Cadillac
CADILLAC
Garish chrome-tittie Cadillac—
Sleek Americana Land Cruiser
Gimme back the Fifties again—
Detroit before the Denouement
Gimme back the Sleek Fins—
That Marilyn Monroe Plush Gush
Gimme back the Good Times—
The Cadillac Consciousness
Hating the South
HATING THE SOUTH
______________
Hating The South
Deep South Siberia
The Old South
The Golden Eye
Pulp Fiction
Miss Lawrence
The Critics
Queer Theory
Isolation
Tennessee Williams
Southern Gothic
Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone
______________
HATING THE SOUTH
“I don’t hate the
South: I don’t hate it”
—William Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom
Faulkner hated the South—
And so did Carson McCullers
She said she’d go back—
To Georgia for one thing
To refresh her sense—
Of Southern Gothic Horror
______________
DEEP SOUTH SIBERIA
The Deep South was an—
Intellectual Siberia
That’s why McCullers moved—
From Savannah to NYC
To study writing at—
Columbia University
After she got married—
They moved to Fayetteville
North Carolina during—
The Great Depression
Fort Brag the hell-hole—
Of the Golden Eye
THE OLD SOUTH
______________
The Old South was—
Bad Seed for McCullers
She hated Fayetteville—
Its dreary Dixie ambience
Living in its backwater—
Literary wasteland
Seedy white trash—
Dismal Southern Gothic
Absorbing every detail—
For her two novels
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—
And Reflections in a Golden Eye
THE GOLDEN EYE
______________
“Reflected from my golden eye
The dullard knows he is mad”
—T. S. Eliot, “Lines for an Old Man”
She hated the South—
Scorning its grotesqueries
Hardly admiring it—
She satirized it instead
She had the Eye of a—
Giant proud Peacock
One with a Golden Eye—
Reflecting all the Ugliness
All the Gothic horror of—
Decadent Dixie Deep South
PULP FICTION
______________
Miss Fadiman the critic—
The New Yorker queen bee
Trashed the novel as—
As a D. H. Lawrence rip-off
The queer “Prussian Officer”—
Meets Southern Guignol Noir
His wife as muzzy-minded—
Nymphomaniac slut
Plus a Filipino gay houseboy—
A cuckoo lady next door
A Dixie Denouement—
Rape, queens, bestiality
Ho-hum, the usual Faulkner—
“Sanctuary” pulp fiction
MISS LAWRENCE
______________
“The Prussian Officer” found—
Parallels in McCullers novella
The usual repressed sexuality—
The boring, lonely military life
Miss Brando has her own—
Young handsome horsy orderly
An enlisted man played by—
Construction worker Robert Forster
He works in the base stable—
Taking care of the horses
He rides nude in the woods—
On a horse to forget things
The ogling Brando a typical—
Uptight str8t closet-case
THE CRITICS
______________
The macabre critics—
Couldn’t help opining
Obsessed with then
Usual obsessions
Pressed to put their—
Straight moral spin
On the literary merits—
On McCullers’ novella
So easy for them—
Douchebag male sexists
QUEER THEORY
______________
Even today the—
Esteemed QT queens
Like David Halperin—
In “How To Be Gay”
Plagiarizing divas—
Like Mildred Pierce
Belittling drag queens—
As too feminist satirical
Trashing McCullers—
For festooning fags
With contrived—
Nutty aberrations
And gothic gruesome—
Deep South whatever
ISOLATION
______________
“Spiritual isolation
is the basis of most
of my themes”
—Carson McCullers
This grand guignol—
Little Puppet Show
This masquerade—
She saw all around her
The mortgaged heart—
That rules us all
Incapable of returning—
Or receiving love
We’re all grotesqueries—
Spiritually isolated
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
______________
The antebellum South kept—
Spitting out these queens
Like Tennessee Williams—
And Carson McCullers
Beguiled and battered—
They clung together
Mentors and Fag-hags—
Helping each other survive
Many ocean summers—
They spent together
Typing and sharing—
Talking and dreaming
SOUTHERN GOTHIC
______________
Tennessee Williams wrote—
A New Directions preface
For McCullers’ “Reflections”—
Reassessing the novel
Years had gone by—
New altitudes prevailed
The old critical altitudes—
Toward gay subjects
Adultery and morality—
And homosexuality
Moral condemnation—
The old critical attitudes
It wasn’t Deep South—
Str8t Truth anymore
It was New South Goth—
McCullers’ golden eye
ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE
______________
Imbued with a new sense of—
Southern Gothic literature
Williams wrote a novel—
Similar to the Golden Eye
Later a Vivien Leigh film—
Set in Rome not Big Easy
An aging actress falls madly—
In love with an Italian youth
Pimped by a dyke gigolo—
Coy Contessa Lotte Lenya
Full of ennui and boredom—
Like Brando in “Reflections”
A twin of Carson McCullers’—
Macabre gay masterpiece
Carson McCullers
CARSON McCULLERS
THE BITCH GODDESS
It takes one—
To know one, honey
Being a Bitch Goddess, that is—
Just ask Plath or Bette Davis
“What a dump!” Bette sneers—
“Fasten your seatbelts, dears”
But McCullers does it better—
With that Southern Gothic twist
"Reflections in a Golden Eye"—
Truly a Southern Gothic Horror
THE GOLDEN EYE
Carson McCullers—
Would go back to Georgia
To refresh herself—
With Southern Gothic Horror
Reflections in a Golden Eye—
Naked boy riding a horse
The young soldier voyeur—
Ogling Brando’s slutty wife
Brando ogling the Stud—
Liz sleeping there in bed
Ending up dead because—
Brando wanted him instead
The Filipino fag—
Painting the Golden Eye
IN COLD BLOOD
Speaking of Bitch Goddesses—
I simply can’t understand
Why in the world didn't—
Miss Capote choose Carson?
Carson McCullers to go—
With him back to Kansas?
To write In Cold Blood—
In that dumpy Gothic hole?
A fag hag, my dears—
To keep him company
Most probably though—
Because Carson McCullers
Such a cynical Southern—
Gothic Bitch Queen like him
Helping to grease the path—
For his bitchy Nonfiction Novel
ANACLETO
Zorro David the sensitive—
Filipino fag Anacleto
Perhaps the real Caliban—
Or was she Ariel, my dears?
A fag in the flick—
Only made Things worse
Besides adultery, bestiality—
Now a nelly queen gone amok
The Catholic Legion of Decency—
Gets their Special Premier
They simply aren’t ready—
It’s worse than “Baby Doll”!!!
JOHN HUSTON
John Huston later wrote—
He liked McCullers’ novel
The way she wrote—
Such calm cool detachment
Her Understanding of the—
Various Novella’s characters
Recording them with dignity—
Rather than just Str8t Reportage
No moral indignation—
No bourgeois condensation
Perhaps McCullers invented—
Truman Capote’s style first?
The Nonfiction Novel—
Actually Gay Reportage, my dears!
THE FEY ARIEL
The Fag in the movie—
Actually he’s Ariel
Through his Eyes—
Nature becomes Voyeurisme
The gay Filipino paints—
He has the Golden Eye
He’s the fey Ariel—
Ahead of his time
Robert Forster as Caliban—
Riding the horse nude
Equus can be so very exciting—
Don’t you think my dears?
QUEER CINEMA
Later the New Yorker—
Praised Huston’s techniques
Precursor to Queer Cinema—
His “radically unrealistic” style
Outrageous scenes piled—
One on top of the other
Laughing at the antics—
Of McCullers’ hoary characters
Liz Taylor the Slut—
Pretentious junior harridan
Compared with Miss Brando—
The gay murderous mad Majorette
NOUVEAU SOUTHERN GOTHIC
Miss Shakespeare, my dear—
Updating antebellum Southern Goth?
Miss Huston as Prospero—
In a modern day Tempest flick?
Disaffected Magician Diva—
Carson McCullers as fey Ariel
Marlon Brando as moody Caliban—
Jilted as well as cuckolded
Taylor as pampered Miranda—
No wonder the Critics were shocked!
Huston making fun of their—
Repressed, quaint, naïve Sexuality
THE TEMPEST
Such a cinematic Tempest—
Seemingly So stupid now, my dears
Bare-backed and bare-assed—
How the Public Eye ogled so
Huston using his Golden Eye—
Making all the critics hostage Voyeurs
Both Huston and McCullers—
Their Sardonic ghastly humor
Here Cease more questions—
Thou art inclined to Sleep
Give up the old Way—
See now through the Bolder Eye
We’re ready now, my dears—
Approach, my Ariel, come…
—the Tempest, Act I, II
The Anatomy of Wit
THE ANATOMY OF WIT
THE ANATOMY OF WIT
—for John Lyly
It is Wit, yes Wit, my dears—
That maketh us Ladies of Leisure
That maketh the poor Rich—
The base-born into the tres-Noble
The mere Subject into a Sovereign—
The Peon into a gracious Queen Bee
The Deformed into the Beautiful—
The Sick Whole, the Weak Strong
The most Miserable into—
The Most Happy and the Most Gay
EUPHUISM
I try to be Gaceful and Witty—
Just like that Queen John Lyly
I try to illustrate Intellectual Fashions—
And favorite Themes of Renaissance Society
Can there be Wit in today’s England?—
Can Prince Harry possibly be my Pomopdour?
Can I be Artificial and Mannered like—
Back then when it was so Gay, my dears?
Highly Artificial and Mannered in Style—
Tres Moderne and Petite Pallace of Pettie?
The plots so Unimportant & Existing merely—
As Conversations, Discourses and Letters?
Mostly concerning the Subject of Love—
As in George Pettie's "A Petite Pallace of Pettie”
My Pleasure in Tacky Sermon Literature—
And all those Boring, Closeted Vatican tracts
Perfecting the Distinctive Rhetorical Devices—
On which the Gay Style will be Perfected
THE TWO GIFTS
There are two principal and peculiar gifts—
In the nature of man: Knowledge and Reason
The one Commandeth, my dears—
And the Other obeyeth down on her knees
These things neither the—
Whirling Wheel of Fortune can change
Nor the deceitful cavillings of worldlings—
Separate, nor sickness abate, nor age abolish
HETERONORMATIVES
Is it not far better to abhor Heteronormatives—
By the remembrance of their Tacky Faults?
After all my dears, the Repentance of thine—
Own Follies surely can’t compare to the Straights?
GAY FRIENDSHIP
Can any treasure in this transitory pilgrimmage—
Be of more value than a treasured gay friend?
In whose bosom thou mayest sleep secure—
Without fear, whom thou mayest make Partner?
All thy secrets without suspicion of Fraud—
Partaker of all thy Misfortune without Mistrust
Who will account thy Bale his Bane—
Thy Mishap his Misery and Sympathy?
The Pricking of thy Finger—
The Piercing of your Heart?
BEAUTY
How Frantic are those Lovers carried away—
With the gay glissening of the fine Face?
The Beauty whereof so Parched with the—
Summer's blaze and Cool of the Winter's Blast
Which is of so short Continuance—
That it Fadeth before one Perceive it Flourish
AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
My dear coy Neapolitan Ladies of Leisure—
Let us Discuss the Queenly Qualities of Mind
And whether the Composition of the Man—
Is more worthy of our astute Attention
Time hath weaned us from Mommy Dearest—
And Age rid us from our Father's Correction
LUCILLA’S LOVE LIFE
Lucilla, considering her father's reaction in—
Abandoning her fiance Philanthus for Euphues
A sharp Sore hath a short cure, my dear—
The fickle Fervency of Men is Commonplace
It may be hard won without Trial—
But be of great Faith, they are so Fickle
Alas, my dears, what Truth can be—
Found in a mere One Night Stand even now?
What could be more like the Wind than—
Our own ever fleeting Plighted Perjury
When We and They hoist sail?
RITA
“Why Rita Hayworth?”
—Suzanne Jill Levine
“Puns: The Untranslatable”
The Subversive Muse: Translating
Latin American Fiction
___________
When Batista fell—
And Cuba Butched it up
Vast flotillas of drag—
Queens fled, my dear
___________
Some to NYC—
Others to Miami
Miss Puig did—
The Spider Woman
___________
Miss Sarduy did—
The Cobra Woman
It was all so—
Latino-esque gay
___________
Baroque bricoleur—
Boys in the Band
Homo homage—
Burlesque subversive
___________
Carried away, honey—
So Caravaggesque
Satirical burlesque—
Chiaroscuro Camp
___________
Macaronic mariconettes—
Queer iconographies
Miss gay Metonymy—
Meets Fag Grotesque
___________
So let’s do Drag—
But not overdo it, dears
Some voodoo Abracadabra—
A little rococo Swish
___________
It’s so tres grammatical—
Madame Onomatopoeia
Those Dwarf gigolos—
So trashy transvestite
Contessa this and—
The Contessa that
___________
Senora and Senoritas—
Our Ladies of Guadalupe
Precocious and Presumptuous—
So Elegant yet so Vulgar
___________
Such Recherché here—
Such Pomposity there
Nothing like Miss Velázquez—
To Hapsburg camp it up
___________
Tacky Translations—
Quickening Castanets
Daring Defilements—
Dumas-esque Melodramatics
___________
Miss Musketeers—
Seminal Swordsmanship
Touché Avant-garde—
Miss Breton so very touchy
___________
Euphuistic Homoeroticism—
Such Eager Euphemisms
Swinging Swinburne Swine—
Pouty Venuses in the Pigsty
TYRONE POWER
Young Tyrone Power—
Naked in the moonlight
Nothing but a cape—
There in the bullring
___________
Cute macho kid—
His strong uncut sword
Soon becoming Spain’s—
New romantic matador
___________
But Rita Hayworth—
Seduces young Tyrone
He becomes the Bull—
Betrayed by her guitar
BLOOD AND SAND
But why Rita Hayworth—
Who in it she betrays?
Tyrone Power, of course—
And his loving faithful wife
___________
But Rita Hayworth—
Betrays herself most of all
She’s really Margarita Cassino—
Daughter of a Spanish dancer
___________
Are we moviegoers betrayed—
By Tyrone’s infidelities?
Hardly, my dears, don’t be naive—
We’d like to suck off Tyrone too
RITA HAYWORTH
The pretty wicked Actress—
Rita’s power to castrate men
Patriarchal powerless—
Male Victimhood so appealing
___________
So that Manuel Puig learns—
To play the Betrayal Game
Manipulator of Words—
And fictional Realities
___________
Heterosexuality Betrayed—
Empowering queer Miss Puig
Hollywood popular flicks—
Making gay Latino possible
BETRAYED BY RITA HAYWORTH
“The chiaroscuro technique”
—Suzanne Jill Levine
“Between Textures: Petit Ensemble
Caravaggesque,” The Subversive Muse:
Translating Latin American Fiction
___________
The betrayer in betrayed—
I know it happened to me
Like Berto’s unsent letter—
I have a confession to make
___________
I was in love with my young—
Kid brother when we grew up
He felt betrayed by me—
Being his fag cocksucking brother
___________
Queer for his precocious penis—
Betraying him with my queer lips
I betrayed myself just like Rita—
Down there on my bruised knees
___________
Baroque Bricoleur Boyfriends—
Caravaggesque Petit Pricks
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