THE POPE IS LIKE A REPUBLICAN SENATOR

by James M. Croteau

Apologies are like prayers
without action. Catholic claims
of intrinsically disordered and
contrary to natural law are like
allowing Sig Sauer MCXs and
AR-15s to be purchased with
no restrictions. Sorry's not enough.

James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 31 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the U.S. south in the 60’s and 70’s and his writing often reflects that experience. His poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry among others. His first chapbook will be published by Redbird Chapbooks in 2016. He occasionally blogs about writing at talkingdogsholymen.blogspot.com.

JUNE 12, 2016: WHO COUNTS

by James M. Croteau

New Orleans firefighters in 1973 assisting a patron of the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar that had been set on fire. Thirty-two people died in the attack. AP Photo via The New York Times, June 13 2016

We skipped Pride to pack
for our annual Maine trip.
We left about 7AM and
on the on-ramp to I-94
we first heard:

at least 20 dead and 42 injured,
another shooting, Orlando,
a nightclub. This will be
our 27th trip  to Ogunquit.
Our first was 31 years ago.

We've never been there with
the right to be married. We
stopped for lunch just past 1 o'clock
at a Panera east of Cleveland.
I walked our dogs. My partner

went to get food. He returned
with 50 dead and 53 injured, and
at a gay bar. I google news from my iPhone--
the largest mass shooting in US history.
I also know it's the largest mass killing

of LGBT people in US history because
only five years ago I learned of the story
of Upstairs Lounge arson in New Orleans
during Pride month 43 years ago. It took
16 minutes to extinguish the fire and 32

of our lives. I turned to Facebook  feeling
my stolen youth raw and inflamed
again. I get reminded of Wounded Knee.
The biggest depends on how and who
defines what.  The army, with the

semi-automatic weapons of 1890,
massacred at least 150, maybe 300
people. I'll be 60 in three months.
It's near 4, and we're at a toll booth
near the outskirts of Buffalo.

James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 31 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the U.S. south in the 60s and 70s and his writing often reflects that experience. His poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry among others. His first chapbook will be published by Redbird Chapbooks in 2016. 

IN THE LAND OF THE STUCK

by James M. Croteau

Poke London's website Global Rich List allows individuals to compare their wealth with the rest of world. Their hope is that seeing privilege will inspire those with wealth to share more of it.

I glance up to the fifty-inch screen, Brussels, the bombings,
pictures of three men with carts in the airport. While CNN
ticks ISIS #2 killed in U.S. operation, then Cruz blames Trump

for tabloid story. I can't tell what that’s about, Cruz's head is now
talking but the TV's muted for the theme to Dawson’s Creek. How American
this song, Dunkin' Donuts, me, my laptop screen split between Word and

Facebook, my table with coffee and muffin. There's a new post on
my home feed with a word too frequent among friends as I age:
metastasized, before I can think I click like. That's not right. No bombs

are bursting in my middle class air, and my news ticker's streaming that
my yard needs a mow, my dog's shots are now due, and in Track Changes
21 comments still need my attention. My life's full of small needs--this

I can see. The music seems mocking: I don’t want to wait for our lives
to be over. Am I waiting? I can see what I've got, there's a website
for that-- entered $60,000 a year, didn't add benefits or assets, and still

only one tenth of a percent of the world is wealthier than me. Then I pretend
my life as I know it will last, but twilight's last gleaming's becoming hard
to ignore. O'er my ramparts, I see folks missing-- mom, dad, a whole generation,

a cousin, three friends. My fingers password Caring Bridge faster than
Facebook. I sigh and glance down to my edits, my muffin, my coffee.


James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 31 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the U.S. south in the 60’s and 70’s and his writing often reflects that experience. His poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry among others. His first chapbook will be published by Redbird Chapbooks in 2016.

LOW BEAMS IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

by James Croteau

Along the Mississippi Delta. Image source: My American Odyssey

Only low beams lit the road

as my parents drove Highway 61

from Memphis through Clarksdale

to Cleveland with civil rights marches

all around us. I never knew

it's not a delta at all, no mouth

until further south. It's all alluvial

plain, this place of my birth. Grandpa

disembarked in Baltimore's harbor

in 1921, moved south when

cotton was still king but

he never planted. Instead he owned

a five and dime on Main Street

in Cleveland. I was proud

to help clerk. Sometimes he'd aim

squinted eyes my way, talk the Italian

he taught me “follow that N-word."

"It's the longest stretch of straight road

east of the Great River," my dad

always said as he drove, low beams

to avoid blinding the oncoming

drivers like us. We got used to not seeing

anything beyond the white

cotton by the side of the road.

Living legacies are often at the periphery

of the privileged. Even amid

outcries at the murders in the streets

and the churches, we whites miss

the lay of the land by

low beaming our questions--

Was the officer following policy?

Was the shooter mentally ill?

Isn't the KKK really to blame?

But I've been lucky, my eyes

have been pried apart by

a few good people. I see some

beyond the well-meant

intentions in front of my face.

The fertile flatness was freely

brought by the floods of the Yazoo

and Mississippi, then it was stolen

and exploited--Indian removal, slavery,

sharecropping, Jim Crow de jure

and de facto, this history's alive and

denied. If I high beam my heart

I can see that I could have been

Darren Wilson, even Dylann Roof.

I learn how the land of my birth

really lies, only when I can feel

the white of my finger placed

everyday on the trigger of the gun

I was given on the day I was born.

James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 28 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the southern United States and loved his mother very much. He has had poems published in Hoot: a Postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose, The New Verse News, and Right Hand Pointing. He has a series of poems upcoming in April 2014 in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry.

DEFROCKING

by James M. Croteau





Defrocking numbers thrown about,
I think of "mine",
the pedophile priest
in the parish of my youth,
all us Catholic boys
had one in my day, lucky
boys just didn't know
at the time. Just heard
he'd been brought to justice,
though the phrase barely fits,
he was tried and convicted
in a court that was Catholic,
and of course
he was sentenced, poor man,
to no priestly duties, not ever,
and told to spend the rest of his life
in prayer, and in penance.


James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 28 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the southern United States and loved his mother very much. He has had poems published in Hoot: a Postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose, The New Verse News, and Right Hand Pointing. He has a series of poems upcoming in April 2014 in Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry.

WHO AM I TO JUDGE?

by James M. Croteau





I guess it's better,
your tone and all,
but get back to me
when you're ready
to end your claims
to nature's law,
and calls to chastity.
Rescind your stance
on who's "intrinsically disordered"
and I'm all ears.
I think your conscience
needs closer examination--
you have to know
that catechism words
like "grave depravity"
are the nails
in the coffins
of too many Catholic boys.


James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 28 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the southern United States and loved his mother very much. He has had poems published in Hoot: a Postcard review of {mini} poetry and prose, New Verse News, and Right Hand Pointing.