Welcome back, our poem this week is from the Professor of Whimsy himself - Robert Garnham!

--

'To the car full of girls who shouted 'Poof!' at me as they drove past'

Of course it might have been a lucky guess.

Though I held high in the Scottish drizzle

A RAINBOW UNICORN UMBRELLA

Which even I concede was a little camp.

Or maybe my pink feather boa was

Poking out from my Tesco's bag for life.

Or maybe they were just nasty bastards.

It wasn't like I was gawping at a fit bloke,

Or wearing my I Like Cock tshirt,

Or logging into Grindr and shouting,

Where are you, FunkyLoveMuffin,

Cooooooeeeeee!

I was on the way to buy a steak and Kidney pie

And you can't get any straighter than that.

As the car sped away

I felt the loving embrace of the generations who couldn't.

But did anyway.

Souls whose crime was to love

But loved fiercely and with passion.

This thought, and my RAINBOW UNICORN UMBRELLA

Added some glitz to a drizzly Tuesday morning.

What was it that gave the game away?

Did I flounce did I strut did I sashay

Did I mince,

Does it matter?

No glitter in the drizzle no secret street sequins

I've been out and proud

Since before you were born,

Gayer than the gayest gay that ever did gay,

Though I do occasionally wear an anorak.

Like phantoms they come, Alan Turing,

Oscar Wilde, Freddie Mercury, Frank O'Hara,

Marcel Proust, Noel Cowerd, Quentin Crisp,

Their ghosts swirling along the Edinburgh cobbles,

Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street,

And the anonymous lovers of old

Proudly flying the flag before it even existed,

Beating down the fear and marching brave,

Stonewall freedom fighters, Harvey Milk, a fist raised

Triumphant in the oneness of a gay new world

That those for whom biology had different ideas

Might walk unmolested in the conscience

Of public acceptance.

And I, oh,

I might rise before you!

You will cower and tremble,

I, mighty gay overlord,

Will crush thy Fiat Panda betwixt my

Powerful thighs

For it is I, prince of rainbows,

Puncher of preconceptions,

The Pink Avenger,

Exacting my just and fearful revenge

In the name of blessed queerdom!

But then,

I just sigh,

And I say to myself,

Some people

Are just tossers.

--

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