This is an ode

to Montreal. Matt Walsh my very best friend at York University was from Verdun, which he spoke of with some contempt; and he was the essence of working class. And then my friend Ed and his memories of the craziness of being held up at gunpoint once in this, my favorite city. And Leo who wanted to have sex with him only when he was pretending to be dead. And the The Rubber Gun — Stephen Lack and Peter Brawley—the essence of late 70s Montreal hippy drug scene. Evenings spent at Peter’s apartment (and staying there too) the bottom floor of one of those old Montreal houses (the entrance underneath a spiral staircase) everywhere his paintings and the smell of dope. And Peter introducing us to his young man at The Second Cup, who was indeed very handsome. And then staying for two weeks in Montreal with Hillar Liitoja and Kirsten Johnson and Andrew Scorer and Ken McDougall and Daniel MacIvor -- to play Claudius in an 8 hour version of Hamlet at the Festival of the Americas. I ate a whole (cooked) chicken onstage — but only in Montreal did the audience steal the chicken off my plate — which was disconcerting. It's then I discovered Montreal nights; staying out very late and doing bad things. I wrote many poems about Montreal. One about having a bagel in the morning remembering how receptive the young man was the night before, how those thighs opened for me, and how he was not only obliging but perfectly beautiful. I remember going to what appeared to be a drag bar, in drag, only to be kicked out because I had big fake breasts. Apparently they thought I was a hooker. How flattering. And breakfast with somebody, more bagels on St. Laurent, and my lover partner (let’s just call him ‘the other’) and I spending New Year's one night with a fabulous dyke couple (one was a clown in Cirque du Soleil) only to have them break up the next day — was it our fault?  Pont Jacuqes-Cartier and all that beauty — and I’m not talking about the men — just asking, why decorate a bridge with lights? Why so much pleasure? Why is it necessary? Oh but it is. And lately walking by the AIDs park and thinking about all the sex I had there at the very end of June, when the bath houses weren’t open and I was desperate for any — yes let’s just call it what it is — dick. Joe Orton used to complain about London. He and Kenneth Williams (of the 'Carry-On movies' whose photo is the screensaver on my telephone) would go to Morocco (with Orton’s lover Kenneth Halliwell -- the less said about him the better) and pick up boys. Orton said the boys in London were so uptight, but in Morocco they were offering themselves on the streets —which since it is due to poverty, is sad in a way — but on the other hand, it’s just sex isn’t it? Remember sex? That fun thing you do because it’s the only time you can really lose yourself (without drugs) and merge with the general miasma that is our biological existence? Speaking of which, that’s what Orton used to say about the British, that they were not by nature very human (by which he meant humane) because in a human/humane society young men offer their bodies to strangers (strangers they like, that is) because I’m not at all sure what dicks are for, otherwise — oh yes for procreation —sorry, I forgot. And then there is confession, which I think is the key. It’s why Montreal is so exciting. Speaking of confession I’m doing an awful lot of that in this piece of writing. You can’t imagine how freeing it is, one becomes abject — anxiety vanishes—  because now you, the reader,  know the very worst about me —or the best — (depending on how you look at it) and I expect to be rejected and damned for at least a moment or two, and that’s the great thing about confession. Imagine all those constipated Ontarians, all that damned up desire. Ford has outlawed singing because of all the 'projected particulae.' Well one of my favourite things to do with someone — especially a young man — is to have him project his 'particulae' all over me me. But no, not in Ontario. No singing, dancing or ‘funning’ why? Because they are Protestants and they don’t confess. Instead the evil is damned up inside them forever and causes illnesses like guilt and anger. Whereas in Montreal we just go to the local priest and close the door of that cosy cubicle and say —‘Yes yes ten young men sat on my face last night! One by one! It was heaven! I enjoyed it beyond belief! And I would love to do it again and again, in fact forever!  So am I expiated now? Ten Hail Mary’s? Of course I will say them. And I am terribly sorry for all that sinning.”And the priest, like Christ, dies a little bit with every confession, but we — thank God! — are done with regret and can get on with the sinning once again. Confession is human and humane. Living with pain and anger is not. Who will I meet tonight? Will I meet Parick Scholaire who likes to balance chocolate chip cookies on the end of his humungous member? Will I meet Julio who banged me like there was no tomorrow? I hope I will see that fascinating Asian boy ( or girl, in-between?what is she? does it matter?) with the long blond hair, who is always at the strip club, and claps a little too hard for the boys when they are done, as if to say, ‘they work hard, they deserve it!’ And it’s true, an older lover of mine used to say to me after we watched pornography together (because there was a time when watching pornography was quite a normal part of lovemaking. It wasn’t betrayal, it wasn’t judged, it  was just part of an evening’s routine.) When it was over, when we'd had our sniffs of poppers and both had come, he would lean over to me with that helpless stoned laugh I loved so much, and say “They really don’t pay those boys enough, do they? I mean for the pleasure they give us? They deserve so much, because they work so hard and make us so happy.” And I think of Leonard Chow — the star of Drag Queens on Trial and Drag Queens in Outerspace — he played the one and only Judy Goose, dancing up a storm with his ray gun in outer space. And then Leonard died of AIDS, and all we heard about him was that his mother had come all the way from the Philippines to feed him his favourite food on this deathbed. I think of Leonard Chow because he was Montreal; he was beauty and he was pleasure, and he was in addition, very obliging. And these are values we hold forever close to our hearts — under one God, indivisible, in Montreal, with liberty and fucking for all.