TYRONE

“I needed more
space and freedom”
—Manuel Puig 
___________

The plight of a gay moviegoer like me—
Comparing myself to Rita Hayworth

Falling in love with Tyrone Power and—
Rex Downing as yummy chicken matador
___________

Nude except for a cape late at night—
Teenager under the full Spanish moon

Playing Tyrone as impetuous youth—
Ambitious to become rich famous matador
___________

Falling in love with both of them—
Tempting me watching “Blood and Sand”

Wanting Tyrone like Rita Hayworth did—
Hambone young stud of male infidelities
___________

Betrayal by young macho androgyny—
Desiring to suck him off in the bullring

“Blood and Sperm” pulling me in many—
Different directions both real & fantastic
___________

Setting up my insatiable obsessions—
Tyrone Power simply hung like a fierce bull

SELF-BETRAYAL

“His pleasure lay
not behind but in
front of the screen”
—Suzanne Jill Levine  
“The Betrayal of Rita Hayworth”
The Subversive Muse
___________

Being gay is like being Rita Hayworth—
She always betrays the one she loves

Not just the pop culture of Hollywood—
But also betraying herself for being gay
___________

Being gay won’t get you an Oscar—
No Academy Award will be in the wings

You’ll become a betraying subject—
Like “Toto” in Betrayal of Rita Hayworth
___________

Realizing that one betrays oneself—
Closeting oneself with DOMA and DADT

Such an Inarticulate Muse betrays oneself—
The betrayal deeper than Blood and Sand
___________

Betraying oneself by being in the closet—
Is just asking to be gored by the bull

RADICAL METONYMY

Being gay can be described as—
A Faggy Frankensteinian Textuality

Composed of many Closetries and—
Leftover Lost and Found Clowneries
___________

Gays are undergoing many changes—
Metonymies are metamorphosing

Mistakes and misunderstandings—
Can’t be avoided during Diaspora
___________

Exposing the frail Artifice of—
Boring Straight Representation

A tacky putrid Puppet Show—
Velázquez dwarfs & Hetero Freaks
___________

Gay Baroque critique obliterates—
Imposed Straight Signifiers

Replacing it with another—
Chain of gay signifiers instead
___________

Ending up circumscribing—
The missing gay signifiers for us

Tracing an orbit around it—
An orbit of radical metonymy
___________

Metonymic displacements—
From one image to the next

Translating the text not as—
Straight explanation but rather
___________

Into a baroque, fragmented— 
Open-ended gay mirage of itself

Such gay baroque bricolage—
Weaving, swishing, zigzagging
___________

Into a camp repertoire—
An already found gay lifestyle

An unlikely coup d'etat—
Jiving between trope and trouble

SUBVERSIVE SCRIBES

Puig and Sarduy subversive scribes—
Using betrayal to translate themselves

Hiding a very serious misdemeanor—
The desire to be deliberately gay
___________

Walking the troublesome tightrope—
Between trashy trope and meaning

Flaunting, jiving, switching signifiers—
Privileging graphic gay Vocables
___________

A continuous Slippage away from—
Heteronormative mainstream Swish

Tightrope and trapeze artists—
Bridging prohibited possibilities
___________

Subversive semantic transgressions—
Deep into labyrinths and lassitudes

Caravaggesque