Artwork(...?) by E. Black. Public domain image; a doodle created in a dull meeting that might tie in with the poem. It's meant to represent a UK gay bar and its neolithic-style inhabitants (I don't exclude myself from that genre).
For many of us, gay bars can be a daunting prospect - whether one goes in hope of finding friendship, an encounter, or simply finding oneself.
As a younger man, and a newcomer to the city, the prospect of drinking in one of those murky watering holes filled me with trepidation, even dread. This wasn’t simply because it represented an Orphean descent into the unknown. It had more to do with a fear of rejection and of solitude within a crowd. After all, what could be more alienating for anyone? Oh yes, a friendly face in the midst of it all can make such a difference…
I leave you with a poem.
EB
Power of a Smile
Here I am all forlorn; chain-smoking,
drinking, pretending to scrutinise
magazines (cleverly disguised as soft porn).
Politely spurning the advances of guys
I don’t fancy with their hackneyed old lines.
Still watching the clock - clocking guys
that I like a bit, but staying where I am.
With detached objectivity
the transient scenery passes me by.
A conveyor-belt of tight jeans,
cute arses or pie-in-the-sky.
Checking out bulges in all the right
places; meetings of minds, faces, hands.
Hearing laughter (such anodyne!)
Seeing probing questions met with probing hands.
I ponder the theory that I have no objection to
one-night-stands; just sense such vacuity,
promises meaningless upon shifting sands.
If life’s divine comedy, then I’m smiling
sardonically to a tripped-out disco beat.
Though feet remain leaden in this holy
Armageddon, still hoping to meet Mr. Right.
Sublimely, I drift from my reverie, scepticism,
self-denial. As I drift between beats
I’m reborn in the warmth of a smile.
A sense of renaissance in the face of a stranger,
a life reaffirmed? In this vast dereliction;
no longer alone.
