1940, 1970 and Today – plus other poems - 7. 1940, 1970 and Today

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Poem No. 15 ^[7]

1940,1970 and Today

Poem:

What if I were one of them,

one of the ones bound in a line –

on one side held by oppression,

on the stronger side still, by a fact –

bound because they couldn’t hide

what others easily scurry into themselves.

With shaven heads wrapped

in soil and sweat-combed rags,

the line without a sound conjoins

into a row of wasted solitude,

looking all calm, but beneath

a bitter quake of the heart.

One palm sweats where

its own nails bite,

longing for sweet revolt,

or just a little courage to touch

the mate it used to hold

so often and so well.

More spitefully, the living barbs

cut his flesh, bringing blood

to the face of constraint;

sweat and purity mingle

in the cupping want of his hand.

Fear, alive within reach, his eyes

feel sunken deeper in his brain,

but focus worked by weariness

brings an image to attention.

That head before his groping eyes

he sees as summers ago have seen –

where the back of ears were

once awash in sun-like hair –

he would play like a child

on a familiar beach,

stroke a fingertip from nape

around to the side of receiving lobe,

then like a dalliance, retread the way

to end in the sandy spot from which he began.

Letting go, his eyes befell the faded stripes

that downwards clothed the back before him,

and beneath, the shabby remains

of a body he used to feel his own.

Down to himself, his own badge –

the one they gave him as a shame –

he sees the pink triangle gone a dirty

emaciated hue of the time stolen from him.

But movement from in front

caught his ever-slowing glance,

and a blink required a second

to clear his vision,

but movement he saw

from the hand of he in front of him –

from the one he so longed to touch.

Perhaps not an invitation,

perhaps merely a glint

of movement hoping

across a blind desert

for the embrace of a loving eye.

Three sides, the man mused.

Half empty-hearted,

one side denies;

and if unfeeling can

deny a life away,

a second side is shame

to only be alive when

more than one, for

a group in uncurable

illness is a group in

pathetic penitence strong.

But the third and last

is redemption, the one

so few seem to find;

the acquittal of nature,

the strength to free her

of any wrong,

and that love of self

is the only love

to bring about

blessèd absolution.

The man’s grip relaxed,

and the nails undug

their trench from his palm.

With one finger slowly raising,

his eyes re-found that

distant glimmer, and made for it

across the dead air of

time robbed from them.

Slowly, for the effort took much . . .

slowly, no one must see,

no one must, not for shame,

not for grief, but for no other

reason than a secret love

ever wants its innocence.

Again he woke his eyes to focus,

only to feel the palm of his belovèd

take the finger in affection.

A moment only, but neither needed more.

quickly, he drew his hand away

and then saw a guard

had seen their touch.

To the man, the soldier boy

was familiar – the same sweet look

he knew so well – the look his lover

used to wear so mildly

and so openly in the Berlin of old.

A lump hitched in his throat;

not only had this boy seen,

but he was one of them;

one of them hidden and helpless.

The man had no illusions;

such types were the most deadly

to his type – the caught,

the unapologetic, the “uncured,”

and the natural . . . .

He feared the worst. He felt

sorry it meant the same pain

for his belovèd as himself,

wishing he could absorb it

for the man he loved.

A flinch of pity appeared

across the young face;

the guard moved silently away.

Eventually, the order came

and the line of men

trudged forward at a shuffling pace,

their last movement, for

outside the camp gates,

a ditch awaited them.

So the order was brought about

against those – the accusèd Queers –

by the un-accusèd ones

in a place called Belsen.

◇ ◇ ◇

But what if I were one of them,

the trickle in the streets who,

by the end of morning,

thousands found themselves.

One of the ones who joined

autonomous limbs and built

an unhanded chain to sweep

arbitrary subjugation aside.

One who reveled in the

sheer weight of all my companions,

we being one, we taking

power so long denied.

Alive in the joy of freedom,

itching for the chance to fight –

whole, happy, strong –

with the strength

of newborns.

What if I were one of them,

the ones who matched on

a bright summer day –

one year to the day –

after Stonewall.

What if I were amongst

the first takers of the

Rights of Queers!

◇ ◇ ◇

Postlude:

Sonnet

But those generations are gone for me,

Though less than one divides the former from

The one that got all of our liberty;

Thirty-year rebellion from martyrdom.

And yet today among the crowd I saw

Beauty has eyes and hands, and kept below

Levi’s brand, are treasures near the draw,

Handy enough to keep me in sorrow.

Moving like one beyond their concerning,

A boy saw and shyly knew the compliment –

As shadows blew me his glance returning,

Our commonest love with the crowd’s was blent.

Though such days are past, those they loved I see;

I’ll fight that these years belong to him and me!

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[7] “1940, 1970 and Today” This poem, contrasting the Nazi extermination of Gay people with the 1st anniversary Pride March to commemorate the Stonewall freedom riots, was inspired by my reading of a little book I bought in the college bookstore of Ochanomizu, Tokyo. My first books on LGBTI2S+ belle lettres came from here, and began a process of eye-opening to the extent of Queer History which continues to this day. The little book in question is an analysis of the 1979 play Bent.

What is less evident – 1940, 1970 and Today – is that “today” refers to the 1993 LGBT March on Washington. Over a million people gathered that momentous day on the National Mall, demanding equal rights, and caused instant Gay-erasing from D.C. police. They, despite all the arial photographic proof of the million or more present, lied and offered a laughable official count – the one that goes into the history books – of “under 50 thousand.” It was the powers-that-be’s way to slap the Gay Community in the face and reinforce that Queer lives do not matter; they’re not even important enough to count, literally. Just like Trump and his so-called census-taking in the year 2020. If you believe that BS, our minority group “shrunk” over ten years, notwithstanding all actual facts to the contrary.

Ironically, despite the proof that millions of Gay people were killed by the Nazis because of their orientation, an “official” tally – the one all the politicians use even to this day to marginalize our Holocaust experience – stands at less than 50,000.

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