THE LESS DECEIVED 

EMPORIA / HULL

A BORING BOYHOOD

THE LOVED ONES

EXILE

_________

ARNOLD LOPEZ

A PAST

THINKING ABOUT IT

__________

EMPORIA / HULL

“No I have never found

The place where I could say

This is my proper ground”

—Philip K. Larkin

PLACES, LOVED ONES

____________

There Larkin was in—

Hull where he lived and

Died a librarian-poet

The shabby buildings—

The dull river, old bridge

The tree in the background

__________

It captures pretty much—

What Emporia was to me

A dreary depressing town

Stuck in Hull seemed to—

Fit his depressing lifestyle

A library, desk, books

A BORING BOYHOOD

“As if what you settled for

Mashed you, in fact”

—Philip K. Larkin

PLACES, LOVED ONES

______________

A boring boyhood—

An even more forgetful

Supposed gay adulthood

That’s the way it was—

Or would be probably just

About anywhere I suppose

__________

The only reason I write—

About a small Midwestern

Town is that it’s easier

The gays I knew back then—

Vernon Sheffield the pianist

And KSTC Music professor

___________

While at the other end—

There was a grocery clerk

In our neighborhood grocery

He was a Kiwanis Club—

Member, made fun of each

Year by all the all members

__________

An award for being the—

Only bachelor amongst them

He accepted it blushing

He lived his life a lie—

Everybody knew his shy

Lifestyle was perverted

THE LOVED ONES

“Nor met the special one

Who has an instant claim”

—Philip K. Larkin

PLACES, LOVED ONES

_____________

Finding a special one—

Seems to prove you want 

To enjoy having no choice

But the ignorant dolts—

I fell for gave me no choice

It was all my fault they said

____________

It turned the whole town—

Dreary, love became for me

Irrevocably tres subservient

I played Marilyn Monroe—

In NIAGARA each time with

The usual Niagara Tower end

EXILE

“Uncalled-for, to this day

Your person, your place”

—Philip K. Larkin

PLACES, LOVED ONES

___________

Home yet not at home—

The perfect place of exile

For young fag like me

It made me the poet I am—

Made me realize and know

The kind of man I was

_________

It was essential to me—

My exile in such a dreary

State of expatriation 

How else would I have—

Got to know how deep

Below the thin ice I lied?

THINKING ABOUT YOU

“One doesn’t go

anywhere by design

you know”—Philip Larkin

_________

I never really thought—

About Emporia or even

Philip K. Larkin’s Hull

It was a little on the—

Edge of things I suppose

But it’s where I plopped

__________

Down like a cow-patty—

Down by the tracks of

The Santa Fe Railroad

What did I have to say—

About it other than here

I was and that was that?

_____________

ARNOLD LOPEZ

You put in for jobs

And move about”

—Phillip Larkin

__________________

When your lover—

The special one ends

Up being heterosexual

He can’t help it—

Any more than I could

Help being who I was

__________

Special attention—

Has to be paid to the

Instant charm of 

What you thought—

And what you truly

Ended up with

A PAST

“In short, a past—

that no one now

can share”

—Philip Larkin,

THE LESS DECEIVED

__________________

The gap between—

Eye to page, I’m left

To deal with, my dears

I know what was but—

Surely I can go on & on

About what he was like

__________

To condense is surely—

The trick in any confession

The Saint of Guadalupe

If it’s truly heavenly—

To lie & ask for forgiveness

How can our love truly survive?