[Robert Urbanek]

Truman Capote in 1959

paris hotel

rising stars
in paris hotel
nineteen fifty-nine
leslie caron
at front desk
truman capote
in lobby

he asks me
to his room
in bed I allow
him to hug me
on walk I say
he is friend
even my analyst

return alone
to hotel
caron trips and falls
into my arms
i’m too old for this

dream dictionary
says truman is me
my own best
friend and counselor

but maybe dream
is less about me
and more about me
telling you
there are gays
in heaven
the movie set
of our dreams

[froggo]

In 1959 Capote was 35.
and you, Robert Urbanek, being 70 now (according to your profile), means that in 1959 you would have been 8 years old when you lay with Truman at the Paris Hotel.
If these accusations are true, then Truman would not be the first homosexual poet who has "taken a bite of the goblin fruit"
There was Paul Valery courting the young Rimbaud, Ginsberg purchasing teenage male hustlers in his starlight years, Pasolini falling madly for some of his teen male actors.
But I never pictured Truman as the type; he prefered a robust older male, a colleague, a top.

[Potemkin]

In 1959 Capote was 35.
and you, Robert Urbanek, being 70 now (according to your profile), means that in 1959 you would have been 8 years old when you lay with Truman at the Paris Hotel.
If these accusations are true, then Truman would not be the first homosexual poet who has "taken a bite of the goblin fruit"
There was Paul Valery courting the young Rimbaud, Ginsberg purchasing teenage male hustlers in his starlight years, Pasolini falling madly for some of his teen male actors.
But I never pictured Truman as the type; he prefered a robust older male, a colleague, a top.

Actually, it was Paul Verlaine who seduced the 15 year old louse-ridden Rimbaud. He thought Rimbaud was 17 at the time (he had lied about his age in his letter introducing himself to Verlaine, in the hope of being taken more seriously). In later life, Rimbaud never forgave Verlaine for leading him astray.

[froggo]

whoops thanks potemkin, i got my french Paul V. poets mixed up!
Yeah, when Rimbaud hated him Verlaine could take the anguish no longer and there was some kind of kerfuffle involving a gun--- Verlaine's poetic circle so disgusted Rimbaud that he vowed to never write another word again and took off to the deserts to become an arms-dealer, you'd think being shot at would make Rimbaud anti-gun, but, as is sometimes the case with individuals who were taken advantage of in their youth, they harbour a grudge against the innocent and wish them to suffer as they had suffered.

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Since he got mentioned, and since this is a poetry thread I will post one of Paul Valery's poems as the fates decree;

En vérité, une feuille blanche
Nous déclare par le vide
Qu’il n’est rien de si beau
Que ce qui n’existe pas.

Sur le miroir magique de sa blanche étendue,
L’âme voit devant elle le lieu des miracles
Que l’on ferait naître avec des signes et des lignes.
Cette présence d’absence surexcite
Et paralyse à la fois l’acte sans retour de la plume.
Il y a dans toute beauté une interdiction de toucher,
Il en émane je ne sais quoi de sacré
Qui suspend le geste, et fait l’homme
Sur le point d’agir se craindre soi-même.

In English

In truth, a blank sheet
Declares by the void
That there is nothing as beautiful
As that which does not exist.

On the magic mirror of its white space,
The soul sees before her the place of the miracles
That we would bring to life with signs and lines.
This presence of absence over-excites
And at the same time paralyses the definitive act of the pen.
There is in all beauty a forbiddance to touch,
From which emanates I don’t know what of sacred
That stops the movement and puts the man
On the point of acting in fear of himself.