Waiting Slow

I hope tonight that i will dream of you and i beside a stream
of slow cool water, wide and deep, where you and i, lie calm, asleep.

In my dream our fingers twine, mine in yours and yours in mine;
while floating blossoms pass us by, our cares all leave us, sorrows fly.

Deep rest and calm, all hurry cease, while lovers, we, dream on in peace
of levels deeper than we knew, could be explored by any two.

Our fingers joined, disguise the truth, hidden from the average sleuth
that while we lie, our hands entwined, we each possess a separate mind.

Your dreams are yours, hard won and dear,
mine no less mine, this much is clear.

Can two so different coexist, in balanced love, must they resist
their need for quiet, space and time, alone to think, to feel sublime
calmness and stillness at the core, when all the senses beg for more?

Stately and grand the stream does run, while dreams of joyful life are spun.
Washed free of shame and guilt and blame, our waking life could be the same.

The future is not ours to see, what will occur is what will be,
but each sweet moment spent with you, brings to my face, a smile anew.

East meets West

In a land on the Pacific rim
lived a femme with a future too grim,
there was just not a butch
of the old school, not futch,
to respond to her beckoning whim.

Seeking not more than a lark,
to extinguish a flare-up, a spark,
o'er the net shye sent out,
while expressing great doubt,
an energy wave clean and stark.

A faraway boi heard hyr call
and shye felt a new change, at first small,
shye felt happy and free
'twas enough just to be,
and shye thought that they would have a ball.

In the exiled heart of our myss
grew such pain at the lack of the kyss
of the butch hyr heart knew,
shot the arrow so true,
that it seared the still air with a hiss.

The aim, it was deadly, on cue,
and it arced through the air as it flew,
white-hot to its mark
penetrating the dark
toward the femme, who just hadn't a clue

A nut can grow into a tree
if not stunted by harm or debris,
to great heights it may soar
survive drought, cold, and more
while no future does itself forsee.

Thus mused our maid, hyr heart sore
for the cockswain shye wanted the more,
their tree putting on growth
unbeknownst to them both,
for each other they did both adore.

At last shye and hye met alone
and their lives, they took on a new tone,
for they felt they had found
a new love so profound,
that they entered into a new zone.

And there they remain to this day
where with one and another they play,
their hearts are filled up
like a brimming full cup,
and their lives they are happily gay.

---Traditional

April Shower

This April, I hope, I am going to have a new shower.

I moved into my used house a year ago, knowing that it had been an abandoned wreck for some time. When I bought it, the ceiling was falling in, the roof needed repairing, the paint had all worn off, the floors and walls were a mess.

Once a family vacation home it had fallen into disrepair when it became a rental and all of the value was sucked out, in the form of rent, by disinterested descendants. Finally, it was no longer habitable and this humble little home was left to decay in the elements.

When, after some years, sitting vacant, it went on the market, I bought it. It was in a sad state, but it rests on a really fine five-acre parcel with a seasonal watercourse and mature trees in the riparian zone -- and it was cheap.

Anyway it was a wreck. So new ceilings, new paint, new roof, new floors, new doors and windows, new walls. I ran out of money before I got to the bathroom, which was functional. Anyway, I have a vision for this shower and I needed to find the craftsman who had the time and the proper artistic sensibility, not an easy chore out here in Green Acres.

But finally I found him, a gay man just the age of my son. I got a little money together and now I am in the process of fulfilling part of my great femme dream. I am getting the shower I have dreamed of for twenty years. Lots of people, of course, get a new shower, but not many need one as desperately as I needed one. Let me explain.

The archeology of the scene we uncovered showed that to accommodate the existing bathtub drain someone had installed a new tub atop a raised platform; getting in and out of it was a high hurdle act. Worse than that, the siding on the house had been broken when someone tried to insulate the water pump; pack rats had found a way into the house in the break and had been living for generations under the bathtub.

For a year I had been sleeping with the radio on to drown out the sound of the rats gnawing at the platform at night. I slept poorly even though I believed there was no danger that the rats would gain entry to my living space.

The smell of the bathroom and the sound of the gnawing sickened and horrified me.Work started and on the second day the tub was pulled up. After years of bucolic serenity for those rats, their seventy-pound nest was exposed to the light of day. The stench nearly caused me to pass out and my contractor scrubbed the floor on his hands and knees like a Saint of the Highest Order.

Half a day, three pounds of oxygen, and a quart of bleach later, the three by five-foot space under the tub was scrubbed clean. Next, fifty years of bathroom linoleum was removed and the whole concrete slab floor was laid bare and disinfected. Then came the coat of sealant, designed to encapsulate whatever foul odour might still remain below the level where product could reach.

The job is now slightly stalled out. (New York is where I'd rather stay.) The plumber, who suffers from severe brain damage had a bad spell and wrecked the main shower valve. (I get allergic smelling hay.) A three-hour round trip to the nearest supplier was required to replace it so the work could continue. (I just adore a penthouse view.) In the meantime I have had to learn how to plumb and solder to get the work done. (Darling, I love you but give me Park Avenue.)

With luck the job will only take a few more days. I can bathe in a bucket for a while more. But whatever the outcome, I will be okay because the rats' nest is gone for good and the siding has been repaired with a sheet metal underlay; they will never return in my lifetime. Despite the image my boi put in my head about this little rat family, bindlestiffs over their shoulders, wandering aimlessly looking for a new home and I am sleeping much better these nights. Good luck, little guys!!

Androgyny

We took a trip with all our things
And went on down to gay Palm Springs

We went to be with other dykes
To see the ones, ourselves the likes.

It was the famous Dinah Shore
There were women there galore.

Our lodging was a lovely spa
With private drapes that we did draw.

In shops and shows and on the street
Assorted women we did meet.

We saw a femme; we saw a butch
But all the others they were futch.

Not butch nor femme, at neither pole
Androgyny -- their central role.

Afraid to walk in either place
The middle’s where they run their race.

I looked away and wondered why
Their visage did not please my eye.

They bored me so; they weren’t prizes
Though they came in many sizes.

They had no style; they had no class
They were just one amorphous mass.

All dressed alike in their bland togs
Obsessing on their cats and dogs.

They might be nice and fun and smart
Affairs with them, I just won’t start.

For I am femme, all through and through
And it’s a butch that I’ll love true.

Give me a butch, that’s what I say,
A mannish woman every day.

One who’ll shave hys chin, you see
And packs a wallop, just for me!

A snappy dresser, not a slob
A charming smile, a home and job.

A boi who loves my shapely form
And seeks my heat to keep hym warm.

An opposite to my femme self
A boish leprechaunish elf.

For me there is no other way
To live a full and happy day.

I need a butch to satisfy
And without one, I would just die.

So darling, keep your dapper ways
And we’ll be happy all our days.