Q***R CULTURE

a POEM by
FLORENCE OULDS

***

last year
this time last year

i was
writing an essay on
The Well of Loneliness
and was being supervised by
a woman
an older lesbian
who knew about such things.

the essay was about

the problems of the nave and
desperate language
of the book,
 and so,
to figure out what that meant
we talked about a lot of things,
talking in that way it is to talk like
two people monologuing at each other,
but two people who meet over something

arms poised over a table,

working separately
to solve the same
jig-saw.

in this talking
we talked about community
its a little sad,
i think i said,
not being raised by
those before us,
trying to plan out our
lives with no model for how,
taking hard trying to think what
survival is.

i said
in the community

she said
in your community
how many older gay people
do you know?

None.

i felt like i was being

shamed but maybe
we both knew
what had done it.

***
 a few months later
i made a new friend
(and quickly
my wife
(U-hauld))
who said
said woman
was a terf

i said
well
she put up with me

Jen Richards,
writer actress activist,
said
she doesnt really like to tar everyone
with the same
terf
brush
because often
terfs are just people
who want to protect women
and when you brand
someone a terf
youre also
trying
to protect women,

i guess just a different kind.

i think to some degree

shes right
not everyone so much can be
branded
Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist
because maybe theyre not that coherent,

maybe theyre just scared.

 Jen Richards
also said
that the reason we dont have these
elders
in the trans community
is because
back then
the choice you had

(to call it
a choiceas Janet Mock says
the one choice you have
about being trans
is transitioning)

was to transition, pass,

and go

stealth

slinking into
society,
being a good husband
a good wife,
nothing between,
telling nobody
save your
wife or
husband

and so

we do exist,
older, aging,
waiting for retirement,
teasing out years,

loving
 but we had to be hidden
and i suspect
that safety
is not something anyone
would want to burst out of

we can blame
society
for the reasons
cis people
bash
trans people,
straight people
bash
gay people,
but we have to remember
bashed or un-bashed,
bashed or not-yet-bashed,
this society is in our heads too

only so much
new start
comes with a
new name

(if you take one.)

***

the hidden thing

you saw at the start
but that i dont know
how to start talking about

happens when i go onto

amazon.com
and type in

aids
 Sort by |Relevance \/|

here is the first result:

AIDS: Dont Die of Prejudice 10 Jun 2014

by Norman Fowler

here is the second result:

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic 3 Nov 2011
by Randy Shilts

here is the third result:

Best Seller
Rayovac Hearing Aid Batteries Size 312 10 Packs of 6 Cells
by Rayovac

its almost funny

isnt it?

and absence
of things
to talk about
the absence
it made
in our culture,
our history,
our community.

because of this
we have to raise ourselves
without parents
and there is no one
to warn us
when we learn
about they knife they took
to us

or didnt
 let the thing rot
let the bodies
on the streets
on steps of the F.D.A.
in private rooms
away from the rest of the world
the TV on i am taking
my clothes off when i hear
your breathing stop and i know
the landlord knows but i know
they would never let
me see you in the hospital
or kiss your corpse
on the cheek.

***

A-I-D-S
H-I-V

MY BODY IS WRONG
AND I AM CONSTANTLY
UNCOMFORTABLE
AND MISUNDERSTOOD

CAN I NOT SAY MY NAME

RIGHT
OR DO PEOPLE JUST
NOT EXPECT IT TO COME OUT OF
MY MOUTH

I CANNOT
WAIT TO DIE
CAN YOU TELL
CAN YOU TELL
CAN YOU TELL

***

talking in the pub the other day with friends

 i said

i never heard anyone call

David Bowie
a queer icon
until he was dead

my friend replied
that he was to them,
was to lots of people,
was transgressive and new

this is another problem i suppose

putting aside the very possible
problem of Bowie
the unity of experience,
how far does it go?

i am worried
when a person is cast as an
LGBT character
there is some fundamental misunderstanding
going on;

the joke is
what, all at once?
but the truth is
maybe they think just the one
is enough,
just a white one,
just a story,
just this once,
just on the sideline,
just how theyve always been done,
just how we love to kill them,
just how we love the profitable drama of struggle,

but then its like:

yes i want to be there too,
yes i want someone like my siblings to be there too,
 but we bandy ourselves around
these four letters
(and their alterations)
so much
precisely because just the one
is not enough

***

i wrote a poem
after the Orlando massacre
that is
four pages
of nothing
and then the phrase
there
are
not
words
spread out
over another four
and honestly
i dont think i could say anything more about it

***

michelle shampton
(@michelle_sham)
tweeted

As a Republican in college, I am genuinely afraid to speak about my

conservative views in fear of being stereotyped or labelled negatively

Anthony Oliveira
(@meakoopa)
quoted the tweet and replied

I havent been able to go to a gay bar in 8 months without wondering whether

Im about to be part of a massacre.
 ***

paintings
(erotics, nudes,
small things owned by
Elton John)

poems
(Frank OHara
invites you out to lunch)

hair cuts
(my barber once said
people often have very different ideas
about want an
uncercut
is)

***

AIDS has severed the link between these twin concepts

Daniel Goldsteins
Icarian series

the sweat stained seats,

leather loved on workout machines,
bodies striving to be other bodies
either
look, i can keep on weight
or
look, im not losing it
you wont lose me
i wont die
on you

but who is holy

who is sanctified
who is pure
who is remembered
metal staples and stigmata-like holes that allude to the passions of martyrs and
saints

No romance no sexiness
But a star-filled night

Cremate me after you cum on my lips

Honey boy place my ashes in a vase
Beneath your workout bench

No romance no sexiness
But a star-filled night

a signifier of normality in the face of a frighteningly abnormal condition

***

Gay-related immune deficiency (GRID) was the name first proposed in 1982 to
describe an "unexpected cluster of cases" of what is now known as AIDS, after
public health scientists noticed clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis
pneumonia among gay males in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City.

During this time, the phrases "gay cancer" and "gay plague" were also used.

i argued once
with an ex
that
queer
was not more
correct
to use
than
gay

she said
queer
to her
was holdable,
but
 gay
was what they called
her in school

and besides,
that was the last generation
who got called that
its silly for us
to pretend those are our problems

was it the last generation

who died
to not be around
to complain about

q
***
r

or was it the one before

or was it the one before
or was it the one before
or was it the one before
or the one before?

i suppose
we were both wrong & right
because any language associated with us
becomes toxic, infected,
inflated,
a
hatred.

this is the paradox:

weve always been around,
but we have no history.

***
 Chechnya,
God,
Chechnya.

***
THE BODY RAGES
AGAINST THE THING
HOLDING THE BODY;

the body makes

the anti-
body

and scientists hate it

when we take their words
for art

but poets know

someone must always
be singing.

***

when Moonlight
came out
there were a few inflammatory articles
accusing it of
gay washing

gay washing

can you fucking believe it-

gay washing?

frankly,
im too annoyed about it still
to look up the articles to write about them

and sure, maybe

 there is desire too
for a desexualised
film,
maybe we shouldnt
be laughing at the desire
for a lack of desire,

but still, but still,

thats just fucking awful
and ignorant
and angry-making;

there is this fallacy

that now gay men
have rights
theyre just like anyone else,
like now you can be on a poster
that sits outside a bank
or carry their pride banner for them,
we can pretend
that your body still wasnt only just recently
made un-illegal
on the streets you march,
or the house
you stay at home in
with your husband.

i read recently
someone saying
a black gay man
is more likely to
be assaulted in the street
than a white trans woman

and so maybe there must always

be contrasts
for things to be understood
by some
focused solely on themselves
 but still it is hard
to any longer endorse
groups where people

get actually angry at progress.

i understand
that we must stay vigilant,
but, God,

at least now

let them live

and love
and fuck.

***

ive seen paris is burning twice

and i still have mixed feelings about drag.

a baby in pink
is the core of a world
where not half of everyone wears pink,

but maybe they do.

***

here is a small space

for myself
that i wrote as an ending
a while ago:

you broke up with me nearly a year ago

but i havent stopped collecting these things for you
because with you
for the first time
i didn't feel just in waiting,
but queer,
a verb.