Author of Contemporary Gay Romance
Most of you know I’m from Atlanta, though I don’t come out of my hidey-hole often. There are many very talented LGBT authors in Atlanta and the surrounding area, and this is just a handful. If you know of an author not listed, please leave their name in the comments so readers can check them out. ~ B.
Listed in no particular order. [Read more…] about Atlanta’s LGBT Authors
Every once in a while someone sends me something really cool. I love art of any sort, so when this video popped into my inbox I was instantly enthralled. It’s simple, yet speaks volumes, which all great art does. Thanks to AJ Powers for creating and sending this to me.
Streetlights come and go.
When the snow falls, will you touch my lips?
If cars drive past, do we stand together, motionless?
A fire beneath our feet. I see these mistakes, and a bee has lost its wings.
The mailbox is starting to get mad, the phone doesn’t answer me anymore.
Midnight rush hour, goodbye summer breeze.
The spirits are present. Can you hear them?
They want to know about us.
So will you run with me? The rails are covered in rain.
Can we write our will across the sky?
If this is what it means, can we jump?
Do you know where to land?
In the stars?
Or in the sea?
Why don’t you look at me?
I’ve been looking for you.
This darkness helps me see, and here it is.
Don’t look at yourself that way, I love your wings.
The sound of droplets bouncing from pamphlets, and your eyes just won’t let go.
To the beginning of all this, we stand at the edge of our balcony, red drapes illuminate your skin.
If you can see this far into the sun, grab my hand and nothing will stop us.
I can’t say I understand, but this will never end.
The birds will talk, and the trees will watch.
Do you know what it means to never stop?
If you are not the one voice
for those with no voice,
then,
there is only silence,
and their endless suffering…
A bass player laying it down?
A pirouette in mid motion?
A child throwing a tantrum?
A fisherman reeling in the big one
he always talked about, but lost….
When I asked for someone to speak for me
there was silence
When I buckled and fell under the weight of words
there was silence
An army of likeminded people appeared behind me
but stood in silence
And so my hunger for love became so great
that it was silence.
For those we have lost~ B. Shire
As many of my reader’s already know, I’m a great fan of poetry. I even dabble in a bit of it myself, though I will be the first to say that my own poetry sucks. I need to stretch my fingers a bit more when I put words on paper, which is why I have such great respect for a wordsmith that can do in ten words what it takes me in ten thousand.
I read all kinds of prose and poetry and it doesn’t have to be a specifically oriented in gender, ethnicity or race. It just has to be good; it has to touch me and evoke something from within myself that makes me stop and wonder why I have not noticed this before.
But honestly, there are many times when I think that the words we commit ourselves to, both in our writing and our reading, are hindered by the labels we put on it. Or should we blame marketers and publishers who value easily labelled societal segments for being neat little cubbyholes of potential sales and profit? That would be a bit too easy, wouldn’t it? It would be all their fault, and not our own ingrained prejudices and petty bigotries that we don’t let out to the world or, often, comprehend within ourselves.
Poetry exposes those gilded crimes, like good prose. It opens us to new possibilities and worlds, new ways of thinking, it keeps us breathless, pent up, internalized until we can stand it no more. Save with our tears and our sorrow and our joy. It shows us the chair in the forest of words.
Poetry has that effect. Because that’s what its for. For change and progress and evolution.
For the soul; the one that beats, the one to come, and the one that has passed.
Photo credit: H. Keller