In the fifties in the USA
It was sad, but at the time
It was a rock solid fact;
Flamboyance was a crime.
I had to wear a coat and tie
The uniform of every day
Behaving quite the normal guy
In every conceivable way.

To be a good Samaritan
And genuflect at the altar,
Wear the collar of a puritan,
And not shame your father
By being some kind of fool
Who goes against the will
Of a society that longs for
A conformity inducing pill.

I gazed longingly at clothes
Of fashionable panderers
With the color matching garb
That triggered the slanderers.
But more than their profession
I saw their ability to strut,
The fit, the material display,
The magnificence of the cut.

And I had trouble being
That kind of person they craved.
To me it was a boring ride
From birth, right to the grave.
I could not understand those
Who felt life was not for living.
What good were the gifts I saw
If I refused their very giving?

Not for me, even when young
To spend my time mud crawling.
I would rather spend my efforts
In verbal social brawling.
I rejected insulting phrases that
Proper people so often employ
And chose instead the descriptive
And openly proud ‘gay *******’.

I refused to let the common man
Who was afraid of his own crotch
Insist I be mute while he insisted
That I should stand and watch.
No, I would be who I was then
And reject their false packet
Of wearing the coat of social balm
Which I called The Straight Jacket.