Dedicated to Freedom 2B
My risk of the night: a poem I wrote about Sodom in the year I came out as a gay man – 2004. Factual or not, it was my conclusion after reading widely on the subject. It may be interesting for some readers. Raw and as yet unpublished.
Sodom Myth
ancient Sodom
evil city
condemned
destroyed by God
a ruined land
home of sodomy
homosexual
man on man
provoking God’s wrath
contrived myth
Lot hid strangers
secret angels
God’s destroyers
waiting to act
fait accompli
Sodom men
surrounded Lot’s house
demanded to ‘know’
to interrogate
his guests
our translations say
they wanted sex
with the strangers
(the angels)
a questionable claim
943 times
the Old Testament
recites ‘to know’
just ten times
it describes sex
Ezekiel called Sodom
arrogant, overfed
neglectful of the poor
self-focussed, wicked
not gay
ancient Hebrew, Greek
and Aramaic texts
had no word
for homosexual
no evidence
yet Sodom gave
its name to men
emitting semen
for reasons more
than procreation
adultery
fornication
masturbation
marital pleasure
all acts of sodomy
thirteenth century
Albertus Magnus
named homosexual acts
the gravest sexual sin
vilest sodomy
new enemy of grace
reason and nature
Magnus moved attention
to gay hostility
rewriting history
a natural expression
throughout the ages
homosexuality
survived misunderstanding
and oppression
in Symposium
Plato represented
sexual orientation
as an objective
inborn trait
emperors, heroes
popes and kings
stand among the gay
in countless
generations
in myth Zeus carried off
young Ganymede
to heaven
Edward II of England
loved the exiled Gaveston
Israel’s David king elect
proclaimed the love
of Jonathan
more wonderful
than that of women
in medieval times
mankind repressed
sought to eradicate
the ill of men
with men
year AD 1533
Henrician statute
wielded rigid laws
banned gay relations
severe punishments
in recent decades
Wolfenden Committee
raids on Stonewall Inn
challenged laws
and time reformed
wise nation states
today embrace
gays, lesbians
as rightful
citizens
while churches cling
to sodomy
as evidence
of God’s
hostility
yet local law reform
steps back
protecting marriage
from assault
gay unions die
and still the myth
lives in our land
gay is unnatural
queer and straight
don’t yet unite
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