"Smuggled Love" a poem by Jess Coffman

Our toes sunk in the sand,

As sailboats drifted on the sea.

Paint dripped from my hand,

Admiring you carefully.

But I couldn't hold your hand in peace,

Without whispers hot with hate,

So I paint the insides of our hearts 

With the colors we create.

            Honorable love in hiding,

            A love distinctive from the others.

With the passion of artists, 

And the loyalty of brothers.

           

            With you my life makes sense.

            Each day it's you, I choose.

            With an absolute devotion,

            That I will never lose.

It has all been worth the struggle,

The most painful and beautiful test,

Though I wish I never would have smuggled.

Our life and love past the rest.            

           

I’ll paint you each day before I die,

I’ll ache to love you tenderly.

and in Heaven, I'll ask God why,

He created homosexuality.

JESS COFFMAN

 I woke up at 4 am this morning with no idea of why I had woken up, and decided it was time to post a new poem! 

I actually wrote the first draft of this poem originally in a lyric writing class that I took at UCLA, taught by the hilarious and talented, Mr. Marty Panzer. He is Barry Manilow's life long writing partner. One of my favorite things about that class were his wild stories, and the fact that he would buy us pizza every week. I actually think that that was when I fell in love with sausage on my pizza. 

One of the other wonderful things that I loved about his class, was the fact that his life-long partner Greg, would come to class too. Greg was pretty quiet, but every once in a while he add in a little quip to one of the stories and we all loved it. I remember Marty reading us a set of lyrics that he wrote, with the title, "I'll love you back to life," and I had to imagine it was inspired by their relationship, which I found to be beautiful. 

Isn't that an amazing lyric? I would be so relieved, overwhelmed and grateful to hear someone say that they would "love me back to life." That seems like a lot of effort, that this impatient world just doesn't have time for.

So this song was actually an assignment that we had been given. Unfortunately I don't remember the names of the two men that we studied, but Marty gave us some reading material about a couple who was gay and a bit oddly matched due to their rather large age gap. The older man was a painter who painted countless works of his partner even up until death. 

I know for some of you this poem may make you feel uncomfortable, due to my liberal social views. But almost always seeing how the other half lives or thinks causes us to grow. I felt that way recently, when  my Dad took me to a gun range to learn how to shoot. I was pretty terrified, but I was quickly calmed by the prevailing sense of humility and reverence for the danger of the sport. Safety was first, there was no fucking around. Much to my surprise, I ended up shooting 3 different rifles that my Dad had brought that day. Though it was definitely a weird way for me to spend a Sunday afternoon, I ended up actually enjoying it and was pretty good at it. I also realized that an unloaded gun is just a piece of metal, but in the hands of the wrong person, it is extremely powerful and destructive. Did the experience completely change my political views? No. But it did give me a greater sense of understanding about the way that the people on the other side of the fence lives, and I was grateful for that. 

All the best,

Jess