ICE ON FIRE

Were I a painter,
My studio would be mad, filled with paintings of your face,
Attempt after vain attempt to remember your eyes,
To paint them-
But how do you paint ice on fire?

Were I a musician,
The chords and keys at my fingertips
Would play but one song:
Your name
In a thousand melodies.

Were I a poet,
I would be drunk of an afternoon,
Describing how you looked that day,
The sun shining behind your head like a halo,
In a hundred different ways
In smeared and garbled pencil in the corner of a shadowy bar.

But I am none of those things.
My only art is the way I feel.
My painting for you is the way I see you,
When I see you.
My only song is the crack in my voice when I struggle to find
Something to say
When we talk on the phone.
And my poem for you
Is this one.

TU ME MANQUE

Today, I walked through the woods, my green cathedral, my church of trees and dragonflies and autumn flowers. I was looking for something, a balm to soothe my bruised heart, some sort of answer or comfort for the precious sadness in my soul for the missing of you. 
The dog ran blissfully, every stick a toy, every bend in the footpath a new adventure, living happily in the moment. I envied him, as I found myself trapped between a soft-focus past that I can't seem to forget, and fantasies of heart-breaking, Hollywood-ending futures which will never happen.
I wanted to say a prayer, but no pious wise man before me had written down the words to say. I wanted to sing a hymn, but this chapel in the woods, of the woods, today offered up no hymnals. I fell to my knees in a leaf-strewn clearing and wept, asking God for an answer. But today, the answer was, no answer. Or perhaps the answer was, find your own answer.
As I left the forest, angels clad in crimson and gold fluttered from the treetops. I thought to myself that maybe the bruise upon my heart is my prayer; the pearl of sadness in my soul is my hymn.

FINE WINE

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting older. Probably because it seems to be happening to me at an alarming rate over the past few years. At the moment I am standing, immobile, fixed squarely in the headlights of my 53rd birthday, which is barreling at top speed down the highway towards me with no intention of applying the brakes. And it's weird, because as far as I'm concerned, I am always the same age. I am always one day older than I was yesterday.
I remember way back in the 1983, when Joan Collins turned 50. She played mega-bitch Alexis Morell-Carrington-Colby-Dexter-Carrington on "Dynasty", and was viewed as nothing less than a goddess at the time by gay men aged 18-25, which was precisely my demographic. She did a spread in Playboy, and the buzz the whole time was "Joan Collins: still Fabulous at Fifty!" That may be all well and fine, although almost anyone could manage to be fabulous with Bob Mackie and professional lighting. But what they are really implying, though, is that by age fifty, just about everyone else should hang it up because your days of fabulosity are over. And I think to myself, I am 53. 
That's not to say that I don't have moments when I still feel fabulous. I still get compliments on my pretty shirts, and once in a while, people on the street will smile at Mark and me as we walk along together, or tell us that we look good together. Then I wonder for a moment whether they're saying that because they're thinking, "Look at those two old guys- it's so cute! They still hold hands!"; or smiling at us the way you smile when Grandma and Grandpa slow dance at a wedding. 
The thing is, I don't feel old. To be honest, I don't feel any older than I did when I was, say, 25, at least not on the inside. Of course, back then I used to drink and do drugs and carouse all night, and nowadays I'm all tucked in safe and sound by 10:30, but I still wake up with bad breath and a coffee jones, and I still spend much of the day wishing I could lie down. So it seems that nothing much has changed.
I am fortunate that I don't feel old physically. My teeth were a mess, but I had those taken care of back in my forties. Years of waiting tables, tending bar, running around in size 10 women's heels from Payless, and general abuse have left my poor feet hideous and looking like they belong to two different people. But they still work and I've never really been one for open toes anyway. My eyesight sucks and I'm stuck behind coke-bottle glasses, but that's been the case since kindergarten. I have spots on the back of my hands which make me look like the "before" picture in a Porcelana ad, but other than those few minor complaints, I'm still pretty much intact, physically. 
But the main thing is that I don't feel "old" mentally, either. I haven't resigned myself to a long, boring future of falling asleep in front of the TV. I still think, I think, the way I thought when I was 25. I don't see myself as "old me", I'm just me.
We've all had those moments: someone is getting out of a car, for example, or standing up from a sofa. Perhaps unconsciously, they moan and groan with the effort. "Gettin' old..." they'll say. Someone responds, "Well, consider the alternative!" Well, I've been considering the alternative, but the alternative I've been considering is one where I get to keep my 32 year-old body, with its not-too-shabby biceps and fairly smooth face, for as long as I want, and still maintain that 20 years' worth of sweet lifetime. 
Unfortunately, no such alternative exists.
The other day, I was probably grabbing my crotch or raising my eyebrows suggestively, or some other such charade which a husband will do which is intended to mean, "Any chance of...?" Mark just looked at me and rolled his eyes at the same time, if such a thing is possible, and said in the sweetest way, "I'm glad you still think you're a stud." Just a little joke, a little repartée between spouses, but ouch, baby. It might have been better without the word "still".
Then there's always the mirror. Much of the morning routine, for me, is actually spent without my glasses on. My face is really just a Paulie-shaped blob in the mirror. 99% of the rest of the time, when I can actually see myself, is spent under the dysmorphic delusion that most of us have, that the face we are seeing today is the same face we saw yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, and so on, so that we never really notice the ravages of time as they happen. But then there is that other 1%, those moments when you regard your own reflection and you suddenly realize that all those birthdays, all those cigarettes, all those sunburns, have really taken their toll. I'll usually try to laugh it off and say something like, "Jesus, when did that happen?" And it may be shallow, but sometimes it makes me a little bit sad to admit and accept that the days when I can walk down Commercial Street with my shirt off and actually get cruised are long over. I have to get used to the idea that at this point in life, when people do say nice things about your looks, they usually have to qualify it. They don't just say, "He's got a nice ass." They say, "He's got a nice ass for a guy his age."
Of course, there are the two gifts that came with every one of those birthdays: experience and wisdom. This is what we're given when we surrender the perks of youth. 
I'm just waiting for that hot summer day, when I am walking down Commercial Street. A hot beefy farmboy-type stops dead in his tracks in front of me, lowers his Ray Bans, giving me the once-over, and says, "Man, look at the wisdom on him!"
Then I'll feel a lot better about the whole thing. 

Four years ago, September 10, 2011, was a typical late-summer Cape Cod afternoon, balmy, still, blue skies, the sunflowers and morning glories clinging to the last weeks of summer sun. He was nearly 15 years old at the time, somewhat frail, a little feeble, but my beautiful dog Buster was waiting in the front yard for me to come home from work. He greeted me as always, a wag of the tail, sloppy dog-kisses, sniffing my hands to get an idea of where I'd been and what I'd been doing. A few minutes later, Mark and I watched as he lay down on the grass and drew his last breath.
My heart broke that afternoon, and it has never really been the same since.
So, all these years later, here is my struggle: I can do a roll-call in my head of all the souls I've known who have moved on before me. I have lost both my parents, all my grandparents, most of my aunts and uncles, a few cousins and one beautiful young nephew who was taken long before his time. I've lost best friends, roommates, and countless buddies and pals along the way. I miss them all. I miss the way my mom used to gently stroke my skin when I was sick. I miss watching my nephew grow from a little boy into a man. I miss sharing memories with the one person on earth who made them with me. And I miss all the laughs and all the brilliant deeds they all could have done. But what I miss the most is Buster.
He never once held my hand. He never uttered a single word to me, took me to lunch, or cried in front of me. But if a genie from a bottle appeared to me today and told me that I could bring one soul back, the name I would give would be his. 
That sort of freaks me out a little, though. I mean, shouldn't I want my mom, or give my young nephew a second chance at life? I probably should. But when I finally do join that big party of the Dead, and they're all coming to greet me with their white robes and harps, the face I'm going to be looking for is going to be at knee-level.
I guess that's love, huh?
Miss you so much,  buddy.

THE GAY AGENDA

It's possible that many straight people have overheard a conversation between gay folks and may have heard us mention our "gay card". More than likely, it was in the context of having it revoked, probably as a result of having admitted that we have no talent at flower arranging, or incorrectly identifying Barbara Stanwyck as one of the stars of "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". You may be confused as to what our "gay card" is. Allow me to explain.
Over the years, you may have heard the Religious Right and other opponents of equality for sexual minorities refer to the "Gay Agenda". Gay people have always vigorously denied the existence of such a thing, much as Jewish people have always denied the existence of the immense "Zionist Conspiracy" proclaimed by anti-Semites and Fascists over the centuries.
The thing is, we've been lying about it. There is indeed a vast underground network of gay people all over the world, and membership is mandatory, sort of like joining the Union when you get a job at Stop & Shop. The very first time a gay person has sex with someone of the same gender, they are issued a temporary I.D. card, usually by their partner, until a more permanent one can be issued at one of the compulsory meetings. Or, people who are gay but don't have access to an actual partner or gay friend, or folks who live in rural or remote areas, have for years been able to apply for a card by mail by returning a subscription card from an issue of "GQ" magazine.
For centuries, we have been meeting in secret, determining our "Agenda" and crafting devious yet amusing ways to implement it. Unfortunately, for many years, gay people were just as illiterate and uneducated as everyone else. That meant that we were filled with self-loathing, and our "Agenda" seems to have been to get ourselves beat up, ostracized, and murdered, and we were pretty darn successful at it.
With the Age of Enlightenment, we became enlightened along with everyone else. We began to realize that we could get out from under the oppressive thumb of the Church and began to think about ways to actually improve our lives. Of course, there was always a great deal of in-fighting, mostly from the many priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, and so forth, who were actually gay themselves. Rome had provided them with big hats and pretty dresses and comfortable lives and they saw no reason to change the status quo. These are battles which have continued to this very day.
The years, the decades, and the centuries passed. All the while, we worked tirelessly to further our Agenda. The big issues, things like acceptance and equality, were hard won, but nevertheless the fights were continuously being fought through the years, behind the scenes, and without fanfare.
But the Agenda also encompassed the frivolous, the trivial, the purely aesthetic. We have had many successes in this regard: we've kept women's hemlines rising and falling arbitrarily since the Renaissance, strictly for amusement; and we managed to keep wigs for men around for over three centuries. We had our share of failures, as well, such as late 18th-century France, when despite all of our efforts, it was somehow decided that high heels were actually going to be for women.
Things really started moving for us in the last quarter of the 1800s, though. We elected Oscar Wilde as Queen of the World at our annual meeting in 1890. We partnered with our Lesbian sisters to eliminate the corset before World War I. Gay people actually took over Hollywood in 1939. We got Eleanor Roosevelt into the White House. We began to make ourselves visible to the masses, with Liberace in the 1950s; "Lost in Space's" Dr. Zachary Smith in the 1960s; and finally, with Billy Crystal's character on "Soap" in the 1970s, a gay character who was neither closeted, a drag queen, or a sociopath.
Contrary to popular belief, the Gay Agenda has never included "converting", or "recruiting" new members. Not that we're above such things, actually, but to be honest we've never had any trouble filling out the ranks. So, even if there is a "Gay Agenda", it still does not justify any argument against gay people teaching, preaching, adopting, showering in the same room, or leading a den of Cub Scouts.
In recent years, of course, we have made tremendous strides in advancing the Agenda. In America, the Supreme Court's recent decision to recognize gay marriage across the country concludes one of our longest and most difficult efforts. We've managed to make ourselves normal, almost unremarkable. We are as common a sight in America's suburbs as gazing balls and lawn jockeys, and nowadays a movie or television show is remarkable only if it doesn't feature a gay character. Many, although certainly not all, of our most pressing items on the Agenda have actually been achieved, and that has left a great deal of time for us to once again concern ourselves with the trivial. The framework for the upcoming meeting in January is largely concerned with exactly how long this whole beard thing is going to be allowed to continue.
Which brings me back to the "gay card". This year, before the big meeting in January, we are all required to renew our cards. Never before in history have we had to concern ourselves with people who are not actually gay, who for some reason want to apply for a card. Who would want to join a group whose membership meant discrimination, derision, and possibly execution? It is a sign of how far we've come that some imposters now see membership as a ticket to beautiful women, great parties and even political clout. So, in an effort to weed out poseurs, for the first time, this year's official Gay Card Renewal Application will include three questions which must be answered correctly, much like the Bridge Keeper in Monty Python's "Holy Grail". Here they are, along with the acceptable responses, according to documents found on WikiLeaks:

1) What is the gayest song ever released?
 (A: "It's Raining Men" by the Weather Girls)
2) Who made the better Auntie Mame: Lucille Ball or Rosalind Russell?
 (A: Anyone who answers "Lucille Ball" is automatically banned for life)
3) Have you slept with Michele Bachmann's husband?
 (A: I would rather eat glass.)

See you all in January.

I never felt like a soldier. I marched in the marches, I carried the banners, I endured the dirty looks and the sniggers and being called "faggot". But I never felt like a soldier. I chanted "Shame!" and pointed my finger at the Reagan White House, I gave money and time and sold baked goods, I Acted Up, but I never felt like a soldier. I just felt like a guy trying to live my life, trying to circle the wagons with my brothers and sisters, trying to maintain some level of self-respect and dignity in the face of hate and bigotry. I married my husband at a time when most people would still roll their eyes and smirk at the idea.
I never felt like a soldier, but now, after watching this little video, I do. I realize now that I was fighting, in my own small way. And now, "Gay Pride" doesn't only mean to me that we are proud of what we are, but that we are proud of what we have done.

I'm sure this is the one and only time I'll ever post a politician's speech.

 But this one, well, this one moves me. 

"We are people who believe every child is entitled to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is so much more work to be done to extend the full promise of America to every American. But today, we can say in no uncertain terms that we’ve made our union a little more perfect.

That’s the consequence of a decision from the Supreme Court, but more importantly, it is a consequence of the countless small acts of courage of millions of people across decades who stood up, who came out, talked to parents, parents who loved their children no matter what, folks who were willing to endure bullying and taunts, and stayed strong, and came to believe in themselves and who they were.

And slowly made an entire country realize that love is love.

What an extraordinary achievement, but what a vindication of the belief that ordinary people can do extraordinary things; what a reminder of what Bobby Kennedy once said about how small actions can be like pebbles being thrown into a still lake, and ripples of hope cascade outwards and change the world.

Those countless, often anonymous heroes, they deserve our thanks. They should be very proud. America should be very proud."

ON THE OCCASION OF MY 20TH ANNIVERSARY

You'd think it would be easy, for someone like me, to write about something as real and as personal as the love of my life, or the love in my life. But to be honest, it's easier sometimes to write fiction, to make stuff up rather than look long and unblinkingly enough at something like that to actually write about it. Where does one begin?
Chronologies are tedious: how we met, our first kiss, the first person to blurt out, "I love you," all that sort of twaddle which interests no one but the parties involved. It's like a slideshow of tedious vacation photos: "Here's Margaret at the Grand Canyon." "Here's Margaret in front of the Econo Lodge." "There's Margaret eating a sandwich." Very nice, but get me the hell out of here. 
I certainly can't start going on about The Nature of Love. My experience here on this earth is no different than anyone else's and I don't feel qualified to start spouting aphorisms about two souls completing one another or anything remotely Kahlil Gibran-esque. I mean, I could throw some real Hallmark-worthy gems out there if I wanted to, but I wouldn't want anyone to actually take it seriously. I can't claim to know any more about The Nature of Love than the next guy, but I could B.S. my way through it if I had to. I am Irish.
I don't really want to wax maudlin about how blessed I am, either, how it is not lost on me that I have been given a rare and desirable gift. Despite the fact that it's true, acknowledging it can sometimes lead to resentment from others. Someone who never found the real thing, for example, or someone who had it but let it get away, perhaps, might read such a thing, and their honest reaction might be to think, "Yeah, well, how  nice for you. Now shut the hell up, bitch." 
I guess what I can do is write about my own experience, this twenty year pilgrimage I've been on. I am qualified to talk about that. How unlikely our love is. How it has changed over the years, and how it hasn't changed at all. Those moments, unscripted and unexpected, when I find my heart overflowing with affection and gratitude and relief and so many other things. Moments like that still happen.
As humans, we are always struggling with questions like, "Was this fate, or was it chance?" Were we just bouncing along like marbles on a roulette wheel, and just happened to land on double-zero? Or were we placed where we were by some greater force, by some unseen Universal Chess Master? I've given it some thought, quite a bit over the years, actually, and I am leaning a bit towards the "Chess Master" theory. Here's why:
It's ridiculous how opposite Mark and I are in so many ways. Some of them are superficial: he's meat-and-potatoes, I'm fish-and-rice. He likes TV, I well, would prefer music. He likes things neatly planned, I am more of a "we'll see what happens" type of guy. We share very few interests: he finds history and literature to be mind-numbingly boring, and after about ten minutes, I find HGTV to be like watching paint dry. 
Mark has dyslexia. He has overcome it, thanks to his mother, who forced him to keep reading. He can chew through books like a maniac when he's got the time. But for him, the written word is still an effort, it's still something he has to work at. In other words, it's not the best method of communication for him. Then you have me: a crazy reading addict and lover of language. I sometimes find myself tongue-tied when speaking aloud, and sometimes I find that I'm not able to really say what I want to say; and sometimes I say nothing at all. But when I'm writing it down, it's different. I can think, and I can choose my words carefully and deliberately, and it's much easier for me to get my points across. So "Fate" or "Chance" has seen fit to pair up someone for whom the written word is the best way to communicate with someone for whom it is the worst; someone who loves Mexican food with someone who craves Yankee Pot Roast; The History Channel with Food Network. Why? I think it's because we both needed some improving. I needed to improve my verbal communication skills and Mark needed to learn to hear my voice in my writing. I needed to eat more broccoli, Mark needed to eat more jalapeños. It's not so much that we complete one another, but that we encourage one another to become more complete. That, to me, sounds like Fate.
After twenty years, the love that Mark and I share constantly shifts its shapes, sort of like a lava lamp. The white-hot passion of the first couple of years hasn't so much cooled as morphed into something else. Just don't ask me to define exactly what that is. It's a sense that with this other soul beside me, this person, this partner, I will be able to face whatever life throws at me. I can act like an idiot, I can cry, I can cut the world's most toxic farts; in other words, I can let all the masks and all the pretense just fall away, and at the end of the day, he will still be there. Well, maybe after he leaves the room for a few minutes to let it air out.
I do remember the first moment that I fell in love with Mark Taatjes. I will not share it here. I would rather keep that one to myself, like a secret little portrait inside a locket. But I have those moments even now. When I turn to catch him at just that angle, that jawline and those blue eyes can take my breath away. When he talks to animals. When he's singing in the shower and mangles the lyrics to some song, and every time he does it I smile to myself. When he thinks of me first, which is, like, all the time. I fall in love with him all over again, and the edges of my vision go all soft-focus, and I think to myself, "You are a lucky man, Paul Halley." Because I am.