Ashes is one of the new pieces I read at the recent Winter Snow Ball. It is mildly sexy, mildly political, slightly personal and a whole lot of tactile stimulus.
lonely glove
One of things that I realize about ‘kids’ today is that most of them have lived in a world in which being queer isn’t quite as fraught as it once was – I say ‘quite’ because teens are still being bullied into suicide for ‘otherness’ – but there is a certain tolerance as result of queer presence on TV, in pop music too, so it isn’t suppressed as it was when I was growing up, coming out.
in the pink
Yet there are nation where things as bad as they ever were here in North America. So this piece addresses that in a direct way. I try to avoid political rhetoric while making whatever point I may be making. It also looks at the nature of freedom and of what holds us, even after years.
the (g)love(less) lottery
I infused the piece with color, smell, feel, sound without overloading it. Also I wanted to allude to race issues without exoticizing race. Men are men.
February 21, Friday – featuring – Racket at the Rocket: 7 p.m., Red Rocket Cafe, 1364 Danforth Ave. https://www.facebook.com/events/818441091515505/
March 1, Saturday – attending – Toronto SpecFic Colloquium
June 6-8 – attending – Bloody Words
June 23-27 – attending – Manuscript to Book – Loyalist Summer Arts – Belleville https://www.facebook.com/events/589522924455695/
August 28-31 – attending – FanExpo Canada
Ashes
he smells of coal
I know its a conditioner
an after shower lotion
to keep his skin from drying
into ashy patches
he smells of coal
but has never been in a mine
has probably never burned coal
the smell takes me back
to my childhood
growing up in a coal town
sorting a freshly delivered load
in the basement bin
picking though for rocks
that would pop in the furnace
scare my mother
when we moved out of that house
to one with oil heating
I never missed the smell of coal
until I met him
a tar dark skinned man
who held me with a cautious tenderness
he’d come from a country
were men of his sort
were stoned in the street
where women who loved women
could be raped with impunity
here he was still unsure
he didn’t quite believe he was safe
he couldn’t free himself
of the fear he grew up with
I cannot free myself
from the smell of coal
I grew up with the same fears
as he did
so when we meet
we taste the ashes of our pasts
my Loyalist power spot
