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<TITLE>Rock Island Pavanne, by Hakim Bey</TITLE>
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="from Poems of Love and Liberation">
<META NAME="Author"=Hakim Bey>
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="NAMBLA, NORTH AMERICAN MAN/BOY LOVE ASSOCIATION, MAN/BOY LOVE, BOYS, POEMS OF LOVE AND LIBERATION, GAY YOUTH, HAKIM BEY">
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
<H3><BR>
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</H3>
<H3>ROCK ISLAND PAVANNE</H3>
<P><B>You know how the transcontinental out of Chicago glides <BR>
into a landscape that looks so much like the map you wonder <BR>
which came first ~ a geometric grid the color of corn <BR>
stubble, grim solstice-grey old black-and-white TV-land from <BR>
the observation car, one after another poor hick town <BR>
flicks past between plastic coffee and stale insomniac <BR>
cigarette smoke ~ &amp; you wonder what would happen if you <BR>
just got off the train in one of these dorfs: a negro porter <BR>
standing in the black cold snow helps you down onto the <BR>
cinders, the train pulls out into railroadland, no one's <BR>
there, the station's been torn down, long slow freights <BR>
clank past towards Iowa, the fastfood restaurants are closing <BR>
for the night ~ and you know that in all these shopping- <BR>
mall farmer-frame-house rigid December Bored-Again Xtian <BR>
towns there must be boys with names like Jimmy &amp; Joey ~ <BR>
let's say one of them is almost eight, raggedy-kneed blue- <BR>
jeans &amp; an old slouch tweed cap, hair &amp; eyes both the same <BR>
soft Venetian brown, body svelte as a Caravaggio <BR>
urchin-cherub ~ and the other ten-&amp;-a-half, huge slightly <BR>
crazy green eyes, world record eyelashes, hair the color <BR>
of Lindisfarne-gospel goldleaf ~ wild enthusiasts, boastful <BR>
liars, agents of chaos, cuddle-monsters, extortionists of <BR>
toys &amp; favors, fancy-dancers, dirty jokesters, natural-born <BR>
exiles from the Mundus Imaginalis ~ right! there must be <BR>
millions like them in these frozen flatlands, millions of <BR>
secret epiphanies in thousands of icy boxy little houses at <BR>
every point of the night-whistle-echoing nation ~ but <BR>
imagine just this once instead of staying on the Wabash <BR>
Cannonball or whatever Zephyr you disembark just here &amp; now &amp; finally
<BR>
penetrate the mystery of these lost-town boys who might have waited <BR>
unknowingly forever for someone to notice their beauty, might have <BR>
grown old and heavy, square &amp; dull without ever communicating <BR>
their dirty-sweet fragrance &amp; sheer unreasoning joy to a <BR>
single poet ~ but this time you finally get off the train <BR>
in this godforsaken grain-embargoed cowburg ~ and thanks to <BR>
the whim of some nearly defunct amerindian pagan-pervert <BR>
genius locii this time at last you get to meet Jimmy &amp; a <BR>
Joey who are precisely as imagined, feed them cheeseburgers <BR>
&amp; pink shakes &amp; bribe them with action-figures &amp; gum, these
<BR>
two microcosms, these two fire-clowns ~ so that all of us <BR>
in a moment of mutual unspoken relief at this shattering of <BR>
worshipful destinies, all of us suddenly gracefully have to <BR>
embrace &amp; kiss, kiss chaste &amp; cool on the lips &amp; grin like
<BR>
bobcats for this fortunate derailment, this whistle-stop, <BR>
this milk-run, this hobo's muscatel-dream, this poetico- <BR>
revolutionary action that somehow forever changes the energy <BR>
gradient ~ however slightly, no matter what, no matter who <BR>
knows or even remembers, absolutely, unconditionally, <BR>
nostalgically, painfully, permanently.</B><BR>
</P>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<B>~ Hakim Bey </B></P>
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<CENTER><P><IMG SRC="colorbar.gif" HEIGHT=3 WIDTH=600></P></CENTER>
<P>from <B><I>NAMBLA JOURNAL SEVEN</I></B>, 1986. </P>
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<P><A HREF="select.htm"><IMG SRC="m0p7nau7.gif" BORDER=0 HEIGHT=58 WIDTH=58></A>Copyright
&copy; NAMBLA, 1997. All rights reserved.</P>
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