Discover the same other

whilst under the cover

Creeping seeping peeping

covert operations

my teenage fascinations

awkward altercations

with non queer populations

 

Sensations that taught me

if ever they caught me

side cautiously er

deliberately blur words that infer derogatory slur

 

I got very clever,

very clever at seeing without being seen

 

1990 aged 16

In the football stadium I learnt bigger the fish bigger the tackle

 

Nineties football. Chelsea game

Me and Dad. Loved it same

Both loved tackle. Different name

Beckham’s  tackle. Felt no shame

'Dad I’m gay'. Out it came

Tried to hide. Tried to tame

Downplay gay. Felt to blame

All Dad say was 'Cut it out'

 

Queer disrupts society

How it constructs what men should be

Naked woman on Page 3

She was not my cup of tea

Teenage scrapbook fantasy

Rather look at David B

In his kit, Man U FC

Get my scissors. Cut him out

 

Chelsea, Man U, match play draw

David Beckham, about to score

Saw his tackle, dropped my jaw

Dad went ‘GOAL!’, I went ‘PHWOAR!’

Chelsea 1, Beckham 4

Hear the crowds, hear them roar

Could not see what’s in store

‘Ref, you blind? Cut him out!’

 

Homophobe had his shot

Hooligan, out his cot

Swore at me, F-bomb drop

Effing queer, I am not

Half a brain, you ain’t got

Love my football never stop

Football snap, tackle, pop

Football could it cut me out!

 

1994. Me a boy no more

I needed to see  men like me

Listening to my Summer 94  mix-tape walking

first time through London’s Gay Soho

Mix-tape boy

So much joy

SEE ME

SEE LEE

 

Nervous yet emancipated, a space so animated

My first time in a place with men like me everywhere

How excited I was when this guy gave me stare

 

Remember my first time  in the Kings Arms pub

Learning the lingo of ‘bear’ and  ‘cub’

 

Bears and cubs don’t just live in the forest

 

Outside on the pavement before I went in

Asking myself  ‘Am I too fat, or too thin?'

‘Too fat to be cub?

Too slim to be bear?

Should I grow a big belly

and shave off my hair?’

 

Inside at the bar, a koala and polar

were getting it on over whisky and cola

Leather black sofa,  having a gander

A cub with his paws all over a panda

 

Bears and cubs in their tribes

Bears over there, cubs to their sides

Getting my paw into a bear

His honey and more I want back in his lair

 

Barman rubbing his head but then gave me a grin

When a chaser I said please to go with my gin

Allow me to teach you said barman I must divulge

Pointing over to where was a bear with a bloody big bulge

It’s then when I learnt what a bear chaser means

Men who like bears and the bulge in their jeans

 

But then I was shook from the look of an otter

His dark hairy chest was a hundred times hotter

Then turning around, opportunity knocks

I was getting the look from a wolf and a fox!

'Hey cubby,' said wolf whilst smoking a cig

‘Are you a pup or are you more pig?’

 

Bingo the lingo of gay wordplay

Got to be said at the end of the day

Learn all the slangs, cubbies and bears

As long as he bangs, who the hell cares?

 

However,I could feel the words in the stare

of this most uptight bear

Him looking at me thinking ‘You could do with losing a few’

but the only thing I was losing was my mind

 

Just when I thought I had finally caught

the eye of a rather nice guy

as I stood at the bar with my Stella Artois

He made me think he may buy me a drink

come over and ask when I was here last

and finally extinguish parts of my past

You found the matches

Your coldness pushed me back into the heat

of the fire and flames of those playground games

that names and shames

those who do not aspire

to be Mr Muscular hyphen Heteronormative

Thank you, Mr How-to-Kill-Desire

 

Through his Bacardi and coke and cigarette smoke,

this excuse for a bloke cracked joke after joke

‘Blue eyed boy Lee, I love your dark hairy legs

Shame the rest of your frame is like pie from Greggs

Be more like me, on spinach and eggs

You can’t be a cub, you’re far too old

Put those legs out on show if you want to get sold’

 

I’m getting quite tripped

on these bodies all ripped

Imagine mine stripped

and everything flipped

 

Mr Spinach and Eggs,

stick your rules and regs

in the hole

at the back

of the top of my legs 

 

Queer is a community, anti-being controlled

Yet there are those who are persistently told

‘You are too slim to be fat, too fat to be that ‘

When will we get over the labels and stereotypes

 and just be?

 

To all the body gamers, shamers, namers and blamers

Don’t define us guys by our bodily size

To the body police, we’re flipping ginormous

What is obese, what is enormous

is the size of our talent to craft what we say

As poets we’re gallant at clever wordplay.