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    AC Benus
  • AC Benus
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  • 03/17/2022
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 53. ...just a peck...

.

to G. R.

 

There is a club for boys where they

By night can congregate,

Where many are the games they play,

And each one meets his mate.

 

They are a rather rowdy crew,

Rough diamonds at the best:

But those in charge will trust the few

To influence the rest.

 

Now you would think this scarce the place

Where Eros would intrude,

Or mix among the crowd to grace

Their untaught manners crude.

 

Yet here I saw a fellow stand

To read a notice on the door,

The while his chum with gentle hand

On his left shoulder bore,

 

Who then so deftly kissed his neck,

Embracing t’wards the right:

A revelation! Just a peck

Of friendship, love and light!

—Samuel Elsworth Cottam,[i]

1930

 

 

 

 

 

[i] “There is a club for boys” Samuel Elsworth Cottam Cameos of Boyhood (London 1930). Reprinted by James Gardiner A Class Apart: The Private Pictures of Montague Glover (New York 1992), p. 75

_

as noted
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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JACC

Nice play with words. A certain playfulness can be read, sort of a bubbling feeling while reading the description. Thanks @AC Benus

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Parker Owens

I really liked this poem for the images that sprang to mind. And I can only wish I’d seen it, and others like it, when I was younger. 

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JACC
56 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

I really liked this poem for the images that sprang to mind. And I can only wish I’d seen it, and others like it, when I was younger. 

Me too!!! 😊

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AC Benus
On 3/17/2022 at 11:05 AM, JACC said:

Nice play with words. A certain playfulness can be read, sort of a bubbling feeling while reading the description. Thanks @AC Benus

Thank you, @JACC! I thought this poem was a delightful little vignette. It's so compact and complete, and ultimately, moving as well   

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AC Benus
On 3/17/2022 at 12:54 PM, Parker Owens said:

I really liked this poem for the images that sprang to mind. And I can only wish I’d seen it, and others like it, when I was younger. 

Thank you, @Parker Owens! I would dearly like to read the other poems of this volume, but sadly, Cameos of Boyhood is not online (or should I say, has been kept offline in successful Gay erasure efforts). This book is mentioned constantly in works examining Gay literature at least since the 1950s onward, but has oddly never received a mass-market reprint, unlike most other rare pages passed from hand to hand in the LGBT Community.

Thanks for reading 

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