Vilification Vexation and Visitation Vindication

I worked on this poem and the next one "Gay Fetes in the Streets" during the same week. I'm not happy with this poem, but as I stare at it I don't get inspiration to change anything. For me "Gay Fetes" has bounce which this one doesn't.

Vilification Vexation and Visitation Vindication

19 Sept 2011

In January 1985, I was excommunicated 

From the Salt Lake City based church.

I had gotten divorced and relocated

To Monticello, back in my parents’ perch. 

In spite of what the disciplinary court stated, 

I still attended church with my family.  

That year the Manti Temple was renovated

And used for the endowment liturgy. 

I interviewed with the bishop and was given 

A recommend to attend the rededication fest. 

To get to Manti, for six hours we had driven,

Meaning we had to put on our Sunday best

Early in the morning, adding to the trip’s griefs,

Grateful to be in cars, not pulling handcarts. 

We were waiting with our white handkerchiefs

For the Hallelujah Shout and hope in our hearts

For a choice spiritual feast validating our beliefs.

While queued up, awaiting permission to enter 

A member of the Stake Presidency came down the line

Greeting members, happened upon this dissenter

And took away the prized recommend of mine.

Oh, the disappointment of expectations negated.

How was I supposed to feel? What to do?

There was no appeal by the powers delegated,

So I just walked around the venue.

Skip ahead to September 2011,

We went from Cleveland by bus 

To Kirtland’s little bit of heaven.

At the visitor’s center we got to discuss

And were escorted by tour guides

Over to the Newell K. Whitney shop of retail. 

Downstairs, we saw the store’s insides 

With barrels, baskets and account’s detail.

Also, the bartering section for trading wares. 

Then thru a door and up the narrow stairs, 

Was the parlor with table and chairs.

I placed my palm flat on the table 

And felt a strong surge of emotion, 

Not happy or sad, just strong, I was unable

To identify what for me was a crying potion. 

Next was School of the Prophets vestibule

With benches to sit on while being instructed, 

Then, finally the bedrooms with a spinning mule.

After the store, we were conducted

Thru the Whitney house, Johnson hotel, sawmill

And ashery where potash was produced. 

Then we followed the sidewalk uphill 

Past the temple and got introduced

To the other visitor’s center overseen

By the Community of Christ church.

John Hamer presented a historical slide scene,

By narrating the slides with original research,

He followed the history of Mormon leadership, 

Revelations and temple purposes; explaining 

Splinters and offshoots within the Mormon grip. 

Then we walked over to the sacred building. 

The green door was held open for us to enter.

All were admitted. We climbed the stairs to

The upper assembly hall. After the presenter, 

We were ushered up more stairs and thru 

The attic school rooms, then back down to the hall. 

Finally we were allowed to sit in the lower auditorium. 

We were told, here during the dedication that all

Had seen, beheld its abundant spiritual emporium.

The people thought of themselves as saints

And sanctified the temple by their sacrifices

Truly the Lord’s House for worship without restraints.

This hall had signs of current religious devices. 

I looked around at the Affirmation attesters

Then tears flowed when I thought of praying 

Together with them in the temple of my ancestors.

I was touched to the core, that’s all I’m saying.

Gay Fetes in the Streets

Gay Fetes in the Streets

26 Sept 2011

When we were teenagers growing up, 

We never had a chance to feel each other up

Experience crushes, flirting, nor love treats. 

We were denied meaningful cozying up. 

So now we have sex in the bars and streets.

Society told us we had gone astray, 

To suppress our feelings and go away 

Quietly into the night without bleats. 

Now that we have found men who play

We have sex in the baths and the streets.

We have survived the condemnation 

Of being called an abomination 

And alienation from church meets. 

With self-esteem getting elevation

From sex in the bushes and streets.

Although we sat thru many sermons in our lives 

About how husbands should treat their wives, 

We never heard a word about gay couple retreats. 

So we made our own rules about sex drives

And actions on the beaches and in the streets.

We have survived feeling suicidal. 

With AIDS, death has not been idle. 

Living each day is gravy and meats

Or more icing on the cake. To feel the idyll

We have sex on our backs and in the streets. 

It’s not like we need self-control reform. 

We controlled ourselves enough to conform, 

Get married and that made us robots on repeat. 

We acknowledge it may stir up a storm

To have sex in bay windows on the street.

The gay assimilationists don’t recognize 

That we’ve always been and in any size 

Always will be different in our fetes. 

Passion to fight for their rights does arise

From sex in beds and in the streets.

Connecting The Dots

Connecting the Dots

I think I have been underestimating the power of sex. Let’s consider the holy trinity of love, sex and marriage. Because I’m gay until recently I only focused on putting love & marriage together. Anybody familiar with the way gay men act, knows that in the gay community frequently sex has nothing to do with emotions or commitment. Sex between men is a simple act of pleasure for pleasure’s sake. That’s where conservatives get their panties in a knot. Sex between a man and a woman takes negotiation, give a little to get a little. There’s the rub. Gays get lots of free and easy sex while for straight men it comes at a price.

The other day at work in the lunchroom I saw an older coworker holding hands with her husband. From past observations I know the woman is very religious. Then it hit me. She gets to have church and sex together. As an excommunicated gay man I had never connected religion and erotic that way before. The thought of sex with a woman doesn’t do anything for me, but the message I get from larger society is that sex with a woman feels very good. Now if you combined the emotional high of religious ecstasy with sexual ecstasy, you just couldn’t get any higher than that. Marriage frequently is a religious rite. Which puts sex under the church umbrella. Then after marriage, all societal messages and blessings are saying go for the gusto. In my life never having connected church and sex, I think I’ve been cheated.

Now let’s expand the religion-sex connection a bit. The way I understand it, suicide bombers make the sacrifice on the promise of sex in the afterlife. After all, what’s the point of having 72 virgins if you don’t get to deflower them? In Mormon theology, people are eventually resurrected with fully functioning bodies. And the faithful ones benefiting from Heavenly Father’s presence go on to become like Him, as gods themselves peopling other worlds with their own spirit children. Now just how do you suppose those spirit children come about? Could it be sex? In other words, obedient Mormons get to have sex forever; and not all with the same wife.

Maybe the way I connected love and marriage without sex can be twisted to an analogy of why straight men oppose gay marriage. Straight men, the power brokers in today’s world, having connected marriage and sex, are repulsed by the thought of marriage being represented by two men having sex. And don’t mention polyamory. They aren’t even going there. Maybe polygamy, but not polyamory.

Yes, I think I’ve been underestimating the power of sex. Life experience leads me to conclude that decisions are made emotionally then rationalized logically. Because some people can’t conceive of themselves in a same-gender marriage or polyamorous arrangement, they seek to deny those relationships to all others.