We die – They do nothing!1
Alex Dimitrov
In the movies and on television,
all our papers, publications, fit to screen along
our pulp porn dinners.
They said –
the whole world is watching.
We didn’t bother showing up.
The truth our father knew – the son,
his body stone hard, stood up,
strung facing the dawn like a puppet
only streaks where tears have washed away the blood.
Like apparitions taunting us
and stabbing at the wound,
they have gone out, sung, and held themselves.
Only a pastor was missing.
Three blocks down
the homo cheer squad wasn’t hung enough
to hear their victims actualized.
How fast can you run in those heels honey?
How hard, how holy will you be when
he muscles you into a corner
fucks you, fucks your girlfriend
and his fantasy of dicking dykes
will be yours to live out, ours to live and let live.
Silence no longer equals death.2
We have gone silent.
And Ed, Ronnie, George, now Fred3
are part of our dismantled chant
Read my lips4:
the whole world was watching
and we all forgot to the leave the house – gun in hand.
1 1988 protest slogan for ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) – “a diverse non partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.” ACT UP staged militant demonstrations and formed a resistance movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s combating and exposing the U.S. government’s treatment of the AIDS epidemic.
2 The 1986 Silence=Death Project in New York City was founded by six gay men who created the emblem of the same name, “printed in white Gill sanserif type underneath a pink triangle on a black ground.” The project preceded ACT UP by several months though the slogan was later adopted by ACT UP. It was an attempt to break the silence about AIDS and particularly an attack on the Reagan administration.
3 Ed Koch (Mayor of New York, 1979-1989), Ronald Reagan (President of the United States, 1980-88), George Bush Sr. (President of the United States, 1988-92), Fred Phelps (founder of The Westboro Baptist Church, more publicly known as godhatesfags.com)
4 Slogan used for Gran Fury’s 1988 poster campaign for a same-sex kiss-in – one featuring a photograph of two World War II sailors kissing, the other a lesbian couple from a 1920s Broadway play. Gran Fury were the “unofficial propaganda ministry and guerrilla graphic designers” for ACT UP. The group was a part of ACT UP and created AIDS activist art.
