SAN FRANCISCO: The Castro

(I came to love that San Fran quite intimately, man to city I mean.

As one sees here, I still carried my clichés but also appreciated much, and I was still developing and coordinating my grasp vis-à-vis the gay world/gay community.here or anywhere else. This graduated later to real work-place friendships and still better contact. But re-reading this and judging myself less, I have to say (to any detractors gay or straight): I was undeniably there, certainly observing, and forming honest reflections on it. Not to forget: this was also the exact period there where I had my AIDS patients in care giving, and that story of holding the one dying in my arms on the bed while havnig read to him from the Tib. Book, as he wished, and now together with his lover, whispering as he wished in his ear, Amitabha, Amitabha........and then I washed his body, much to the very touched, very moved, astonishment of his gay circle there in the livingroom who had seen in me a bit of an intruding hetero – until then. I cannot be gay and never could – had I been I'd long since have lived it out here in Berlin at least, it was never my orientation, not even bi-, not even to experinment...so why would I bother.

 

However, that being said, I have since my teenage years made the effort ot understand and really grasp them as fellow sexually-oriented human beings, as a group with very very definite civil-and-human rights issues, and I have always rejoiced at every breakthrough in our or any society in this direction. Oh, I could go on for hours sharing my relfections, observations, theories concerning gays, gay history and society. But we'll save that for a rainy day.)

CASTRO (San Francisco 1985)

Like an ethnos all of its own this neighborhood

leave them alone this gay ghetto:

here they have their self-defined culture

                          within a culture,

like gypsies are they,

after a fashion – flamboyant unabashed

                                                       and different.

The Mission is where men speak to men in Latin dialects,

                                                 the Castro is where men speak to men

                                       in each other's ear whispering the language of the body,

                                                                          using the tongue generously.

Meeting openly in over-gesticulated celebration

           of their common difference flaunting

       their preference as you might your national heritage.

Like eighth-grade girls I muse minus the plaid skirts and knee socks,

as I watch the display of carefree giddiness in grown men.

Conversations dominated by a sexualectric charge

          a sense I perceive of imminent gratification

      and every day is Friday – is it possible,

I reflect, that emotionally they have remained eighth-graders,

choosing at that crucial age that to relate as a man

to a real woman was untenable?

Man-lover reading this, worshipper of Adonis rather than Aphrodite:

don't be distressed or indignant everyone is learning -

Don't judge the gap between us,

after all you could be my son.

I don't wish you dead I wish you well.

Overlooking the leather the studs the makeup gawdy jewelry affectations,

I'm not abashed to add, even Peter Pan could grow up

 

and still be himself.