Black Sheep Poem
A guy visiting the upstairs neighbor learned that I
had this virus and said that he believed that although
the government probably introduced the virus in the
homosexual community, that homosexuals were
dying en masse as a reaction to centuries of
society's hatred and repression of homosexuality.
All I could think of when he said this was an image
of hundreds of whales that beach themselves on the
coastlines on the coastlines in supposed protest of
the ocean's being polluted.
David Wojnarowicz
The first Black Sheep who came to mind was the poet David Wojnarowicz.
I opened his book Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration
and the paragraph above was the first thing my eye fell upon.
So I typed it in.
Then I went out onto the deck and sat down and leaned forward
and touched the white cedar planks with the tips of my fingers
and remembered that my friends had built this for me.
My friends love me.
All David ever wanted was love.
And he kept finding it--
in rented rooms, in the trucks, in subway tea rooms,
in the back rows of disintegrating movie theaters.
All any of us want is unqualified love.
I am sitting here thinking about David Wojnarowicz
walking from The Bronx to The Battery night after New York night.
I'm thinking about hands reaching out of the darkness
to stroke the back of his neck, his skinny ass, his bony cock, his ribs.
I thought I'd write about how he stopped on The Battery
and found Ishmael there and Arthur Rimbaud and Francois Villon
and talked to them until the sun came up
and morning light spread across the water.
But the only person he ever met on The Battery
was a pissy old wino in an army fatigue jacket
who shared a meat sandwich with him.
What would I do if David entered this room?
I'd take him in my arms.
I'd place my hands on his lower back.
I'd press him toward me.
Is that his cock against my thigh?
He smells bad.
The sneakers he fished out of the trash can
in an alley off East 33rd Street are disintegrating on his feet.
He washes up infrequently in the men's room of the Horn and Hardart.
He hasn't brushed his teeth since last Sunday.
He weighs a hundred and seven pounds and he is dying.
"David, what if I worked a whale into this poem?"
"I think that would be bullshit though also kind of cool."
"What if I introduced you to Ishmael in this poem?"
"I think it might be cool but basically bullshit."
"What if I called you a black sheep."
"Total bullshit."
"David, since you've returned from the dead and you're in my room now,
do you have a message for the world?"
"Yes. One in every four people in The Bronx is HIV positive."
This poem is over.
**********************************************
A Romantic Evening With David Wojnarowicz
For Ed Grimes
We would not go to the The Russian Tea Room.
We would not look at each other over bowls of borscht there.
No Hungarian gypsy would play the violin for us there
and there would be no candlelight reflected in our eyes.
We would not go to Lincoln Center or to the Met or to Cats.
We would not hold hands or kiss on Christopher Street.
We would not cuddle in the back of a cab
as it moved through Central Park.
We would not take a vow to be monogamous
as we stood by the Plaza fountain.
No, we would sit on a dock and look at the river.
Neither of us buy the con of nature's beauty.
We know what's in that river.
We have no illusions.
When it comes to rivers, we've been there.
The river means less to us than potato soup in the Bethel Mission.
David would not go to the stereo and put on a recording of Maria Callas
singing La Momma Morte. There is no stereo
and we are not opera queens.
Neither of us has ever been to the opera.
Our only music is the cooing of a rock pigeon as it patrols the dock.
David has not dressed for this occasion.
He is wearing a pair of torn jeans a friend gave him
and a black tee shirt with these words on it:
Despair Irony Hunger Anxiety Boredom Death.
"All my friends are dead and I won't see you again, John."
"Sometimes people rally back from death, David."
"Some do and those are the unlucky ones."
"But you've always been unlucky."
"Not in this case. In this case I got lucky."
There is no future and the only now is now.
If we had a candle we'd blow it out at this moment.
Let's pretend we have one.
Here it is. Take it.
Now blow it out--romantically.
That's it. Just pucker up your lips and--blow.
**********************************************
Brief Bio
I am writing my name: John Gilgun
It smiles back at me from the screen like fire reflected in glass
It is what it is without knowing what it is
It knows it is not Sonny or Angela or Dale
Though in a previous incarnation
It may have been Tu Fu, Lao Tsu or Kawabata
I am a sky poet not an earth poet
Which means I respond to clouds
Which means I am frequently spaced
Which means I get out there as often as I can
It rains and I sit in the swing under the sycamore
holding a large leaf in my right hand
The leaf fills up with mindlessness
It gathers in the center and spreads to the edge
It is emerald green and tender as grass
It goes where it goes not knowing where it goes
I have written my name: John Gilgun.
If you meet my name on the road, kill my name.
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