Selected Poems from Ballads From a Lockdown

It’s Easy to Remember (And So Hard to Forget)

(Homage to Lorenz Hart and Richard Rogers)

The appraising look you gave me the night we met:
“Not completely ugly, maybe sort of smart.”
You asked a friend beside you, was I straight or gay?
He said you should just ask if I wanted to dance.

Some kind of sign, I ought to wear some kind of sign
That reads “Bisexual,” not that it would help much.
The intended meaning hardly ever gets through,
Reluctant ears don’t believe in explanations.

All confusion aside, it makes no difference
What immutable gender you believe you are,
You’re only a person and I’m a person, too,
Imagining the ways we might fit together.

So if you feel attraction to men as a rule,
I will gladly portray the more masculine fool.

Nancy (With the Laughing Face)

(Homage to Jimmy Van Heusen and Phil Silvers)

He assumes he knows me because I'm standing here
Polite, presentable, a sociable person.
Fey and bisexual. He says, who really cares?
As long as it’s private, he’s not worried by queers.

I maintain a light tone, stay open and friendly.
She says I’m amusing if you really listen
To the oblique sarcasm in the velvet glove,
The taut verbal vaudeville designed to please her.

Calculated humour, just one more form of drag,
Steering their attention to the makeup not me.
Acid observations undermined with a smile,
Acceptance is a spectacle without a heart.

I’m your harmless Nellie, entertaining scapegrace,
The good fairy, your Nancy with the laughing face.

Lush Life

(Homage to Billy Strayhorn)

I used to go to all the very straight places,
     Collection plate places,
Schools and churches where life lurches
     Underneath the wheel,
     Unable to feel
     Like somebody who’s real.

Then you broke the ice by making nice 
     To a freaking weirdo.
We went out for lunch to check out a hunch
     Who the other person was,
     Pondering as one does,
     New love or lost cause?

You spoke to me sweetly, I tried not to be too perverse.
   You read me as easily as a book of light verse.
I hadn’t imagined my thoughts being fathomed.
   Guess it could have been worse.

As the days rolled by, we drew a little bit close.
   I reminded myself not to be overly verbose.
Then you brushed my equivocations aside and said,
   Why don’t we just go to bed?