Gay Men in Iraq

CLICK ON THE TITLE OF THIS POST TO TAKE YOU TO THE NEWS ARTICLE

The human stories left uncovered by the mainstream press are chilling and horrendous. The Middle East is the last place any gay man should be - but if you are Arab you are a suspect immediately in the West because of your heritage. Asylum - where? Where do you go? Caught between the hatred of their fellow Muslims and the mistrust and prejudice of those in European and North American governments, gay Arabs are being abducted, imprisioned, tortured and murdered. While the fates of gays in Egypt, Iran, Palenstine, Israel* and Saudi Arabia are sometimes documented, those nations are rarely pressured on their human rights abuses, especially those towards gays, whose very civil equality and leagal recourse is under threat even here in our supposedly humane United States. So, it should be better in American 'liberated' Iraq, especially with Saddam executed. Right?

Wrong.

Whether we want to admit it or not the prejudices held towards GLBT people in the West are a huge stumbling block to protecting the lives of gay men in the Middle East. Think the constantly voiced intolerance of the Vatican and the Christian Right are justified and noble? Try wondering if you'll be in your own home tomorrow - and alive. Or worrying that you won't die quickly enough.

Every time a voice is raised in Rome and Washington against gay and lesbian equality it gives tacit permission to those in third world and developing countries to take it to whole new levels. It's a very small world. Please read the article, and next time YOU decry gay equality think about EVERYONE who's listening.

____________________________________________

YOU CAN MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN

Contact your elected representatives and demand fair and equitable asylum reviews. Demand civil equality for all people. Contact your religious leaders and remind them of their responsibilty to protect life. Vocally REFUSE your support of anti-gay discrimiantion.

And please give generously of your time and money to the Human Rights Campaign, OUTRAGE!, GLAAD and your local AIDS relief organizations.

*The ultra-conservative Jewish faction's opposition to GLBT Equality has resulted in unprecedented violent public attacks against the gay community in Jerusalem. While the Israeli courts have ordered that PRIDE events cannot be shut down by the government every sort of obstruction, including physically attacking marchers and their supporters, are routinely ignored by civil authorities.

Gotham

In The City That Never Sleeps

Repeat the Sound of Joy

One wonders how to find the JOY this Christmas. How do we let go of our hurt and anger to find the commonality which binds us? Whether it is as huge and unfathomable as Government, Churches and war or as intimate as parenst, brother, sister and misunderstandings, it become increasingly difficult to see the good. The peacemaker in me wishes to reach out and find the bridge between each of us, yet the man who feels betrayed wants only to make his injuries known.

So, I fall flat on my face somewhere in between. Each time I extend understanding and find rejection my human nature wants only to recoil and strike out and cause injury again in return. It's ignoble and frustrating to this way fail again and again. And as impartial as I'd like to become, to cast aside any thought of concern for what others think of or feel for me, it's just not to be done. So, I mostly face each day with a sense of failing myself and others - as though the burden of peacemaker indeed rests solely with me.

I don't have the answers. I struggle with forgiving those who have harmed me and I imagine they struggle to forgive me for the harm I've caused. Perhaps understanding in this life is more than can be expected. So, I'll look to the next. And the JOY? Well, if I remember to look it's there. In a husband who stands by me and loves me despite years of struggle. A daughter who sees in me a parent I never expected to be. In the affection of furry little cat-people who think the sun rises and sets by me.

This then is JOY - for in each I see Jesus, born yet again in each of us. I may never enjoy the consolation of all my family being together in a loving way, or the world at peace, but I have this little family right now. I am grateful and full of peace for this at least. So, repeat the sound of JOY. Again and again!

Happy Holidays from Manhattan!

The holidays in New York City include the Washington Monument created by Stanford White in the Beaux Arts stle of the turn of the last century.

Church & State, Church & State, Church & State: Shall We Continue to Give the State God's Due?

It came to my attention in a news article today, written by Wayne Bessen that a new Representative, Keith Ellison, Democrat, Wisconsin, who is Muslim has asked to be sworn on his Faith's Holy Book, the Koran, and not the Bible. Here are the problems I see:

1. The American Family Council ( which is rabidly Anti-Gay, Anti-Muslim, Anti-anyone who is not a Fundamentalist Christian AND prescribing to the A.F.C. Doctrines for the U.S. Government's integartion of Religion into Public Istitutions) has already attacked the new Senator and has immediately tried to pass legislation that only the Bible may be used at swearings in of public servants. This is yet another attack on the Freedom of Religion and the Separation of Church and State. It is important to stomp out these efforts of division and isolation of others personal beliefs and Faiths.

Solution 1: We MUST either allow that other holy books (such as the Koran), and others, if they exist, supporting the Faith of the person being sworn into office to be used. Or, 2: Find a State Symbol, such as a copy of the Constitution, to swear all persons into office, and to simply make our Civil Duty be sworn by a Civil Text. Why? Because, we cannot continue in our pluralistic society to allow Fundamentalist Christians to force their personal belief system on all society by establishing what can surely be understood to be a State Church forced upon the American people.

The Religious Right is up to many of these divisive, un-Christian and simply hateful programs, legal actions and editorial whinings which are destructive to what we understand as our basic rights and freedoms in this Our United States. Frightening, sad and just plain evil at times in their misplaced zeal, these men and women supposedly of God seem to forget to love their neighbor as themselves and to reach out to their fellow Americans with arms of inclusion: Jewish, Budhist, Pagan, Atheist and Agnostic... as well as others I'm sure. When will they understand that coercion to convert is no conversion at all - and pray they remeber to set a better example, the only way to bring non-believers to become true believers.

Mr. Besen's article, an Op-Ed opiece may be read first hand at 365Gay.com. Clicking on the Title of this posting will take you to a thoughtful and educated opinion which realizes what the American Constitution has grown and blossomed into over some 250 years, reminding us that we, as Americans, have stood on the high ground of allowing all men to choose their Faith or none at all. Simply because these choices may be radically different than our own, and perhaps even frightening to us at times, we must remember that Christians are called to be inclusive and not resentful and angry because our Constituion and Bill of Rights are now understood, through legislative and court mandated changes over thes last centuries, to include ever broadening definitions of "All men are created equal."

If any Christian American, or American of any faith, rightly practiced, under our protections of the Constitution cannot understand how important this growth of inclusion has been to so many groups of Americans we must simply remind them that under Jeffersonian ideals of "all men are equally created" his generation refered very narrowly to include only white, European men. But, wisely, with broadly worded passages thus leaving room to be reintrepreted as the Nation grew so that we now have the blessing of women being made 'equal in the vote', blacks made equal and freed from slavery, Catholics and Jews allowed to practice their faiths and to run for public offices in America - so many things our generation takes for granted but which would never have occured to our Founding Fathers. That is why our Constitution is a Living Document, not unlike the Bible or Coran, and not simply a stale centuries old manuscript without much current meaning. It is a gift, a great gift. And I pray, hope and plead with you all to be glad that a man could swear his allegiance to these United States of America with the text of the book he uses to lead his own Godly and Spiritual life. We are stronger for the amalgamation of many ethnicities and beliefs, not weakened.

Don Larson, 8 December 2006

Wayne Besen is an author, activist, columnist and public speaker.

He is a former spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group. He has appeared as a guest on leading news and political talk shows including: the NBC Nightly News, The Roseanne Show, CNN's Talk Back Live and The Point, Fox's O'Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes, Hard Copy, MSNBC News and PAX's Faith Under Fire.

Besen is the author of a book nominated this year for two Lambda Literary Awards, "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth"

Thoughts on Advent & Christmas

It's December 4, 2006 and it doesn't feel like a Holiday Season at all. Neither like Advent or Christmas. Everything just is... Partly, this is a reaction to having lived without any of our personal belongings for over a year now. I know that's a big part. as I am a 'nester' and to not have the special world of my home to lend a wall of insulation form the horrors of illness, finacial woes and governmental crazies is a sore place to be. But it's more. It's also having lost my Church as it falls prey to an ultra-conservative contigient of men who are incapable of any Christ-like attitude towards the gay men and women they cannot comprehend being part of God's family. Not receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion in order to meet their regulations of what is right and wrong has left a great emptyness. I miss Jesus in the Sacrament so very much - but to deny my sexuality, or my spouse and daughter, in order to receive Him in Communion is wrong. Jesus would not ask me to deny those he has given unto me to love and defend, rather He would wish me to bear this cross of missing Him and remaining true to Mark and Joy, my family.

Mark and I often pray together. We ask Jesus to be our hearts, our minds and our toungues. We ask him, as two or more gathered, to keep His Word of being with us and I know He does stay with us. He does speak for us and He loves us for being true to our vows to each other made in Him. But, I miss Him in the mysteries of the Bread and Wine.

I hope that through this long advent of our souls we will be reminded by Jesus this Christmas that He is reborn to us and in us and that this Christmas, without its trimmings and presents and usual bounty, we will find Jesus as a baby in the manger - and in our daily lives for the coming year.

So, dearest Christ Child, I offer you this desert that Mark and I have been crossing together and ask you to bless the journey and bring it to its end - a rebirth in you our true Love and our Hearts' Desire!

World AIDS Day

Today AIDS is 25 years old - according to record keepers. It hardly seems possible. I remember the night I started to worry I was driving back into Yuma with Peggy and Danny from the Foothills. The radio was announcing that a mysterious diesease was affecting gay men... I wasn't 'OUT' yet apparently I didn't need to be. Danny remarked he was sure they'd find a cure, with empathy directed towards me. Did they know? I wondered, and let the disease slip from my mind as I worried about being found out. Pretty stupid. That was 1982. I would sero-convert in 1991.

As of today I have been battling this disease for 15 years. I have had numerous days of good health - and just as many bad in that time. I have been down to two (2) T-cells and off the chart viral load, with opportunistic infections out the ying-yang, and I have had my numbers high enough to almost forget the disease - except for the miriad of pills and injections I take daily to fight. And I'm very lucky. I live in the West where the determination of the Gay community and our activism means that I have support for obtaining drugs, medical treatment and a miriad of services that are mostly NOT available to the worlds largest AIDS populations: Africa, India and the rest of what we call the 'Third World'. There, AIDS is still so stigmatized that countries like South Africa have even denied their citizens the importation of AIDS medications. (Think about that for a minute - we're not talking just 'tribes in the bush', but huge British built cities, similar to London or New York, with Western educated populations, denied all HIV/AIDS medications). Unbelievable in the 21st century. But, then we look at the present U.S. administrations policy of teaching abstinence only - the same negligent way that I was raised - and I realize that millions more are still going to be infected. Here. Today. In America. Because it is apparently too immoral to teach our young people about their bodies, their sexuality and how to protect themselves from a a viral infection that will kill them. Yes, it is a virus, not a bibical plague - a virus which can be prevented with a little medical science eduaction. Teaching abstinence only as a governmental policy is a deliberate misuse and disservice to millions of young people who deserve to have all the information available about active sexual behavior and the consequences of disease, without the trappings of a moralistic and judgemental Faith based education. our government is responsible to all citizens, not simply those of Christian belief and practice.

Today the statistics of AIDS infection remain alarming. Twenty-five miliion people are infected worldwide. 25,000,000! It seems that teaching abstinence does not stop young people form having sex - it only means they are ignorant of the deadly peril before them.

I have linked the title of this blog to the San Francisco Chronicle's special section of articles about AIDS and the disease's impact on communities around the world. Take some time. Read through the articles. Think about your children. Then act. Write your Congress persons and demand that that our communities be responsible to the science of health, not the morals.

If sex, and homosexuality, had been discussed in my home growing up would I be without the disease today? I can't know. But I do know that the relentless message, both spoken and unspoken, that premarital and homosexual sex was a sin so devesating as to separate me from God and my families love, completely prevented me from being able to talk about my sexuality, my lonliness, and my despair at being different - and started me on a clear path of secrecy and self-destruction that I must still battle some 37 years on... So, today, if you or I speak up and prevent one young woman or one young man from acquiring AIDS we will have made a start in stopping this virus from having one more life to destroy.

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I sat to think about just what i have to be thankful for because I've been bitter about what we haven't had the last year here in new York city. The story is a long one, and most of you know it already - the evil doctor who doesn't keep her word in a single matter and, perhaps worse, has the social manners of gnats, has broken promise after promise regarding Mark's salary, his benefits, housing and furniture time and time again, including a Willimas Sonoma kitchen packed away in boxes in Los Angles Two fabulous Kitchen-Aid Mixers, one in Brushed stainless Steel and the 6 quart in Chrome, an $1600.00 Italian ice cream maker, my Duallit toaster, our sterling, and Herend,Wedgwood, Buccelatti, All Clad all over in every shape and size and Wustoff knives out the ying-yang! not a piece of it here, though.

Nevertheless, after a morning drive about Manhattan and watching the rain pour down, we came across a beautiful Episcopal Church, saved from the great fire of New York in 1801(?), corner stone laid in 1750 and finished and consecrated in 1799. Oh, and we have George, our old Bimmer, in working shape and in need of only some final primping and polishing - but over-all good. And I'm terribly grateful for our dear new kittens, M. Bouvier, 6 months, male and Mlle. Athenais Sophie, female, 12 months old. These two darlings are our blue velvet fur balls, turning to smoke or dusk or dove in various lights - full of vigor and love.

And my daughter, Joy Belin, a fine and wonderful young woman, whom I deeply love - despite her threats of feeding me only gruel in my old age. A wise young woman with a good mind and the ability to learn to be whomever she chooses.

But, last and most important I have my dearest husband, my spouse; a gentleman and a rogue in the best meanings of both those words, and I love him!!! I LOVE HIM!!! Mark, my Mark, has given to me everything I ever lost or never had, from childhood memories to conjugal bliss to the sharing of the mind - yes, in this man I have found my truest dearest love That one Love for all time, in all places before all men and God. A proud and holy love that honors each other and Jesus and that, that is what I am giving thanks for this year. I still have, even without a WWS kitchen my family and the HOME that family makes for me - and I for them..

Joy Belin & Tigger

Change

I heard a quote today which reminds me that the truth of loving someone is the process of a life's work, and that our love does not alter because of circumstances of age, health or the strings cut by Fate.

"We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

Perceval Press

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.

-Edward R. Murrow

The Perceval Press is a small independent publishing house owned and operated by the renowned actor Viggo Mortensen. His publishing is not diluted by the dictates of a large corporation intent on selling books but is presented from the depth of his own beliefs. Who can help but admire such a commitment, even if you do not agree with what he prints.

However, his views of the politics of the Catholic vote are my own. While the article below is speaking of Britain it is the same here in the United States. And it is not simply in regards to education and subsidizing inequality. It is folly to vote morals and ethics designed for one group of believers as a dictate for all persons. The recent loss of Habeus Corpus in the United States, instituted by Mr. Bush out of a misplaced belief that we must remove individual rights to protect ourselves collectively, and the deliberate press by Rome into the political arena of the United States, in the most ardent attack on the founding principle of our Nation - the truth that the separation of Church and State is fundamental to our religious freedom, it seems almost an afterthought to be concerned about Chruch schools accepting public funds and then refusing to comply with our laws of non-discrimination in hiring and access. The Catholic Church has aligned itself with the Fundamentalist Christian Right in an attempt to control the laws of our country with an assault on our personal freedoms and our independence from religious governance. We are not a Theocracy but a Democracy. Christian Fundamentalism's intentions to create a government of Christian teaching will bring the downfall of America as a haven of political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and governance by the whole people, not the few. America stands at a crossroad as never before, a misstep now will bring a fall into totalitarian government inconceivable to most of us and 'Freedom' will be only a word which rings hollow. God's Word was never intended to be Secular Law - its very intent is that one chooses God of ones own Free Will, not because of the coercion of the State. If we as Christians, and Catholics, cannot convince by our own example, what right have we to demand compliance by law? Vote not the dogma of your Church, but the conscience of your mind and heart, and remember that freedom taken from one of us, just one of us, is freedom denied us all.

The title of this Blog will take you to the homepage of Perceval Press.

I know. But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or it can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance for joy.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Faith, hope and chicanery
The capitulation to the Catholic vote is a step further on the dangerous road to intolerance

Martin Samuel
October 31, 2006, © The Times

THEY DO NOT teach about Ludwig Kaas in schools these days. A footnote in history, at best. Born Trier 1881, died Rome 1952, German priest and politician, canon of the cathedral of St Peter, leader of the Catholic Centre Party, voted for and was instrumental in the creation of a Nazi dictatorship led by Adolf Hitler in 1933. Sorry? That last bit? Well, there is the funny thing. These footnote guys turn out to be pretty important once you delve into the details.

Hitler did not seize power or take power or any of those verbs we are taught that imply some unstoppable show of strength. He passed a Bill, the Enabling Act, supported by 441 of 647 members of the Reichstag, only 288 of whom were National Socialists. As Hitler needed a two thirds majority to achieve totalitarian power and all the Social Democrats that were not in hiding, in prison or dead voted against him, without the support of the Catholic Centre Party he would barely have been able to govern, let alone dictate; which is where Kaas came in. He persuaded his party to vote with Hitler on a law that effectively dissolved democracy in Germany and paved the road to the death camps. And guess what he got in return? Faith schools. Kaas received a guarantee that respected the liberty of the Catholic Church and its involvement in the fields of education, schooling and culture. To win Catholic support, Hitler cut a deal. Much as our own Government did last week. . . .

Read all at Perceval Press: Simply click the title of this Blog to take you there...

Diana

This image was originally taken in San Francisco at Sutro Park on February 17, 2004. Mark and I spent the morning at the park as a 'honeymoon' after our wedding at San Francisco City Hall. This version of the photographe, altered and enhanced in Photoshop, was completed on Monday, October 30, 2006. It is a photo of the statue of Diana, Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt. In Grecian mythology she is known as Artemis. Pagans still leave offerings of fruit and flowers at the foot of this statue where Diana, pulling an arrow from her quiver and grasping a hind by its antlers, stands poigniantly looking towards the Pacific in a decaying timeless lovliness.

Spirits Rising

This is a collage of several photographs, each pushed a different direction with exposure, color saturation and lighting effects to achieve a feeling of the spirits of the dead exhuberant in their rising to their God.

Don Leon attributed to George Lord Byron

An apology to Gay Love, attributed to George Lord byron, grieves at the cruelty, hatred and bitter loss to those gifted with Love for their own Sex. Dated 1866.

Thou ermined judge, pull off that sable cap!
What! Cans’t thou lie, and take thy morning nap?
Peep thro’ the casement; see the gallows there:
Thy work hangs on it; could not mercy spare?
What had he done? Ask crippled Talleyrand,
Ask Beckford, Courtenay, all the motley band
Of priest and laymen, who have shared his guilt
(If guilt it be) then slumber if thou wilt;
What bonds had he of social safety broke?
Found’st thou the dagger hid beneath his cloak?
He stopped no lonely traveller on the road;
He burst no lock, he plundered no abode;
He never wrong’d the orphan of his own;
He stifled not the ravish’d maiden’s groan.
His secret haunts were hid from every soul,
Till thou did’st send thy myrmidons to prowl,
And watch the prickings of his morbid lust,
To wring his neck and call thy doings just.
And shall the Muse, whilst pen and paper lie
Upon the table, hear the victim’s cry,
Nor boldly lay her cauterising hand
Upon a wound that cankers half the land?
No! were the bays that flourish round my head
Destined to wither, when these lines are read;
Could all the scourges canting priest invent
To prop their legendary lies, torment
My soul in death or rack my body here,
My voice I’d raise insensible to fear.
When greedy placemen drain a sinking state,
When virtue starves and villains dine off plate;
When lords and senators untouched by shame,
For schemes of basest fraud can lend their name;
When elders, charged to guard the pauper’s trust,
Feast on the funds, and leave the poor a crust;
When knaves like these escape the hangman’s noose,
Who even to Clogher a pardon would refuse?
Who would not up and lend a hand to save
A venial culprit from a felon’s grave!
Sheer indignation quickens into rhyme,
And silence now were tantamount to crime.
I know not in what friendly breast to pour
My swelling rage save, into thine, dear Moore,
For thou, methinks, some sympathy will own,
Since, love, no matter in what guise ’tis shown,
Must ever find an echo from that lyre,
Which erst hath glowed with old Anacreon’s fire.
Death levels all; and, deaf to mortal cries,
At his decree the prince or beggar dies.
So, when I’m gone, as gone I soon may be,
Be thou, dear Tom, an honest, firm trustee;
And, nor for filthy lucre, nor to dine
At Holland House, erase one single line.
To titled critics pay no servile court;
But print my thoughts through good or ill report.
And if these musings serve but to dispense
One little dose of useful common sense,
I fain would hope they greater good had done
Than all the pious tracts of Rivington.
Can it be justice in a land like ours,
Where every vice in full luxuriance flowers-
Where schoolboys’ eyes can recognise afar
Soho’s green blinds and Lisle-street doors ajar-
Where bold-faced harlots impudently spurn
The modest virgin’s blush at every turn,
Where every pavement hears their ribald laugh,
Spite of the Bow-street gang and watchman’s staff,
That one propensity (which always hides
Its sport obscene, and into darkness glides,
Which none so brazened e’er presume to own,
Which, left unheeded, would remain unknown,
Should be the game their worships will pursue
With keenest ardour all the country through?
No parson of the quorum feels a blush
To claim the honours of the stinking brush);
Whilst at the scent unkennelled curs give tongue,
Until the poor misogynist is hung.
Yet naught can satisfy the foul-mouthed crew;
Laid in his grave their victim they pursue;
And base Smellfunguses insult his ghost
With sainted columns in the Morning Post.
I grant that casuists the Bible quote,
And tell us how God’s tardy vengeance smote
Lot’s native town with brimstone from the sky,
To punish this impure delinquency,
Unmindful that the drunkard’s kiss defiled
(Whilst yet the embers smoked), his virgin child.
But reason doubts the Jewish prophet’s tale.
Does history then no other place bewail?
Descend the Nile, and steer your bark along
The shores recorded in Homeric song.
Where’s centi-portalled Thebes? The crumbling stone
Marks well its site, but sandy mounds have grown
O’er granite lanes that line the public way,
And seem to bid defiance to decay.
Why seek we Priam’s palaces in vain?
Why howls the blast over Lacedaemon’s plain?
Where’s Memphis? Wherefore in Persepolis
Do jackals scream, and venomed serpents hiss?
What! were thy ramparts, Babylon, so thick;
And hast thou left us not a single brick?
But where’s thy house, Zenobia? Thou wast Queen
Of Tadmor once; and now the Bedoween
Erects his tent, and scares the fleet gazelle,
That comes to drink at thy sulphureous well.
Where’s Caesarea now, or Antioch? Where?
And yet their domes deserved God’s special care,
There Paul was honoured; there our faith proclaimed,
There true believers first were Christians named.
Who has not seen how Mother Church can press
Each vain tradition to her purposes,
And from the cradle to the grave supply
Proofs sacred of infallibility?
Would you be damned? a text conveys her curse;
Or rise again? you have it in a verse.
Her rites as means of revenue are prized:
For mammon’s sake our infants are baptised.
With golden offerings marriages are made;
Woe to the union where no fee is paid.
Who weds or fornicates, no matter which,
Children begets, and makes the altar rich;
But, where no offerings to the surplice fall,
The taste forthwith is anti-physical.
Hell-fire can hardly expiate the guilt
Of that damned sin-the church’s rubric bilked.
The tree we plant will, when its boughs are grown,
Produce no other blossoms than its own;
And thus in man some inborn passions reign
Which, spite of careful pruning, sprout again.
Then, say, was I or nature in the wrong,
If, yet a boy, one inclination, strong
In wayward fancies, domineered my soul,
And bade complete defiance to control?
What, though my youthful instincts, forced to brood
Within my bosom seemed awhile subdued?
What, though, by early education taught,
The charms of women first my homage caught?
What, though my verse in Mary’s praises flowed?
And flowers poetic round her footsteps strewed,
Yet, when her ears would list not to my strain,
And every sigh was answered with disdain,
Pride turned, not stopped, the course of my desires,
Extinguished these, and lighted other fires.
And as the pimple which cosmetic art
Repels from one, invades another part,
My bubbling passions found another vent,
The object changed, but not the sentiment.
And, ever my years could task my reason why,
Sex caused no qualms where beauty lured the eye.
Such were my notions ere my teens began,
And such their progress till I grew a man.
With thee, dear Margaret, whose tender looks
Made me forget my task, my play, my books,
Young though we were, our union soared above
The frigid systems of Platonic love.
Untutored how to kiss, how oft I hung,
Upon thy neck, whilst from my burning tongue
Between thy lips the kindling glow was sent,
And nature fanned the new-born sentiment;
How oft, beneath the arbour’s mystic shade,
My boyish vows of constancy were made!
There on the grass as we recumbent lay,
Not coy wast thou, nor I averse to play;
And in that hour thy virtue’s sole defence
Was not thy coldness, but my innocence.

Among the yeomen’s sons on my estate
A gentle boy would at my mansion wait:
And now that time has almost blanched my hair,
And with the past the present I compare,
Full well I know, though decency forbad
The same caresses to a rustic lad;
Love, love it was, that made my eyes delight
To have his person ever in my sight.
Yes, Rushton, though to unobserving eyes,
My favours but as lordly gifts were prized;
Yet something then would inwardly presage
The predilections of my riper age.
Why did I give the gauds to deck thy form?
Why for a menial did my entrails warm?
Why? but from secret longings to pursue
Those inspirations, which, if books speak true,
Have led e’en priest and sags to embrace
Those charms, which female blandishments efface.
Thus passed my boyhood: and though proofs were none
What path my future course of life would run
Like sympathetic ink, if then unclear,
The test applied soon made the trace appear.
I bade adieu to school and tyro’s sports,
And Cam received me in his gothic courts.
Freed from the pedagogue’s tyrannic sway,
In mirth and revels I consumed the day.
No more my truant muse her vigils kept;
No more she soothed my slumbers as I slept;
But, idling now, she oft recalled the time
When to her reed I tuned my feeble rhyme.
She knew how those ’midst song and mirth grow dull
Whose tender bosoms soft emotions lull.
As manhood came, my feelings, more intense,
Sighed for some kindred mind, where confidence,
Tuned in just unison, might meet return,
And whilst it warmed my breast, in his might burn.
Oft, when the evening bell to vespers rung,
When the full choir the solemn anthem sung,
And lips, o’er which no youthful down had grown,
Hymned their soft-praises to Jehovah’s throne,
The pathos of the strain would soothe my soul,
And call me willing from the drunkard’s bowl.
Who, that has heard the chapel’s evening song,
When peals divine the lengthened note prolong,
But must have felt religious thoughts arise,
And speed their way melodious to the skies.
Among the choir a youth my notice won,
Of pleasing lineaments named Eddleston.
With gifts well suited to a stripling’s mood,
His friendship and his tenderness I wooed.
Oh! how I loved to press his cheek to mine;
How fondly would my arms his waist entwine!
Another feeling borrowed friendship’s name,
And took its mantle to conceal my shame.
Another feeling! Oh! ’tis hard to trace
The line where love usurps tame friendship’s place.
Friendship’s the chrysalis, which seems to die,
But throws its coil to give love wing to fly.
Both are the same, but in another state;
This formed to soar, and that to vegetate.

Of humble birth was he – patrician I.
And yet this youth was my idolatry.
Strong was my passion, past all inward cure
And could it be so violent, yet pure?
’Twas like a philtre poured into my veins-
And as the chemist, when some vase contains
An unknown mixture, each component tries
With proper tests, the draught to analyse,
So questioned I myself: What light this fire?
Maids and not boys are wont to move desire;
Else ’twere illicit love. Oh! sad mishap!
But what prompts nature then to set the trap?
Why night and day does his sweet image float
Before my eyes? or wherefore do I dote
On that dear face with ardour so intense?
Why truckles reason to concupiscence?
Though law cries "hold!" yet passion onward draws;
But nature gave us passions, man gave laws,
Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong?
And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong?
What’s virtue’s touchstone? Unto others do,
As you would wish that others did to you.
Then tell me not of sex, if to one key
The chords, when struck, vibrate in harmony.
No virgin I deflower, nor, lurking, creep,
With steps adult’rous, on a husband’s sleep.
I plough no field in other men’s domain;
And where I delve no seed shall spring again.
Thus with myself I reasoned; then I read,
And counsel asked from volumes of the dead.
Oh! flowery path, thus hand in hand to walk
With Plato and enjoy his honeyed talk.
Beneath umbrageous planes to sit at ease,
And drink from wisdom’s cup with Socrates.
Now stray with Bion through the shady grove;
Midst deeds of glory, now with Plutarch rove.
And oft I turned me to the Mantuan’s page,
To hold discourse with shepherds of his age;
Or mixed with Horace in the gay delights
Of courtly revels, theatres, and sights;
And Thou, whose soft seductive lines comprise
The code of love, thou hadst my sympathies;
But still, where’er I turned, in verse or prose,
Whatever I read, some fresh dilemma rose,
And reason, that should pilot me along,
Belied her name, or else she led me wrong.
I love a youth; but Horace did the same;
If he’s absolv’d, say, why am I to blame?
When young Alexis claimed a Virgil’s sigh,
He told the world his choice; and may not I?
Shall every schoolman’s pen his verse extol,
And, sin in me, in him a weakness call?
Then why was Socrates surnamed the sage,
Not only in his own, but every age,
If lips, whose accents strewed the path of truth,
Could print their kisses on some favoured youth?
Or why should Plato, in his Commonwealth
Score tenets up which I must note by stealth?
Say, why, when great Epaminondas died,
Was Cephidorus buried by his side?
Or why should Plutarch with eulogiums cite
That chieftain’s love for his young catamite,
And we be forced his doctrine to decry,
Or drink the bitter cup of infamy?
But these, thought I, are samples musty grown;
Turn we from early ages to our own.
No heathen’s lust is matter of surprise;
He only aped his Pagan deities;
But when a Saviour had redeemed the world,
And all false idols from Olympus hurled,
A purer code the Christian law revealed,
And what was venial once as guilt was sealed.
With zeal unwearied I resumed again
My search, and read whate’er the layman’s pen
In annals grave or chronicles had writ;
But can I own with any benefit?
’Tis true, mankind had cast the pagan skin,
But all the carnal part remained within
Unchang’d, and nature, breaking through the fence
Still vindicated her omnipotence.
Look, how infected with rank disease
Were those, who held St. Peter’s holy keys,
And pious men to whom the people bowed,
And kings, who churches to the saints endowed;
All these were Christians of the highest stamp-
How many scholars, wasting over their lamp,
How many jurists, versed in legal rules,
How many poets, honoured in the schools,
How many captains, famed for deeds of arms,
Have found their solace in a minion’s arms!
Nay, e’en our bard, Dame Nature’s darling child,
Felt the strange impulse, and his hours beguiled
In penning sonnets to a stripling’s praise,
Such as would damn a poet now-a-days.
To this conclusion we must come at last:
Wise men have lived in generations past,
Whose deeds and sayings history records,
To whom the palm of virtue she awards,
Who, tempted, ate of that forbidden tree,
Which prejudice denies to you and me.
Then be consistent; and, at once confess,
If man’s pursuit through life is happiness,
The great, the wise, the pious, and the good,
Have what they sought not rightly understood;
Or deem not else that aberration crime,
Which reigns in every caste and every clime.

II

Chance led me once, when idling through the street,
Beneath a porch my listless limbs to seat,
Where rudely heaped, some sculptured marbles lay,
Of pediments now crumbled to decay.
There the fallen building as I musing eyed,
Which meditation to the mind supplied,
And called me back to epochs now remote,
When Zeuzis painted and when Plato wrote,
Aloof my faithful Tartar waiting stood,
(Dervish Tahiri); for he understood
His master’s fancies, and with naked blade,
The near approach of boorish men had staid.
Close to the spot a Grecian dwelling reared
Its modest roof. A courteous man appeared;
And, bowing low, with invitation pressed
To enter in, and on his sofa rest.
I crossed the threshold of the courteous man,
And smoked and chatted. Close by the divan
His son, as Eastern usages demand,
In modest attitude was seen to stand.
And smiling watched the signals of my will,
To pour sherbet, or the long chibook fill.
Grace marked his actions, symmetry his form;
His eyes had made an anchorite grow warm,
His long attire, his silken anteri,
Gave pleasing doubts of what his sex might be;
And who that saw him would perplexed have been,
For beauty marked his gender epicene.
Day after day my visits I renewed,
His love with presents like a mistress wooed;
Until his sire with dreams of greatness won,
To be my page made offer of his son.
I took him in my train, with culture stored
His mind, and in it choice instruction poured;
Till like the maiden, who some budding rose
Waters with care and watches till it blows,
Then plucks and places it upon her breast,
I too this blossom to my bosom pressed.
All ye who know what pleasure ’tis to heave
A lover’s sigh, the warm caress receive
Of some fond mistress, and with anxious care
Watch each caprice, and every ailment share.
Ye only know how hard it is to cure
The burning fever of love’s calenture.
Come, crabbed philosophers, and tell us why
Should men to harsh ungrateful studies fly
In search of bliss, when e’en a single day
Of dalliance can an age of love outweigh!
How many hours I’ve sat in pensive guise,
To watch the mild expression of his eyes!
Or when asleep at noon, and from his mouth
His breath came sweet like odours from the south,
How long I’ve hung in rapture as he lay,
And silent chased the insect tribe away.
How oft at morn, when troubled by the heat,
The covering fell disordered at his feet,
I’ve gazed unsated at his naked charms,
And clasped him waking to my longing arms.
How oft in winter, when the sky overcast
Capped the bleak mountains, and the ruthless blast
Moaned through the trees, or lashed the surfy strand,
I’ve drawn myself the glove upon his hand,
Thrown o’er his tender limbs the rough capote,
Or tied the kerchief round his snowy throat.
How oft, when summer saw me fearless brave
With manly breast the blue transparent wave,
Another Daedalus I taught him how
With spreading arms the liquid waste to plough.
Then brought him gently to the sunny beach,
And wiped the briny moisture from his breech.
Oh! how the happy moments seemed to fly,
Spent half in love and half in poetry!
The muse each morn I wooed, each eve the boy,
And tasted sweets that never seemed to cloy.
Women as women, me had never charmed,
And shafts that others felt left me unharmed.
But thou, Giraud, whose beauty would unlock
The gates of prejudice, and bid me mock
The sober fears that timid minds endure,
Whose ardent passions women only cure,
Receive this faithful tribute to thy charms,
Not vowed alone, but paid too in thy arms.
For here the wish, long cherished, long denied,
Within that monkish cell was gratified.
And as the sage, who dwelt on Leman’s lake,
Nobly his inmost meditations spake,
Then dared the man, who would like him confess
His secret thoughts, to say his own were less;
So boldly I set calumny at naught,
And fearless utter what I fearless wrought.

BYRON

Lost & Delerious in Sleepy Hollow

Sunday past, George, our old Bimmer, took Mark and I on a northwards trip from Manhattan to the littlke village of Sleepy Hollow. Ripe with the stories of the Headless Horseman and approaching All Hollows Eve we set forthy in gay spirits to have an adventure.

Having been so tied to the business, often 16 hours daily, Mark has rarely had the time to have any outings in the year we have been residing in New York. And, as New York has so very much to offer it does seem a shame. We both hope to rectify this with more involvement in the fabulous cultural life available here - this outing was our first serious attempt.

I, being me, had not expressed to my dear husband my expectations of the day, assuming (wrongly) that he knew what sort of a day it should be: a gentrified outing of a two older gay men, smartly attired in our cashmere and wool, fine leather and the apropriate accessories - watch, rings and eyeglasses. We would arrive in this quaint village and find a charming small cafe, serving healthy but tasty dishes - fresh and hand made salds, grilled fish or chicken and perhaps a piece of local pumpkin pie.



My first clue that the trip I was on was not the trip I had planned in my mind brought out my very worst trait - sulleness. It's true, I know I do it, and yet I cannot seem to stop. As we drove towards Sleepy hollow we passed poorly kept houses, billious chain stores and poorly marked roads. Losiung our way once or twice I was beginning to think we'd simply journeyed to yet another blue collar neighborhood where comfortable shoes, cost efficient vinyl siding and aluminium replacement windows are de riguer - not carefully restored Victorian and Edwardian homes, clad in custom paint schemes and gardens with all the charm of a picture post card. The grunpies set in with me.

















Mark noticed of course, and was soon after me to reveal my pissy attitude, which i didn't want to do - as I knew his response would be the same as what I was thinking already of myself: you neurotic selfish old prick. This is supposed to be about spending time together. I was determined to change course.






Dear Mark assumed it was low blood sugar and that we needed to eat and without hesitation pulled into a vinyl booth Diner next to a gas station to feed me - with what turned out to be frozen reheated waffles with terribly greasey tasting margarine and what was supposedly 'syrup' but which had no flavor whatsoever. (So much for brioche with butter and French jam and fresh farm egg omelets, apple cured bacon and just ground fresh brewed Columbian coffee!)

I'm afraid this is the point where mark's pushing me for an answer to my dismal countenance was finally met with a hushed outburst about eating cardboard and viewing a neighborhood strongly reminiscent of Mesa, Arizona - only with green and gold and red oaks and maples.

Somehow, however, we suddenly laughed (Mark agreed about paying for frozen waffles!) and we laughed - he saw my point and that was enough. The rest of the day promised to be a great deal of fun.







As we drove into Sleepy Hollow we were astounded by the nearly picture perfect downtown. Lovely old storefronts mixed with carming homes and Bed abd Breakfasts, cafes with lovely awnings, well kept gardens and even decorations for the Holiday: Scarecrows of stuffed straw with bright shirts, feathered caps and brilliantly colored bandanas. We passed a punmpkin patch, lit with strings of lights in the old fashioned way and I was thrilled. Mark was happy, too and suggested we visit the Sleepy Hollow Graveyard of the Ol' Dutch Church. Yes! I cried, immediately digging for my camera.

As we pulled off Main Street into the Church's lot it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Oh, my, waht a graveyard it was! Going back as far as the 1600s it was a treasure trove of architectural monuments to the dearly departed. Mark and I started off to explore and after a very few minutes, in my excitemnt to reach that next tomb, I had accidently lost my dear husband. I wandered for what was a timeless period for me, photographing so many unusual intricate and magnificent house for the dead. Truly, a town of the dead. Grecian temples beside Gothic spires. Dutch tombs with huge slate roof slabs sliding to the ground, Tudor mausoleums and every sort of grave marker one can imagine - even to some which were so small, less than 16" high, tilted and half buried in the soil.

I wanderd faint paths all over, truly believing I was pushing forward in a true line and could simply turn about in a bit and walk the same direction back - but the spirits apparently had another plan for me! I soon realized it was dusk and the light was fading rather quickly - aftyer all it had been overcast all afternoon so the lack of light had already been hampered. I took a pause and a deep breath and fumbled for my silver gilt cigarette case. Opening it and removing a smoke, I tapped it onthe case as I stood in contemplation, and placing it in my mouth lit the cigarette with my gilt lighter. The sense of holding these little reminders of civilization were a great comfort - and as I breathed in deeply the smoke and exhaled, watching it curl into the evening air a sense of some comfort enveloped me. I shall not panic, I declared to my self! If I cannot find my way back someone will come and find me. Heartened, however artificailly, I set forth again.

I heard a highway and then saw headlights down below me. Finding a paved thouroughfare hrough the mgrounds I kept with it, assuming I could follow the highway to the Church. I trudged in the opposite direction then I had been going and spent anothe half hour walking - the road always to my left.Well, the trouble turned out to be that road should have been to my right! I found the very end of the cemetery and it was now deep dusk. Panic, panic. I struggled against it and lit another cigarette, then did an about face to walk the other direction. Sfter a short distance I saw two figures walking together, fainyly through the poor light. Approaching them I asked for directions and was responde to in themost minimal manner possible. I thought for a moment, when they told me that they hadnot driven to the grounds nor did they know the way out that I was perhpas meeting residents of the place. I resisted mym inclination to touch them to see if they were solid and instead marked a hasty move forward, away from the mysterious and uncommunicative couple...



A few minutes later I met yet another young couple who had a map of the grounds - they shared an extra copy with me. Together we, and another young couple they were with - headed to the gates of the Church yard. I got out a bit in fornt and found the place Mark and I had started from two hours or so earlier! Hurrah! Up ahead I saw the gates, flooded with headlights, and assumed Mark had been dutiful to me and remained waiting. Thank God! As I ghrew close Mark saw me at last and screamed: :There he is! there he is!" I realized he was exclaiming the news to the police officer he had called and who was unlocking the gates to begin a search for me! A moment later a second police vehicl arrived with the local canine rescue squad in tow - mark was so frightend I had fallen in the hilly park and was communing, unconscience, with some particular long departed resident guest. I could only think of Frodo and his companions in the barrows and wondered how close to a similar experience I had actually come.



I wonder still about the dark young couple in the black clothes with no desire to speak with me - ah, probably just a couple of kids stoned on cannabis! Surely! Right? I suppose I'll never know for certain...

Stars, Memories, a Bleu Cat, Mark and Me

Mark and I learnt on this Wednesday last that he may have cancer, lymphoma, actually. We've determined not to be worried until we know after the testing this coming week; but nevertheless, just the thought of one more burden at the moment feels as though I'm sinking slowly into a flithy mire filled with a zillion eery insects and packs of slimy poison snakes sailing about throught the decaying leaves of the stagnant water all about and coming at you without you're even seeing them... all while you're still just trying to keep thy nose above the stagnant liquid - yes, that is how it feels to me. It is the tell-tale moment in the movie where either the hero will swoop down and rescue you, pulling you free, covered in dead leaves and muck from the salient pool OR the villain will will just continue to laugh while you go under. Which, I wondered, will it be for Mark and me?

Unexpectedly for me we e spent today at the house Mark is supervising an update of systems on and we had a grand few hours together. The best time we've both had in so many, many months. We explored the property and fell into our best well-worn comfy memories of building our own homes over the years we've been in love. Falling into that pleasent cool clear pool of clarity we looked at colors and spoke of structure and examined systems of this house while unwittingly we added colour, structure and operating systems back within our life together.



Athenais came with us, full of that curiosity of not just the cat, but of youth, and more still of her faith in her own safety with the two big furr-balls she trusts to keep her safe. As the light dimmed we drove home, but wound through the hilly streets of the neighborhood, looking at lovely old brick and stone homes, with lights beginning to warm the windowpanes. Athenais had pushed herself up through the top of her carrier and was darting her eyes all over, taking in the sounds and smells and views from the slow moving Bimmer. Mark chattered on about each house, and I, half listening to my darling husband and half making certain Athenais didn't make a leap towards a foot pedal or a window, suddenly realized that here I was, with the family I chose, and whom chose me, and I was full of love. Full to the brim, bouying above any depression or threat of loss or worried hours in a hospital room for now, for just now, I have, in my ol' black car my whole mysterious, miraculous world!

This dear blessed little cat, Athenais, who it can only be said is a gift of God to us. Her cheer, her youth, her detrmination, her love of play: her soul, her deep, starlit soul brightens each day for me, and for Mark. A pair of clear copper eyes into which you look and lose your saddness for they glow with the bright polish of her knowledge of us - a more profound knowing of us than I can explain - and in the deep blue-grey velvet coat which we comb and brush, stroke and nuzzle and most of all kisses, especially upon her brow and ears, whispering: my precious baby, I love you, I love you, I love you! O're and over again... until she bleats in her low key grrr of a purr her peace and contentment - her acceptance of our love.

Still driving old George is my dearest husband, Mark, the man whom without my knowledge has taken the stony, coal lump of a heart I've had and made it warm, even hot, molten passion in his hands as he kisses me on my lips and brow, then tells a wretched in-bad-taste story at which he laughs and I grimmance, though rather falsely these days, because this man, this sapphire eyed, ruby lipped and strawberry coloured locks fellow has given to me, some silly boy from a rural town, a life of so much joy, laughter and love. A daughter he's given to me! A fair and lovely girl who took me to her ballet lessons and to her computer room and to her friends houses and to a place in my life where I grew up, at least a little bit, and learned to place another's needs before of my own. My darling daughter Jo. An incomprehensible gift from the man I love: my family. Yet, not enough, to give me all of this, no; with it he gave me the world he saw and knew, a world not bounded by walls but braced with pillared dreams of possibilities that we, as a married couple, could build into a life, stone by stone. We have, I now know, built well.

And when in this blessed life of ours, Mark's and mine together, our good Creator chooses to test our hearts, molten passion or not, with trial, we find we have the mettle, we have the courage, we have the strength of the Truth He gives us as we face these next challenges of income, of health, of spirit and of hope and we find, somehow just in a little drive to an old house in the woods, who we are, really are, one more time. And finding that today is the fabulous, marvelous and star littered present Jesus gave us this old Saturday afternoon...

Joy Belin & Tigger

These photos of my daughter, Joy Belin, and her Tigger, make me incredibly proud. Joy is an amazing young woman, bright, articulate, loving to both Mark and me and a very, very good Cat Mom!

Athenais: Variations