Sonnet No. 106
[November 8th, 2013 – 8:45 am]
Safe in the folds of fiery autumn color,
A painter nestled his private studio,
Where over and over he had one sitter
Gaze the landscape, while he built her folio.
'Helga,' for whom this shack was built, gazes out,
With the serenity only Love sees,
And will always live in His vision devout,
Though the world burn up, or totally freeze.
So too I cast about with words my paint
To reflect upon you, with reflected grace,
The hope the future
Sonnet No. 42
[August 23rd, 2013 – 6:24 am]
Oh my boy, the autumn seems to come on,
With each day a little less light than last,
While a bit more bleakness greets every dawn,
Whose grayness tries to say summer is past.
But the days themselves are bright and sunny -
I have you and your smile to keep me up,
And although it might sound somewhat funny,
With you my day also seems to windup.
The sunsets come sooner with their chill,
And inch-by-inch the day is given to night
To longe
Sonnet No. 95
[October 30th, 2013 – 7:07 pm]
We are only made of matter that dies,
Of bones and marrow; of skull and of brains,
And every thought we had will end in sighs,
As those who bury us mourn our remains.
A Roman mosaic of a skeleton
Shows him toasting fate with pitchers of wine –
His memento mori is a ghastly grin
To remind we toil under a heavy fine.
But, finite as the threat hangs on our head,
Our necks are blessed with freedom, and with choice,
For those who have loved
Sonnet No. 85
[October 26th, 2013 – 10:16 am]
Around me, baking apples scent the house,
While outside, burning leaves smoke in the clear –
And the season to my mood is like spouse,
For autumn is a cozy time of year.
But, now with you, my bundled warmth I'll share,
And chilled fingers will soon be warmed by yours,
As hand-in-hand we will walk anywhere
The bracing wind wends our steps out-of-doors.
The smoldering leaves and sight of orange pumpkin
Takes me back to the joys of childho
I need your help. I have probably very unwisely written a sonnet in Italian, a language i know only from opera usage....
SO, i am hoping that there are native or fluent speakers willing to vet this and tell me where my grammar is laughable. You would be loved eternally for any assistance to whip this into shape.
Naturally i could ask Tony to do it, but i would dearly love to surprise him with a piece that is easy to read. This is because the message is what i wish him to get first and f
OK. So last week Netflix delivered to my doorstep the 2006 Salzburg production of this German-language opera by Mozart. It - the production – was so German, I mean, wow. Every single one of the male characters, except one, were in a constant and slow amble all over the stage wearing giant papier-mâché heads! Sometimes the heads came off so they could sing; sometimes, not. Here is a sample. Please note the out-of-scale elements (all unexplained within the drama…), and the title character's partic
In the Flesh, Homophobia and the 'Zombie Menace'
July 13, 2013
The Setup:
What's so wrong with being Gay? In this day and age, with advances on all fronts towards the common acceptance of something that really is no big deal – equivalent to a person's height or eye color – does hatred and ignorance-based fear of 'gay as a disease' have any cultural grounding? Does it lurk in the subconscious like a repressed but recurring nightmare?
I am an odd duck; I know that.
Anybody watch "In the Flesh"???
It is about zombies, and two 'partially deceased' boys who get a second chance at love.
Let me know, I want to discuss it with folks!!! I really do...
It seems almost impossible that this Gay Pride month of June 2013 marks ten years of liberty for the LGBT community. It seems like a small back-step in time to that summer when two remarkable things happened.
On June 26th, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case of Lawrence v. Texas was announced. By a sweeping 6-3 ruling, Gay people never again had to fear arrest and imprisonment for the 'majorities' dirty-minded imaginings into our bedrooms. The Justices at the time did not have to r
I keep a personal memento of hope. In November of 2008 I went to the polls, and voted. On the ballot was the now infamous California Proposition Number 8. The language of the proposed amendment to the constitution – the founding and chief legal statement of how we the people of the state must function – said that my marriage was shit. And, that – the quality of my union – was put to a popular vote; made subject to public 'debate,' although the 'arguments' for the haters were privately-funded fro
I'm almost counting on plenty of opera-watcher to be on this forum!! Because I may soon be breaking another GA glass ceiling by posting the site's first Libretto (I could be wrong, so please let me know....).
My short two-act work is a Gay Rights celebratory piece called Il Sogno di Henry Hay. It follows the sleepless night of the founder of the first successful LGBT equal rights group in America, The Mattachine Society. The events surrounding the opera are true: Hay was being called up befo
OK, who agrees with me?
Clement Wood published a guide to writing verse in 1936 (The Poet's Craft Book), and together with his rhyming dictionary, you may have it on your self as I do.
One thing in it has always amazed me, and caused me to question Mr. Wood's value as an arbiter of poetic taste, but I'd like to know your opinions!
In the section headed 'On Translating Poetry' he serves up a literal translation of the opening lines of the Bible vs. The King James' version. You can wel
Marriage equality can celebrate another milestone.
Check out these two short videos, and feel a little jealous for South African same-sex couples. But, our time is fast coming.
Thank you to those who have read "Something to Share…", and especially to those moved to leave comments. They are deeply appreciated, and deeply felt, and Zombie's relaying how Holocaust survivors, 'liberated' by the allies, were herded back to brick-and-mortar prisons, made me think of Paragraph 175.
For anyone who has not seen this documentary, you need to. Klaus Müller, an out filmmaker, was driven to capture the voices of those who Gay man and women who survived. In 1999 very few were le
Were this only an April's fool's joke…
But, yesterday I was surfing the web, looking for images of Gay couples from the past, and stumbled on something sobering. A news article on human rights for our kind referenced a 1967 Supreme Court of Canada decision. It seems a man, Everett George Klippert, who apparently had no fear of the police, and no problem being Gay, casually mentioned the fact while talking to the RCMP (the Mounties, or the equivalent of our FBI) during the investigation of an
A Tardy little Valentine
I told myself I didn't care, but then I almost started balling like a baby.
"How was your Valentine's Day?" My coworker innocently asked.
"Fine," I started, then for some reason dropped the bullshit "well, actually, it sucked – and not in the good way."
"Why? What happened!?"
Still in my 'laugh it off' mode, I tried: "He forgot, that's all. See, every year we've been together, I get him chocolate, and he gets me roses for Valentine's Day." This
