“A Book of Music” by Jack Spicer, poetry reading by DJB

Why I Wore Purple, a Response Video

Here is what I wrote in the YouTube description:

Normally this space (meaning my YouTube channel) is mostly for poetry, and some fun with my sons, especially when that fun involves fun with language, as in the Dad Libs playlist (A new one of those is on the production table right now, btw).

But this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjzN8l7cc78 got my attention because I did wear purple on the 20th. I went through a long and difficult struggle coming out. My faith was very important to me, and I was being told from the pulpit, the radio, the TV and from all sides that homosexuality was a moral evil.

I spent my teen years in denial and deep in the closet, almost literally. I cannot tell you how many nights I sat in a corner of my room, crying because these “evil thoughts” would not go away, no matter how I prayed.

Turns out, there was nothing evil about the desire for companionship and love from a member of my own gender. Unusual? Sure, that’s fair. If normal is what most people do, it wasn’t normal. But neither was it immoral. I was believing the misinformation passed down for ages by some actually sincere people.

Sure there are hate mongers out there, but to be fair, many of those who disagree with me do so out of the same convictions that I had. It’s just they never had to face it head on like I did, or like many who do when they find that someone they love deeply is gay. It’s easier to think less of a class of people if your religion tells you to. But more than that, it’s easy for a culture to infiltrate a sincere religion with it’s prejudices and biases. The bible condones slavery. The bible condones the subjugation of women. Need I say more?

Well, this video is my over-long response. It’s not professionally planned out. I’ll save that for the writing I’ve been doing on this topic. But it is passionately and sincerely stated.

John Corvino says it better than I do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SutThIFi24w

And here are a few stories that explain why we gays and lesbians sometimes lose our cool. Injustice does that. Perhaps the Christians would call this righteous anger if it were coming from them. Me, I just call it my moral conviction. It’s certainly more than just my opinion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/nyregion/09bias.html?_r=1

http://www.hrcbackstory.org/2010/10/meet-the-face-of-hate…

http://www.365gay.com/news/watch-anderson-cooper-takes-on…

http://outsports.com/jocktalkblog/2010/10/12/michigan-ath…

“To Autumn” by John Keats, Read by DJB

You might be interested in seeing this poem by Keats in his original handwriting. I warn you; If you are a nerd like I am you might find yourself overcome with emotion and watery eyes. Click here and then click on the link at the bottom of the page for a photo of the original poem.

                           John Keats (1795-1821)
                                 TO AUTUMN.

                                            1.

    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
        And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
        Until they think warm days will never cease, 
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                            2.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, 
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
        Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                            3.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; 
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

“Advice to My Son” by Peter Meinke, a Poetry Reading

a god that small

I promised to write about this topic in the journal today, but I am pressed hard on a first draft deadline for a paper on Tennyson, so, here is a link for you to look at as a reminder that not every Christian has abandoned the intellect God gave him.  And here are my words of thanks to a friend on Facebook today:

Yes, I wonder… even when I was a teen, it seems that the church was losing the idea that it was about love and kindness. We seem to have come to believe it’s more important to be “right.” I know that many good people were concerned about me, still are. But why hasn’t one of them turned to me with the respect that I deserved and asked, “David, I don’t understand. Explain it to me?”

I take that back, one Christian did say that, and his name is Dave. Everyone else seemed so under the sway of the same things taught to me for years that they immediately assumed that I was wrong and fallen into horrendous sin. Gee, thanks for the vote of faith in me, folks. I am glad I didn’t let it kill me. And I’ll be damned if I’ll keep my mouth quite about this as long as their are kids and adults out there who are suffering because of the lack of understanding from the people whose chief job above all should be to love them, not to judge them.

I am guilty of many sins, just like they are, but loving a man? That’s no sin and never was. And until I see the church stoning men to death for adultery, or insisting that their women shut up in church and cover their heads when they pray, I will not be bothered with their misinterpretations and misapplications of cultural taboos. They can keep sailing the seas on their flat world and believe that they and the earth itself are the geographic center of the universe, but personally, I cannot believe in a god that small.

Ok, I don’t care if you are Christian or Atheist, I’m asking you to read this blog entry right here.

Testy Pony, by Zachary Schomburg

I normally don’t like what is often called prose poetry. I admit that I don’t really get it. For me poetry (aside from the requirements of beauty, excellence and a sense of reaching for something true) has always been in the line. But this poem feels like a poem to me, despite it’s complete lack of any form that to me resembles poetry.

It was the poem of the day one day last week on the email list from the American Academy of Poets. I liked it, but I felt a need to experiment. Even though I wasn’t going to show it to anyone else, I thought if I relined it I would be able to read it better, and it would do something for my OCD-ish need for structure. So I copied it and made the lines end where I felt was appropriate. Funny thing is, although I cannot explain why, seeing it on the page in neat lines ruined it for me. I didn’t like how it looked, or how it sounded when I read it. So I let Mr. Schomburg have his way and I red it on the screen in paragraph form just how he wrote it.

Is it a poem? Is it flash fiction? I cannot express to you why, except to say that it is all metaphor, and it punches me right in the gut… so I want to say it is a poem after all.

Forgive me Zachary S. But hey, at least you know that you have my attention, right?

Testy Pony
by Zachary Schomburg

I am given a pony for my birthday, but it is the wrong kind of pony. It is the kind of pony that won’t listen. It is testy. When I ask it to go left, it goes right. When I ask it to run, it sleeps on its side in the tall grass. So when I ask it to jump us over the river into the field I have never before been, I have every reason to believe it will fail, that we will be swept down the river to our deaths. It is a fate for which I am prepared. The blame of our death will rest with the testy pony, and with that, I will be remembered with reverence, and the pony will be remembered with great anger. But with me on its back, the testy pony rears and approaches the river with unfettered bravery. Its leap is glorious. It clears the river with ease, not even getting its pony hooves wet. And then there we are on the other side of the river, the sun going down, the pony circling, looking for something to eat in the dirt. Real trust is to do so in the face of clear doubt, and to trust is to love. This is my failure, and for that I cannot be forgiven.