Attracted
Attracted to the other and/or drawn to the same,
we all bathe in the splendour of allure.
Reverse polarity provides an alien to abjure.
A goat to scape. Foes to shame and blame.
As pharisaical ghouls lobby for the status quo,
the legal 'bann' of variated love,
cynics note the dessicated unions blessed above:
divorce could prove a universal blow.
Tendrils of distaste and hate recoil in a tiff,
fear and loathing rile at others' joy.
Witness demagoguery's old yet newly minted toy:
religion's homophobic scratch and sniff.
Vile denunciations and allegations waft,
across the vast expanse of space and time.
Flatulent Dutch ovens of bigotry aloft fly,
as adult, equal love's tagged 'sin', not raft
to finding solace, as surely as the Made
seeks the Maker's consoling deeps.
Suicide and ostracism, hidden, slowly creeps;
onwards upwards deathwards. Passions fade.
Semantics fly, with rites and rights a puritan's lament.
Literal application to words rimed with years;
Words that wedge the other as the focal point of fears.
Church, mosque or temple: bodies exercise their bent
to non-hetero matrimonials defy.
Sordid 'sacred' words lose lustre in the Light.
Condemning comes not from Love, but spite.
What weight of misery typifies the cry
of adults drawn to other adult lives?
What hideous hypocrites act to censure Love?
Where can Grace dwell? Where is God? In? Above?
Absent when loathing and rank hatred thrives?
To thwart the needs and sorrowful dreams
of frail and potent figures, near and far,
the sexual Luddites wreck the engines of reform to mar
the would-be dignity and fragile schemes
of those who would be openly joined in view
of human, God and faith-besmirching church.
These haters soldier on, blindly fouling the search
for 'home' and kindling hearth. They must construe
a valley of dry-boned hopes. Make of love a tower
of denial. Their 'keepings off' round robin game
of demonising, skewering pain; can we name
latency, jealousy, envy, misuse of power?
Who and how an adult loves — who another gains
as adult lover, soulgazer, oasis, keenest friend —
leaves no grounds for judgment or fear. In the end
God wipes away their tears. Stills their pains.
Barry Gittins is a Melbourne writer.