Anything that moves
Written by ACHR Staff on September 8, 2010by Gene Naden
The brilliant 20th century German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.”
I heard these words a decade ago but only now do I recognize my own struggle within them.
Gay Fred says he could never make love to a woman.
Successfully.
George says whenever he made love to his wife it felt like rape.
Like he was being raped.
Bill says he has to visualize a man to perform.
To perform with a woman.
I envy them.
Because they know who they are.
They know their place.
Their place on gay.com.
In Facebook.
In the Pride Parade.
In a bar on Halsted Street.
Gay men.
Their personal advertisements read,
“Mature gay man seeks stable man for friendship and more.”
My ad would read,
“Arguably mature, sort-of-gay man seeks stable man or maybe woman for something.”
Or consider a letter, a postal message
With two destinations.
Maybe two return addresses, too.
I was lost in space,
orbiting the moons of Jupiter.
I landed on icy, cratered Ganymede,
Found and entered one of Rilke’s locked rooms,
and browsed a book in a “very foreign tongue.”
I will never be a simple man.
Thankfully.
