Gay Beach Agenda 

Only Two

My eyes drift to focus on…the trees…the glass…
My hand poised in midair
Grasping the pen
There it will remain
For I have been captured again

I want to tell the world
Of the swirling wind in my chest
Of the vein that quickens on my neck
Of the flush that comes to my ears
Of the water that collects in my eyes

When I pause to think
Of your head on our pillow
Of your hair in our comb
Of your arm along mine
Of your hand in my life

And then I freeze
Caught in the web we have spun
On my way to tell the world
But it will have to wait
For the world has shrunk
To only two

Motivation

Can love inspire as much as pain?
Will beauty move the soul more than hideousness?
Does hope make the heart beat faster than despair?

What guides the hand of the painter?
God?
The Devil?
Ego?
Selflessness?

Why does she pick up the sign? Stand on the street corner?
Is it insight?
Delusion?

If I walk the road, what will push me to reach the end?
Will I reach the end?
Will I want to?

Ears have walls

It takes many kinds of folks to make up a city. These are snippets overheard walking the streets of San Francisco.

"Is this Sweet Jesus stuff?" A woman stumbling towards the poetry reading in Washington Square.

"Omigod. He was so hot. They both were. We just stayed in bed until noon and did it over and over." A man's cell phone conversation, Market & 16th.

"Hiya Frankie. How's your sister?" "She's not my sister, she's my mother-in-law. She's leaving today." Conversation through the doorway of the Palermo Deli, Stockton.

"Did you get it done?" "Yeah." "Did it hurt?" "Not too bad. Had to wear a bandage for awhile but took it off the first time I peed." "You like it?" "It's kinda cool. The new hole goes right through the old one. I think it's really me." Two men outside of the Market Street 24 Hour Fitness.

"Is he your, uh...wife?...or somethin'?" A woman's question to us on the F-Line, Market & Octavia

"Where've you been? Haven't seen you around for awhile." "I was in for a couple of months. Just got out last week." Two women sitting on the sidewalk, 15th & South Van Ness.

"Did you read Beth Lisick's column in the Chronicle yesterday?...Aw, you should read it. She mentionned me!" Man's cell phone conversation at a coffee house, 17th & Sanchez

"Yeah, they're taking a second look at the script. I have to fly down to L.A. tomorrow." Man at a coffee house in the Marina.

The following from an afternoon in Dolores Park:

"She should have been kicked out for saying that! I mean, it's a beauty school. 50% of the people there are gay."

"You know, just like the best part of the ice cream cone is when you get to the end, sex is better on the bottom."

"Hi! I have fresh-baked ganja cookies and brownies for sale. Two for ten dollars."

The Path

I wanted only to try to live my life in accord with the promptings which came from my true self.
Why was that so very difficult?
Herman Hesse, Demian

Yesterday, I came across these words, written in my high school English notebook twenty-five years ago. I had jotted down these lines from the preface to Herman Hesse's Demian, because they had special meaning to my struggling teeanage mind...for obvious reasons. The quote didn't reflect my life, though. Not for a very long time. I didn't want "to live my life in accord with the promptings which came from my true self." Far from it. I wanted to flee from those promptings. And flee I did. First to religion. Then to marriage. Then into the dark recesses of my mind where TRUE SELF barely had air to breathe. But every once in awhile, I would crack open the box, punch a few holes to let myself...my self, get some oxygen. And it survived somehow, a bit twisted and disfigured from malnourishment. But alive. And whole. And now overjoyed to breathe the air and walk in the daylight.

fade...

a pillar of granite,
dissolves bit by bit…

a cable of steel,
unravels strand by strand…

look to the stalwart one, the steadfast one, the one taken for granted…
watch her fade…

scramble to stop the drain...
schedule, prod...

feel the void grow…

watch the candles go out one by one…

watch and do everything…
then, do nothing…

watch and try to remember who she was…

Before.


Today is my mother's birthday. My mother, Joan Broecker, died of a brain tumor a year ago.