FOR JOHN RECHY
I'd read each of your books a dozen times.
I'd been inside your soul for months
And anguished for the life you choose to lead,
The murky nightstalk,
Pausing on the corner of each street,
Or in the smokey bars or all night theaters
Where you do not go to drink or watch
But look instead for Johns who'll come on with you
And pay to offer you the adoration,
The thrill, the love you cannot live without.
I'd prayed for peace for you,
And blessed you cross the miles and living styles
That lay between us.
And time and time again, I questioned why
You'd chosen so much self-inflicted pain.
And then one afternoon,
I dozed over my work
And crossed the barrier of time
To a village in New England,
And saw you, dour and pinched of countenance
And dressed in black,
To mourn the death of purity.
With ugly leather thong
You flogged the gentle young man to the ground
For lying with his brother.
Each time he tried to rise
You beat him back;
The blood ran down his face into his eyes.
You tore the collar from the wretched woman's dress,
And when she knelt before you,
Quivering in her shame,
You burned her breasts and back
With hot iron brands.
You never slacked your vigilant surveillance--
You weren't afraid to cast the crucial stone
That stirred the mob to action.
And so it was you came to bear the name,
"The Scourge of Salem."
Dear gentle John, who lives with daily torment,
Compulsion driven to play a self-defeating numbers game
In darkened parks and alleys and latrines.
So sure you're cursed of God you must deny that God exists.
For scouring homosexuals and whores
From out your village,
You've chosen to reverse and play their roles,
To pay out all at once the heavy debt
You built that somewhen long ago
In a town whose name's synonymous with "peace." |
