In support of our brave Strathclyde fire fighters, who were disciplined and downgraded on refusing to attend and hand out leaflets, in uniform, at a gay pride march.
Why are you proud to be gay?
I presume you were born that way. I’m not proud to be white, Want it written in lights, I just am, as it happens, Touché? Why are you “gay” anyway? You can’t hijack my language that way! It’s a lovely word, I’m as gay as a bird! But I still prefer girls To lay. Why must you wave a pink flag? Just to show you’re a practicing fag? I’m no homophobe Wear no church as a robe But your militancy Makes me gag. To address you with all due respect, It may not be politically correct! To question the ways Of you fashionable “gays” But I do, so go on! Object! What have we come to today, When we feel we cannot rightly say, I’m straight and its great! I’ll not participate In a “gay pride” march No way!!
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haha
Written by Gill21 (566 comments posted) 1st September 2006 | entertaining and shrewdly observed. I am not 'anti' anything (except maybe terrorism but you know what i mean) and support people in doing whatever they want to do, however i know what you mean. You don't want to be 'different'? Don't keep making out that you are.
Well done. | In support of no one
Written by JasonDJ (16 comments posted) 1st September 2006 | Why must you say,
'I still prefer girls / to lay'
We'd guess you were straight
Anyway.
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Written by Phil (6836 comments posted) 1st September 2006 | I enjoyed this a lot. You make your points with humour. I too am not anti anything - but I don't support people doing or being whatever they like. They can get on with that without me.
You could do a whole series of these with the PC madness that surrounds us all.
Phil. | :)
Written by rilLie (327 comments posted) 1st September 2006 | i enjoyed this one a lot too. i'm not against people doing what their heart wants them to do (except for, you know, terrorism and all that) but i know a lot of gay guys and they're fun to be with!
anyway, nice poem!
-rilLie
0_o | Gays.
Written by givitsum (651 comments posted) 1st September 2006 | I used to get my hair cut by an out & out mincer in Lucena City, Philippines. Never touched my arse nor nowt, so I didn't mind.
Nice poem Talisker!
GIVITSUM | Thanks
Written by Talisker (1328 comments posted) 2nd September 2006 | Thanks peeps for the positive comments. I thought (hoped?) this one might stir up a hornets nest. Clearly GW is largely a PC-free environment - HURRAH !!!
JasonDJ - you seem to have missed the point in that stanza - its about the missuse of a very old english word.
Oli | A clarification
Written by JasonDJ (16 comments posted) 10th September 2006 | I don't think I did miss the point - of that stanza, or the whole piece. I understood what you were trying to say in those lines. I think, however, that the poem makes it quite clear that you are heterosexual - there's no reason why it shouldn't, but I do find it incredibly ironic that you make your sexuality so obvious while berating those who 'wave a pink flag'. The lines that I quoted grabbed my attention because of their particular blatancy.
As for the point you make about the 'missuse' of the word 'gay' - there are any number of words that have multiple meanings, two others used in your poem are 'straight' and 'lay'. Why have you picked on this particular word? It is pretty futile for anyone to object to what is a linguistic fact of life; for a poet to do so seems counterproductive - surely poetry thrives on ambiguity. | Oh dear, one does take oneself too serio
Written by Talisker (1328 comments posted) 10th September 2006 | Oh Jason, Jason, let go young man, move on...
Its my poem, so I can make my sexuality as obvious as I like in it. I'm not forcing anyone to read it out aloud in public whilst wearing a uniform.
You are being disingenuous about the hijacking of the word "gay". The point is that it cannot now be used as before - it has been taken hostage in effect. I cannot say to my chums that I'm feeling gay today (without inciting derision). It is not a mere synonym, its a word which has been taken by a community for its own, effectively debarring its use by others.
You also miss the fact that the poem is deliberately inflamatory...its an angry poem. I wouldn't usually use words like, straight, fag, lay etc... I'm adopting a stance and trying to incite a reaction.
BTW are you the only gay in the village?
Oli
P.S. I visited your website and think your poems are mince (another synonym for you there). | Far too seriously
Written by JasonDJ (16 comments posted) 12th September 2006 | I know it's an angry poem, and intended to incite, but I'm not sure it achieves it. If you wanted to be inflammatory, you could have been so much more extreme - I could paraphrase your poem as saying something like 'I've got nothing against gays, but do they have to be so inyerface about it?' It's a reasonable enough point, but it's hardly inflammatory. To be fair, you've wound me up enough to post three times, but I'm not particularly angry, just interested in the discussion.
As I said in my second post, I don't think it's wrong to mention your sexuality, I just think it's ironic that you seem to be berating gay people for shouting about their sexuality while making a point of mentioning your own, several times. I don't know anything about the Strathclyde firemen you mention in your introduction; they aren't mentioned in the poem itself, and their case seems to be a slightly different matter to the more general points you make about gay rights marches. I think, perhaps, that it might make a topic for an article rather than a poem (but obviously that would be up to you).
As for the word 'gay', I still think that's just a fact of life. Words change their meaning: if you were to use the word 'quaint' to describe a person now you would get nothing more than an odd look; in the middle ages it would have earned you a smack in the mouth. I'm not sure you can say that any word has been 'hijacked' - surely all words belong to the whole language community (approximately 1 billion people in the case of English). In fact the word 'gay' was originally used as an insult for homosexuals, then adopted by the American gay underground as a badge of pride in the 1950s, before entering mainstream use in the 1960s. I recently read 'Straight Fiction, a short story by Martin Amis. In his fictional world, all the people, apart from a beleaguered minority, are gay. One of the characters complains, in similar terms to yours, about the hijacking of the word 'straight' - after all, what does a gay person say if he wants to describe himself as honest?
Thanks for the feedback on my poetry, but you'll have to explain what 'mince' means. I assume its not a compliment. And no, I'm not the only gay in any village. |
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