Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee

this grief

changes shape

as my sense of the world

changes shape

like water

as Bruce Lee said

it takes the shape of the vessel

yet remains water

regardless of the vessel

Bruce Lee was a vessel

for my sexual awareness

the shape of his body

was not contained by the films he made

but by my perception of it

the face

the shirtless torso

filled my jack-off fantasies

then his abrupt death

that grief

a deep sense of loss

I didn’t grieve the films he’d never make

but the opportunity lost

of ever having sex with him

opportunity lost to fulfill

a fantasy even then

I knew would go unfulfilled

a bowl of grief

never emptied

but eventually forgotten

I wrote this piece after seeing the excellent biography ‘I Am Bruce Lee.’ It featured clips from his movies, clips him being interviewed (he proved to be shy but very articulate) & an array of talking heads reflecting on his fight technique, his films, & they mystery surrounding his sudden death. None of them commented on his stature as an Asian actor, & there was no mention of him as being fucking gorgeous 🙂

I was working for Famous Players in Sydney when Enter The Dragon was released. It was a huge hit. I saw parts of it repeatedly. He was magnetic even with the crappy dubbing & the idiotic sound fx. I kept a couple of stills of him from Enter – shirtless in with black pants. Sweaty, ripped and hands raised ready to fight. I loved those pictures as I could look a his body as long as I wanted to. On film he was too fast, the camera never had a change to ‘ogle’ his body.

The biography brought back a wave of nostalgia for me. At this time I was already a Mishima fan – too bad Lee never got to make the Mishima film – he would have been an excellent choice – but he was never considered an actor of emotional depth. The interviews in the documentary make it very clear he was more than a fighting machine. But like many performers Hollywood Taiwan wouldn’t allow him opportunities that didn’t include his fists.

I have tried to watch his films & they come across as cheesy & oddly sexless. Crappy lighting & bad camera work doesn’t help. Fast-forward certainly helps zip through the minimal plot & character development to the good bits 🙂 I was grieved by the end of the biography for the waste of his life. It was the same grief I felt when he died & for some of the same reasons – opportunity lost.

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