Joshua Emboldened

Poetry

Joshua Emboldened

This poem is deliberately provocative.
It gives a voice to the voiceless,
recognises that lives matter,
that sexuality is very much a part of every community,
and is many-faceted,
rendering the religious texts from all sources irrelevant,
renders the clichés LGB, LGBTQ and QLGT already a last-century concept …
It takes, though,
a very, very long time
to evolve into normality.

This portraiture, too, is deliberately set on the jawline
in memory of the painting that once hung some 5.8 meters (17ft) high up
in my apartment in Liverpool,
out of sight of the tongue waggers
but always viewable by me, and home for twelve years.
The painting is now in the ownership of my closest friends,
beautifully and, yes, discreetly displayed in Lancashire away from the tongue waggers.

To the reader who might be asking what this means,
try and imagine hiding the portrait of your spouse or partner
for fear of backlash.

His desire is to serve men.

To impress upon them their superiority.

He does so knowing that he is no underling.

Those days have gone.

He is powerful and sexual.

His sexuality and sensuality

Are the sum total

Of his Uniqueness,

His Universality,

His Appeal to older men.

He understands and delights

in the respect given to older men.

He delights in pleasuring them.

He knows it is his task.

His duty.

His role.

His gift.

He delights in opening up himself

Observing silken thighs

Gleaned and gorgeous

Smooth

And leading into the entry

To his inner being.

He is the delight of men

And he delights in men.

He thrives on their intercession

Through their semen

Their essence

Their glory.

And he in turn gives his essence

And empowers men.

He is the master of his fate

He holds the key to diplomacy

Denied many - granted to few,

And he has that key.

Its name is Choice.

He observes his life,

He recalls the past,

To things that went awry,

To writing off men in light of youth,

And hurting souls of men his elders.

Now he teaches them.

He leads by example.

And young men look to him

To see how he turned loathing into love.

This, he determines, is his life’s purpose.

His Universe is his Sexuality

His Sexuality thus provides his Sensuality

His gift back to the Universe is his Sexuality

And thus he becomes

Complete

Whole

Humble

Beautiful

Ian Bradley Marshall
Liverpool

5 December 2011
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL

© 2011 Ian Bradley Marshall

Digital Artwork by IBM unless otherwise credited

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