GAY FAULKNER

GAY FAULKNER:
“ABSALOM QUEER QUENTIN”

Queer Quentin

“I dont hate it,” Quentin said
quickly, at once, immediately.
“I dont hate it,” he said.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

"I don't hate the South"—
“I dont hate the South,” I said.
“No, I dont hate it!”

Shreve holds me tighter—
I’m like shaking all over.
It isn’t the cold.

His slack-jawed young face—
Mine leering lily-white South
That’s what I hate.

Henry there in bed—
Up there in the dark attic
Where Clytie hides him.

Henry in the Attic

“I dont hate it he thought,
panting in the cold air, the
iron New England dark:
I dont I dont! I dont hate
it! I dont hate it!”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Miss Rosa drags me—
That lonely moonlit old night
To the Plantation.

Gaunt gothic ruins—
Crumbling down, rotting away
Just like the Deep South.

That’s what I hate—
Seeing Henry giving head
To idiot loins.

Henry going down—
On Jim Bond’s big Negro dick
So desperately.

Southern Faggot Lips

Southern faggot lips—
Needing Charles Bon’s naked
Mulatto penis.

Surely that’s the thing—
The thing Miss Rosa wanted
Me to come & see.

The thing Clytie hides—
Her nelly gay half-brother
Closet case killer.

Who shoots his father—
Evil Colonel Sutpen there
In his Shiloh tent.

Then shoots Bon as well—
When he doesn’t want to play
Dinge ménage-a-trois.

African Kings

“sprung from the loins
of African kings”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Surely that’s enough—
To make a Harvard freshman
Moody & depressed?

Knowing that thru me—
Clytemnestra’s dinge secret
Still hides so darkly?

Knowing that thru me—
Eulalia Bon’s handsome black son
He flows thru me now.

Knowing that thru me—
Charles Etienne De Saint
Valery Bon flows.

As surely as Sin—
That night in the dark attic
Sucking off Jim Bond.

Jim Bond (Bon)

“You’ve got one nigger left.
One nigger Sutpen left. Of
course you cant catch him
and you don’t even always
see him and you never will
be able to use him.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

All these years later—
Going over the Ledgers,
The closed court records.

Kept tight & secret—
The Willows Home for Unwed
Mothers just like mine.

My mother’s mother—
Down there in Kansas City
Down from Chicago.

High-class Chicago—
Daughter of an Attorney
She gets in Trouble.

Fucks around with a—
Negro saxophone player
In a black jazz band.

She gets pregnant and—
Then sent to the Willows Home
To have her baby.

The Ledger

“It clears the whole ledger,
you can tear all the pages
out and burn them, except
for one thing. And you
know what that is?”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

My Mommy Dearest—
The court records sealed up fast
Her family shame.

Beautiful Redhead—
Adopted by Walter and
Jenny Larkin then.

While deep in her loins—
Lurks the Negro dinge secret
Hidden from the world.

Amy Jane Larkin—
My mommy dearest mother
Gets married one day.

Not knowing deep down—
Her secret shame that is hers
The lurking Bad Seed.

So I’m born shameless—
Fair-skinned, freckles just like her
I be a White Boy.

Dinge Closet-Case

“But you’ve got him still.
You can hear him at night
sometimes. Don’t you?”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

But then my brother—
My dinge kid brother gets born
The secret comes out.

Just like with Sutpen—
Dominant Mandingo genes
Make themselves well-known.

Dwayne Jerome Jones—
A beautiful albino
Younger kid brother.

The Only Trouble

The only trouble—
He’s got a huge mulatto
Jet-black dinge Penis.

Everybody’s shocked—
My exquisite kid brother
His black ten inches!!!

My father divorces—
Runs away from my mother
With a divorcee.

Avoiding scandal—
Her parents hide her away
Amy & her kids.

From then on—
We live in a dark Closet
Locked without a Key.

That’s how I grow up—
A dirty white boy inside
A deep dark Secret.

Absalom, Absalom

“And so you know
what I think?”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

I don’t want to—
I don’t even want to think
About my brother.

But I can’t help it—
I can’t help but stare at it
And want it real bad.

That’s the real closet—
The dinge monster hiding there
In mother’s closet.

The thing the whole town—
Knew about my family
The secret scandal.

It’s hard to keep it—
Secret & in the closet
So jet-black & big.

Dwayne Jerome knew—
Taking showers in gym class
Letting them all see.

Dinge Kid Brother

“Perhaps he hoped for an
answer this time, or
perhaps he merely
paused for emphasis,
since he got no answer.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

He knew & they knew—
The faggy wrestling coach knew
Kept him after school.

The phone would ring late—
His girlfriends hot for a date
There at the drive-in.

The word got around—
From the Seventh grade on up
Gym class reveled all.

It was amazing—
Even in the Old Miss dorm
Everybody knew.

I know that I knew—
But kept it in the Closet
Then the bath-tube day.

That’s when I got down—
Did the down-low on him good
I couldn’t help it.

Quentin's Silence

“Quentin did not answer;
evidently Shreve did not
want an answer then.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

It was bad enough—
Mulatto mommy dearest
With all her baggage.

It was bad enough—
With Dwayne Jerome her son
His Negro Penis.

It was bad enough—
With me being a Faggot
Her gay oldest son.

But the worse thing was—
Me doing the down-low on
His dinge ten-inch dick.

People shook their heads—
Their Eyeballs ogling for more
My hot kid brother.

Dwayne Jerome like me—
He had no Whitey Boy Shame
He bragged about it.

Dinge Genealogy

“So it took Charles Bon
and his mother to get rid
of old Tom…”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Soon Mommy Dearest died—
In a tragic accident
A Mack truck head-on.

Had to pull the plug—
In Biloxi General
The funeral so sad.

That’s when real Scandal—
Came to Town to live it up
Me Executor.

I got the Senate—
The whole apartment house then
Dwayne & me moved in.

The art deco dump—
Streamline moderne aging wreck
Built in 1940.

Remodeled it all—
Rented out the top 3 floors
All twelve apartments.

To nice young Freshmen—
There in that little Southern
College town of mine.

Benjy Boyfriend

“I am older at twenty
than a lot of people who
have died,” Quentin said.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

He was a retard—
A total child idiot
My teenage Benjy.

He was right outta—
The Sound & The Fury then
Totally insane.

He was my own Jim—
My own Jim Bond black brother
So out there back then.

But he was Compson—
Just as fucked-up as I was
Maybe some more.

I didn’t send him—
Off to the Loony Bin Home
Didn’t have him fixed.

I kept him around—
Because I was a Dinge Queen
I needed it bad.

A ten-inch Penis—
Nice thick licorice & black
With a nice pink head.

Just like Halloween—
Nice Trick or Treat Mandingo
Candy to chew on.

Hippie Sixties

“and more people have
died than have been
twenty-one,” Shreve said.
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

I was Hippie then—
Plenty of sitar music
Sandalwood incense.

Madras curtain sheets—
Hanging down from the windows
Getting stoned a lot.

That’s how I kept him—
Loaded all the fuckin’ time
Cross-eyed & naked.

Getting him off nice—
And easy much as I could
His slobbering drool.

It was just shameful—
Him dropping outta high school
A cute sophomore.

But what else could I do—
They wouldn’t leave him alone
The girlz & voyeurs.

Growing Up Gay

“It began to take shape
in its same curious, light,
gravity-defying attitude—
the once-folded sheet
out of the wisteria
Mississippi summer”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Surely I’d lose him—
Special Ed Class was the Pits
He’d just rot in there.

And so he grew up—
Dwayne Jerome my brother
My Dinge Angel Boy.

What else could I do—
What else did I wanna do?
Who to do it for?

And that’s how it came—
Like the mansion darkness
In that doomed old house.

I was like Clytie—
But I was Quentin as well
Henry Sutpen too.

All three of us ghosts—
Living with African kings
Mandingo loinchops.

Art Deco Senate

“Quentin did not answer,
staring at the window,
the cigar smell, the
random blowing of the
fireflies.”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

Down in the Senate—
The basement floor where we lived
It was nice down there.

Art deco windows—
Glass blocks along the edges
So streamline moderne.

It was like living—
There in some futuristic
Gone architecture.

The Thirties back then—
Was like that with lots of young
Jobless architects.

Not just Empire State—
Or the sleek Chrysler Building
With its swank Sky Room.

But spreading over—
The South & Midwestern states
A Style in Exile.

Bleeding into Now—
From some sci-fi Future Past
Art deco thru Time.

Mississippi Nights

“one last wild crimson
reflection as the house
collapsed and roared
away, and there was
only the sound of the
idiot negro left”
—William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom

I can still smell it—
The smell of wisteria
In the delta dark.

Mississippi night—
Faint smell of hippie hookah
In bed with Dwayne.

If he only knew—
How deep Southern decadence
Grew down in his loins.

If he only knew—
The long slave journey back home
Each time we make love.

If he only knew—
The dinge queen brotherly love
I have for him now.

My Benjy Bad Boy—
Giving me his Mandingo
Every fuckin’ day.

Once in the Morning—
Then once again at High Noon
Finally at Midnight.