“Baby, I’m for real”: Black-American Gay poets from a generation ago
Posted: June 18, 2013 Filed under: Don Charles, English, Lamont B. Steptoe, Steve Langley | Tags: Black gay poets Comments Off on “Baby, I’m for real”: Black-American Gay poets from a generation ago
. . .
“I dream of Black men loving and supporting other Black men, and relieving Black women from the role of primary nurturers in our community. I dream, too, that as we receive more of what we want from each other that our special anger reserved for Black women will disappear. For too long we expected from Black women that which we could only obtain from other men. I dare myself to dream.”
Joseph Fairchild Beam (1954 – 1988) from Brother to Brother: Words from the Heart, a passionate 1984 essay directed at all – not just gay – Black men
. . .
Lamont B. Steptoe (born 1949)
“Maybelle’s boy”
.
I get from other men
what my daddy never gave
He just left me a house
full of lonesome rooms
and slipped on in his grave.
.
Now
when muscled arms enfold me
A peace descends from above
Someone is holdin’ Maybelle’s boy
and whisperin’ words of love.
. . .
Don Charles (born 1960)
“Comfort”
.
When you looked and
saw my Brown skin
Didn’t it make you
feel comfortable?
.
Didn’t you remember that
old blanket
You used to wrap up in
when the nights got cold?
.
Didn’t you think about that
maplewood table
Where you used to sit and
write letters to your daddy?
.
Didn’t you almost taste that
sweet gingerbread
Your granny used to make?
(And you know it was good.)
.
When you looked and
saw my Brown eyes
Didn’t they look just like
home?
. . .
Don Charles
“Jailbait”
.
You better quit coming around here like that
with no shirt on
and them gold chains on your neck
.
In them tight shorts
halfway pushed down the back
and your jockstrap showing
.
Ass jerking from side to side
and your legs all sweaty and shining
.
Trying to talk dirty
with that Kangol hat cocked to one side
.
Some dude’s gonna grab you
yank them shorts right down
throw you ‘cross the hood of his car
and ram his dick up your little ass so hard
it’ll make you walk more funny than you do.
.
Couldn’t nobody blame him neither
the way you walk around
acting like you want something
.
Hell!
I may be the one who jams you –
You just better quit coming around here.
. . .
Don Charles
“If he hadn’t kissed me”
.
And the fool said to me
as he humped my behind:
“You ought to try
fucking a woman some time.”
.
“Gotta have you some pussy
to be a real man,”
he said while I jacked him off
on my divan.
.
I wanted to ask him
to see if he knew:
“Why would I mess with
a jackass like you,
if pussy was what
I wanted to do?”
.
And if he hadn’t kissed me,
I would have, too.
. . .
David Warren Frechette (died 1991)
“Non, Je ne regrette rien”
(for Keith Barrow and Larry McKeithan)
I had big fun if I don’t get well no more.
(“Going Down Slow”, as sung by Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland)
.
Sister Chitlin’, Brother NeckBone and
Several of their oxymoron minions
Circle round my sick room,
Swathed in paper surgical gowns.
.
Brandishing crosses, clutching bibles,
(God, please don’t let them sing hymns!)
Pestering me to recant the
Wicked ways that brought me here.
.
“Renounce your sins and return to Jesus!”
Shouts one of the zealous flock.
“The truth is I never left Him,”
I reply with a fingersnap.
“Don’t you wish you’d chosen a normal lifestyle?”
“Sister, for me, I’m sure I did.”
.
Let the congregation work overtime
For my eleventh-hour conversion.
Their futile efforts fortify
My unrepentant resolve.
.
Though my body be racked by
Capricious pains and fevers,
I’m not even about to yield to
Fashionable gay Black temptation.
.
Mother Piaf’s second greatest hit title
Is taped to the inside of my brain
And silently repeated like a mantra:
“Non, je ne regrette rien.”
.
I don’t regret the hot Latino boxer
I made love to on Riverside Drive
Prior to a Washington march.
I don’t regret wild Jersey nights
Spent in the arms of conflicted satyrs;
I don’t regret late night and early a.m.
Encounters with world-class insatiables.
.
My only regrets are being ill,
Bed-ridden and having no boyfriend
To pray over me.
And that now I’ll never see Europe
Or my African homeland except
In photos in a book or magazine.
.
Engrave on my tombstone:
“Here sleeps a happy Black faggot
Who lived to love and died
With no guilt.”
.
No, I regret nothing
Of the gay life I’ve led and
There’s no way in Heaven or Hell
I’ll let anyone make me.
. . .
David Warren Frechette
“The Real Deal”
.
Don’t want death to catch me crying and acting like I been bad.
Don’t want no hypocrites around my bedside making me feel sad.
When my man comes my way with His golden book and silver scythe,
Then says, “Come along now, David…it’s the end of your life!”
I’ll answer Him,
“I’m a natural fighter, I ain’t gonna go easy,
Although my breath is short, and my stomach quite queasy.”
If I must leave this world hunched over, I got this reliance
That death will have to find me – arms folded in defiance.
. . .
ZP_Donald W. Woods photographed in 1987 by Robert Giard
.
Donald W. Woods (1958 – 1992)
“What do I do about you?”
.
holy ghost of my heart
grinding my memory
humping my need
.
throw your head like the dinka
shake your arms like the maasai
a french whore flirting
lickin lips at strangers
.
been waiting for your lightbulb
to glow for me
.
waiting
to exchange hard ass love
calloused affection
.
slapping high fives
capable and competent
listless and lonely
.
turn the blaze up slow
so I can breathe your
mourning breath
wet my pillow
part your eyelids
.
I’m a typewriter
randy and selfish and wise
a sonnet
a beat box
.
serve the next line
in your salty metaphors
and smoked salmon humour
.
wet me with
the next line
.
the resounding refrain
of grown men in love.
. . .
Cary Alan Johnson
“Stoned”
.
I used your letter to roll a joint
and as your lies burned
I inhaled them;
they made me laugh.
. . .
Cary Alan Johnson
“Surrender”
.
Last night
I fell silently into your
black sea.
Hair everywhere, in my
mouth, deep inside me,
deep, deeper
than we’d ever
gone before.
Did you know this
time would come?
. . .
Djola Bernard Branner
“Red Bandanas”
(as rapped to 101 beats per minute minus-one)
.
red bandanas
mean fuck me
when worn
in the right
hip pocket
in the right crowd
.
on castro
or christopher
streets
.
but mine is worn
around the neck.
.
it means that
i am remembering
granddad
who wiped
the sweat from his
brow onto it
or used it to catch
the contents of
a cough
or laundered it /
and wore it
around his neck.
.
red bandanas
mean fuck me
when worn
in the right
hip pocket
in the right crowd
.
on castro
or christopher
streets
.
but mine is worn
around the neck.
.
it means that
i am remembering
moms
who placed it
in the palm of
my hand /
and dried
the tears she
cried in it
’cause her
father died
with nothing
but his /
.
red bandanas
mean fuck me
when worn
in the right
hip pocket
in the right crowd
.
on castro
or christopher
streets
.
but mine is worn
around the neck.
. . .
Steve Langley
“Tell Mama”
.
When I was 10 years old, I asked
my mama while she was making potato salad:
“Mama, what’s a homosexual?” She said:
“It’s a man who likes men.”
“What’s a lesbian?”
“It’s a woman who likes women.”
“What makes them like that?”
“I don’t know, son. Nobody knows.
It’s a freak of nature.”
.
When I was 14, I heard
her say to my stepfather:
“We can’t go nowhere
without you winkin’ and blinkin’
and makin’ advances at other men.
I see you.
I’ll never trust you as long as you got
a hole in your ass.”
.
When I was 17, I sat
with my mother on our front porch
as she shriveled from cancer.
We watched the stars, felt the breeze,
Tonight I would tell her,
tell her that I was like the men
she told me about,
that I was like my stepfather…
Ants gathered the words at my feet.
I felt them rise through my toes, my ankles,
and my legs. They were creeping through me,
at my waist, in my stomach, my chest.
My throat got thick, my tongue heavy.
I needed to tell her what she already knew.
I began,
But I couldn’t…..
. . .
Steve Langley
“Perseverance”
.
Build a wall
I’ll find a way to get over
Deal me a bad hand
Watch me change my luck
Turn up the heat
And I’ll make it colder
Do what you want
I’m never giving up.
. . .
Steve Langley
“Company”
.
I see stains
on your sheets
and tell myself
it’s chicken grease.
. . .
Steve Langley
“Checklist”
.
Say yes to love
Say no to sex
Say you, say me
Oh say can you see
We are afraid of each other
Say sister, say brother
Are you still messin’ ’round
Do you have a steady lover
Are you waitin’ for the cure
Are you sure
Are you savin’ yourself
Are you lovin’ yourself
Have you come yet
Are your dreams wet
Is your sex safe
Is it already too late?
ZP_Safe sex poster from 1985 produced by the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum
.
Steve Langley
“Confection”
.
i’m chocolate candy
a handful of cookies
the goodies you’re forbidden
to eat
i’m a piece of cake
a slice of pie
an ice-cream bar
that chills your teeth
think of me
as your favourite treat
a pan of popcorn kernels
waitin’ for the heat.
. . .
The poems we’ve gathered here were mostly originally published in chapbooks and literary journals between the years 1988 and 1992. Then, along with short-stories, essays and interviews, some of them were anthologized in Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men (1991), edited by Essex Hemphill, conceived by Joseph Fairchild Beam, with the project being managed by Joseph’s mother, Dorothy Beam. Others appeared in editor Assotto Saint’s Here to Dare: 10 Gay Black Poets (1992).
. . . . .
Zócalo Poets 