THE PIANIST 

_______________

THE PIANIST

VERNON SHEFFIELD 

CHOPIN SONATAS

VERNON’S OBITUARY

HIS DIZZY LIFE

CLOSET CASE

KANSAS LOVE

AUTOBIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

___________

THE PIANIST

“But to confess”
—Philip Larkin
CONTINUING TO LIVE
________

Continuing to live—
In order to get necessities
Teaching, music lessons

It’s nearly always a—
Losing proposition, going
Without, but it varies
______

Loss of interest, hair—
Not like a game of poker
More like chess, my dears

And once you’ve walked—
The length of your life…
Checkmate by the Queen
_________

Music and nothing else—
Existed for me, Chopin
At the top of my List

What’s the profit tho?—
A lonely apartment 
West of the campus

VERNON SHEFFIELD 

“And what most appalls”
—Philip Larkin, TOPS
_______________________

Vernon Sheffield was a—
Talented pianist and organist
Like so many gay men are

Why he chose to live there—
And teach at our little Kansas
College town is a mystery to me
____________

There in the center of the—
Republican Red State Rat Hole
Surrounded by hostile Heteros

Although it wasn’t so bad—
I suppose back then in the
Calm days of Eisenhower Era
___________

I could feel the calmness—
Back there in the stacks of
The William Allen White Library

Although the Witch Hunts—
And gay-bating were just
Around the postwar corner
_________

How does a gay man—
Teaching at KSTC there in
A little Kansas town survive?

How did a gay man—
Live each day existing in
A Santa Fe Cow-Town then?

CHOPIN SONATAS

“To fail (transitive 
and intransitive)”
—Philip Larkin
SUCCESS STORY
______________

It wasn’t that I played—
Chopin sonatas badly in
The Plumb Hall auditorium

I mean that something—
Else was missing, somewhat
Disappointing me, my dears
___________

In my case ”to do” what—
I wanted can be traced back 
To the Latin “to deceive”

My ambition to be a Pianist—
Made me undertake rigidly
Forswearing the rich game

VERNON’S OBITUARY

“On that green evening
when our death begins”
—Philip Larkin
CONTINUING TO LIVE
_________

Whatever they’ll say—
Will be hardly satisfying
Since it only applies to me

“One man once”—
And then he finally died
As if dying was a big deal
_________

Nothing written about—
My other gay half-identity 
Blind to all my misbehaving

Clean it up a little bit—
The GAZETTE Editor says
None of that in our Rag!!!
__________

But you’ll hear a curious—
Counter-whispering dodging
The dirty faggy dealings

Even my pretence was—
So-so, pretending to be who
I wasn’t like all the others

HIS DIZZY LIFE

“Tops heel and yaw,
sent newly spinning”
—Philip Larkin, TOPS
________________

Like me they squirm—
Spinning across the floor 
For everyone’s enjoyment

So poised, erect, proud—
At the beginning when
A top is doing its thing
______________

But then it slowly begins—
To falter, its paces begin
To slow down & falter

Weaving hopelessly—
Tired, beginning to wobble
Then reeling, sprawling
__________

But what’s most appalling—
Is that tiny last shiver
As they lose their balance

Letting everybody know—
Without a doubt that the
Top is starting to die…

CLOSET CASE

“Since the majority of me
rejects the majority of you”
—Philip Larkin, Unpublished
_______________

Sure of themselves—
Most of our small Emporia
Community commune on

Sundays, assured that—
They’re disinfected from 
Any minority disfigurements
_____________

With silence so elegant—
Shunning unshared friends
And those unwalked ways

That’s why I travel up—
To Topeka to a gay bar
I know only too well
_____________

The Kansas City Baths—
Where unopposed at last
I can renew myself somewhat

But even then there’s the—
Usual cancelled promises…
I never seem to learn

KANSAS LOVE

“Who called 
love conquering?”
—Philip Larkin, 
Unpublished
________________

Hardly, my dears—
Gay Love is about as
Conquering as warm spit

As E. M. Forster once—
Said to J. R. Ackerley  
Concerning gay love
_________

“Really, my dear—
You must stop searching
In coal mines for diamonds!”

The silent minority—
Somewhat unopposed at
Last I suppose will find
____________

That love is a rather—
Crippling thing that 
Cancels our promises

Concerned with only—
One thing as the dire
Cloak of dark descends

AUTOBIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

“And here I am, the 
center of all beauty! 
writing these poems!
Imagine!”—Frank O’Hara
Autobiographia Literaria
______________

They say that beauty—
Is in the eye of the 
Beholder, don’t they?

It seems that way—
To me, especially the
Older I get, my dears
_____________

To celebrate maturity—
Vernon Sheffield gave
Yearly Emporia recitals

Then He & I would have—
Cocktails in his apartment 
There west of campus