A special show to celebrate the San Francisco premiere of the award-winning film, Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton at the Castro Theater, Saturday, June 22, 4 p.m. James Broughton will be heard reading from his always delightful, always life-affirming work. Jack Foley writes, “To those who were, like me, lucky enough to know James Broughton personally, he offered the image of another sort of manhood—a mode of manhood very different from what our culture provided us with. He was a gay man, I was a straight man—yet we simply accepted each other and loved each other just as we were. He had his fears and anxieties—explored especially in the early work—but he kept the feeling of child-like wonder alive in his consciousness throughout his long life. He once wrote, ‘People don’t grow up. They just get taller.’ How do you describe the sun?”
OLD SCORPIO ON OAHU
Don’t worry about it.
If you are melting
that’s the way it goes.
Especially if you are
an ice water sign.
I love to wade
the warm sea
love to feel my feet
turn fluid.
If I dissolve neatly
what more is there to ask?
No longer at any
tiptop tiptoe
I can still
relish the extra
in the ordinary,
can still take hold
of the fire
with my watery hands.