The place for you're stories and poems.
GRAVITY - By Derek Jarmen
God declared that the earth was flat
But Galileo put an end to that.
Eve's apple fell into Newton's bed
Where a lad named Adam lost his head.
Newton's lad
Bit the cox's pippen
As he was a strippin'
Apple-pie corners on Newton's bed
Apple-cheeked Adam giving head.
Adam the apple of Isaac's eye
Gravity's bent as apple pie.
WAITING... - By Richard Bellingham
Stand there waiting,
Watch the clock,
Check my watch.
Tick,
Tock,
Watch the clock,
Check my watch.
Drink a beer,
Down a scotch,
Tick tock,
Tock tick.
Pace back and forth,
Forth and back,
Back and forth,
South and north,
Check my watch,
Watch the clock,
Tick Tock,
Twelve 'O' clock,
Pace again,
Hear the rain,
I've,
Been,
Stood,
Up.
You Are Part of the Whole - By Maggie Yaxley Smith
You sit there breathing in air, life, dreams.
Vibrant swirls of your imagination sing,
Creating ripples, moving into the world.
Your voice is unique, separate, individual.
Tunes from your soul resonate everywhere,
Creating harmony or discord, your choice.
Silence may entwine with your song.
But, your music must have sound,
Creating truth, a part of the whole.
Does it matter? - By Ben Whitehouse
My father asked me if I am gay
I asked Does it matter?
He said No not really
I said Yes
He said get out of my life
I guess it mattered
My boss asked me if I am gay
I asked Does it matter?
He said No, not really
I told him Yes.
He said You're fired, faggot.
I guess it mattered
A friend asked if I am gay
I said Does it matter
He said, Not really.
I told him Yes.
He said Don't call me your friend
I guess it mattered
My lover asked Do you love me?
I asked Does it matter?
He said Yes.
I told him I love you
He said Let me hold you in my arms
For the first time in my life something matters.
My God asked me Do you love yourself?
I said Does it matter?
He said Yes.
I said How can I love myself? I am gay
He said That is the way I made you
Nothing again will ever matter.
Simeon's Last Stand - By Ben Whitehouse
Interior, bathroom, too bright for comfort. Thinking that if you tried to divide the world into those who were capable of falling in love and those who were not you'd have your work cut out for you. How would you tell? More often than not the subjects themselves if they were honest, would have to tell you that they didn't know if they had the propensity for falling in love or, merely, a desire for it. Thinking that if people realized how little they knew or could know about themselves they'd give up and go somewhere else. Perhaps that is what they do. Perhaps that is why, most of the time, when you attempt to talk to someone you get the feeling that you are talking to their answer machine.
What on earth is making you think this way, at this hour of the morning? Love and life: you'll be contemplating death next. One of those mornings that happen often enough, when you step into the bathroom and the image reflected sets you thinking; when the face blearing back at you seems to have been hit with an ugly stick the night before; when, lets face it, the frustration of not being able to admire yourself makes you philosophical. Now, you've caught yourself out, wallowing in the shallows. You catch your eye in the glass, as you would catch the eye of a conspirator, and it makes you grin.
In his first love letter he said it was a smile that would turn pearls to cream. I can't see it myself, but then, even now, I don't think I am in love with myself to anywhere near the degree that Ewan was in love with me. And then, after all these years of studying this face and scowling at it and pouting at it and practicing handsomeness from all angles, it wasn't until recently that I caught myself smiling. In his first love letter Ewan wrote a page and three-quarters about the smile alone. Would this be the smile that Ewan had seen, or is there another dimension to a smile you'd turn on the beloved?
Smile you bugger! And get it right. In another ten years the handsomeness will be gone and all you'll have is the smile to fall back on. Now you're laughing at yourself, in the mirror. That's a new development. Laughing loud enough to wake the trade, stretched on the bed beyond, through the open door, left open so I could glance at his body among the sheets beyond, between the strokes of the razor. Not a beauty perhaps but sweet, and tactile, and a dick you could exercise a horse on. Could it be that I'm becoming a size queen? Ewan wasn't exactly hung to his knees. In his first love letter he apologized for it, not knowing that as far as I was concerned everything on him was perfect. He sent a typed version with the handwritten; a translation, afraid that any word might be misread, so precisely he had chosen the words he used: pearls to cream, not Dear Simeon, but Simeon; not with love, but love; no date at the top, but the day of the week: Wednesday. Do I think of him too much? Afraid that the memory of him might fade; that I might one day, think a whole paragraph without quoting a phrase of his mixed in somewhere; that I might be able to spend one nigh, some night, with another man without once feeling Ewan's breath on the side of my face in a moment of distraction. He made me promise not to mourn him, and it is rare that I need to weep for him. There is a little sadness in his haunting. Long ago he was forgiven for, having taught me to live, dying.
This one, on the bed, the sheets draped and undraped over him as if he had woken and taken time to arrange them while my back was turned, who knows what this one is.
Sluice water over the scum of bristles that laces the basin. A beard is such a disproportionately fecund thing. Think also of Eric's choking pleasure at the grating of the bristle in unusual places. Should I brush my teeth, or would that be gaining an unfair advantage over him when I poke him awake, with coffee? Tweak the glass rod that opens the blinds a fraction, all the better to see with. I love the light in this city. If you say this to a native he will look at you strangely before answering.
Brush the teeth, for the comfort of a clean mouth. A twinge in the gums, and a little panic at the possibility of a mouth ulcer, but there is no sign of anything nasty.
I wonder what sort of creature I have in my bed. I could stay here all day and watch the tempting way he sleeps, and wonder all those things that occur to you after a night with a man you like the smell and taste and smile of. Will he stay and will I want him to stay? I love this moment, before a man you hardly know wakes up, when you can think that you might be in love with him, knowing in the back of your mind that you can impress him with a home-cooked breakfast and send him on his way.
Would he stay and would I love him? We talked, muttered confidences to each other the night before. He seemed disarmingly honest. I devoted as much time to watching his mouth as I did to hearing the words spoken by it; and flirted with alarmingly romantic ideas while watching it.
"You are," I said, "an extraordinary man."
"Being ordinary," he said, "is relatively easy. I tried being ordinary once and it was a bitch."
We talked about everything. The strangest thing was here was someone who was ferreting about in my rudest bits and he had to ask me the most basic questions about myself; things that wouldn't even undress in front of you have known for years.
The conversation was both lighthearted but intelligent.
"This is not," he said, warily, "the sort of conversation I have with every shag."
"I used to live with a writer." I explained, knowing that if he asked the question I would have to tell the whole truth in one go.
"What happened there? Did you dump him?"
"No, he died."
The question hung, and I let it hang for a moment, and answered it for him just before he had to ask it.
"No, he didn't have it," I said, "He had a heart attack. He had cheated all the odds. He was fit, young, not the usual profile for a heart attack. He just keeled over. He was sat at the computer. The last word he typed was 'And'. Just that. 'And'. There was no other word on the screen, so it was obviously the beginning of something. It was his nightmare, that he would die with something unfinished. You can't get something more unfinished than 'And'."
He just sat there, Saying nothing. A grin played on his lips, he was teasing me. He looked up at me and what he said surprised me,
"It's like drugs, or religion, or death, or fact. Once you've done it there is no going back. Times I find a last wisp of innocence somewhere about me, like going into a bar and, after half an hour of nonchalant cruising, seeing a bit of shaving cream by your ear when you glance in the mirror. Shreds of innocence are the hardest thing to live with, and the thing about innocence is that it's all or nothing. You can only be happy at either end of the process. Am I talking shite?"
"I like you talking shite", I said. "Naïf philosophy is such a turn-on."
He bent his head towards mine and lightly kissed me on my lips.
To see him now, sleeping in my bed, seamless and breathing softly. He knows, I think, That I am watching him; knows it whether he is sleeping or not. He has that attitude of an animal that knows he is being admired. His skin is twitching to be touched. Who knows what he is, beyond what he said he is? I remember more of what he told me, but then my stories were the ones I know more intimately.
Anyway he stayed. I think it was out of love, it may have been out of necessity. But he remained with me and I with him. Coexisting with each other. Tolerating each others foibles and learning to like the idiosyncrasies which annoyed at first. But isn't that what love is about?