A full day of presentations, workshops, a cup cake and a Pride parade – what more could one ask for 🙂 I sometimes try to pace myself – no back to back sessions but this year I did four in a row starting at 11:15 & finishing around 6:15. with no real lunch break either. I was pleased with myself for getting from the Fairfax to the Woolly Mammoth with no trouble at all. The route I worked out was shorter & faster than the one suggested by Google maps. So there!
Of course I did a Starbucks stop to get a little jolt of energy. First stop at Mammoth was the washroom for a piss & a washroom selfie. Next up was a presentation of poetry as theatre – three artists gave samples of their poetry adapted for stage work. All very different & all very effecting. One saw that process challenges a poet to build a piece that can sustain itself beyond the slam time limit of 3.10 minutes. What if there was 10 minute slam? hmm.
Next was a presentation on Dangerous Art that started with a bit of art history & finished with some readings from Essex Hemphill & wrapped with some poets sharing their dangerous work. What was once considered dangerous by say Botticelli is now pretty safe stuff compared to Mapplethorpe.
Another brief lull and the session I hosted on geriatric writers over the age of 40. A fair turn out & some amazing work was shared. Clearly age doesn’t diminish but sharpens anger. I presents some of the Terra Cotta pieces & my transformation from comic queer to fuck you queer has been accomplished, though the comic hasn’t been abandoned.
Another longer lull & I got out for some sweltering weather, photos & a cup cake. Finally took in an actual hands-on writing workshop. A challenging exercise to write from the point of view of a randomly picked body part. I picked wrists. Then was partnered off with someone who had picked eyes & written about that. Then, this is a bit confusing, we each were to write a piece from our body part to their body part. I loved it.
This brought us up to after 6. I headed back to the hotel & exited into the DC Pride Parade still in full swing. How f-ing long is this parade? Pushed through the clouds of rainbows to the Fairfax. Had some water then had to go out to get to CVS for juice & a salad for my supper. Usually CVS is step out, go around the corner, cross the street & I’m there. But the streets were blocked so I had to do a circuit around & back. Lots of rainbow eye-candy – but nothing under that rainbow for me. Hey! There’s the start of a new piece – nothing under the rainbow 🙂
ages names
44 44 58 37 49 47 50 40
Selim Esen
Abdulbasir Faizi
Majeed Kayhan
Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam
Andrew Kinsman
Dean Lisowick
Soroush Mahmudi
Skandaraj Navaratnam
all men
old enough
adults
not teen-age runaways
not ‘I’ll live forever’ twenty somethings
men
one commentator said
‘who should know better’
all men
all found dead
two white
6 missed
2 not missed until found dead
1 unnamed even when found dead
7 found online
all looking for love
that isn’t clear
all looking for sex
that isn’t clear
some seeking asylum
acceptance
finding limits pushed
but not expecting
to be pushed beyond limit
most so fearful
of discovery
they took what they could get
without … I want to say complaint
but no one knows
no one can know
what they were looking for
what they expected
we know what they got
death
a talking head on TV said
‘they learned their lesson’
what lesson
that homosexual men
are all sadistic murderous predators
a cliche
once more proved valid
or
dating apps aren’t to be trusted
that searching for sex
deserves to be punished with death
that they got what they deserved
they deserve better
than some talking head on TV
shifting blame
from perpetrator
to the dead
