce sadness As always Forever. . . Theodore Gericault ( 19th Cen. French Romantic Painter ) painted "The Raft Of The Medusa." A large life sized canvas depicting the ship wreck and makeshift raft of the contemporary ship, the Medusa. He became an inspiration for many Romantic era painters who followed. He adored horses. . 26. The Raft Of The Medusa ( For T. Gericault ) Through the winter Your studio closed With spaces white Draped in sheets Your hair cut short You didn't go out You only worked on That enormous canvas. Scarcely mentioned names From the school of David ( pronounce Da-veed ) Calling you a forgotten madman Who couldn't play the part Of a great painter "He's like an athlete Born to struggle With every nerve strained Against the perilous depths." Hardly anyone noticed When you passed away ( aged 32 ) One January winter's day Not from past excess Or from the wrath of the Salon. But preferring instead Your own drama Of winter winds And thunderstorms Dark and light On a raft of the Medusa. . . 27. Blue Shades Blue shades drawn Staring out my window Ultramarine infinity Of the Heavens. Blue shades worn With Indigo blue Aquamarine pigments Deep delta blues. Lined paper blue Letters scribbled Inked expressions of Blue shadows in the street. Van Gogh Vincent Starry night blue Bolts of cobalt Dreamer's edge blue. Blue Shades drawn In visible spectrums I end where you begin The sky is my artwork. Want to go for a ride? . . 28. But Then You know, The Art World's a rather hard place The Gay World's a rather hard place The Mental Health System's a rather hard place. But then, Where in this World isn't A rather hard place. . . 29. Fashion Fashion fashion Paint on faces In glamorous places. Deadlines before hemlines I ran away from the runway Decorative art With applied smarts Fabulous fascist regimes. And cold creams. . . 30. If You Danced With Me If you danced with me Perhaps the Rumba Or a Polka Or the Monkey too Or maybe a graceful Waltz Of Danube blue. At the top of the world Or in some enchanted garden Of vivid hues That old Soft Shoe. Or a Ballet Of great leaps and bounds Into orchestra pits With double basses All tied up in bows and laces. Or at country dances Square Dancing hayrides Riding handsome silhouettes To tops of Ballrooms In heavens of Milky Ways. How happy I would be If you danced with me. . . 31. Barren Bound ( Ghost Dances ) Seas of grain high On Dakota days Sacred to western plains I am the wind on your face I am the spirit of the plains American braves. Galloping gallantly Whispering ghost dances Speeding down highways Of cathedral skies liberty Up from the ground Barren bound. All you kind and marvelous Generations of future pasts Seek me no more. I shrink through your whispers And become the sound Of your breath. ( And with that I put on my cap, walked over the hill and disappeared into the west. ) . . Thanks everyone!