For those of you who don't know already, I'd gotten myself a job at Astro Books, a seller of comics and books. Recently things have been a bit awkward, obviously, as new arrivals have not been arriving and as far as stock is concerned, what we have is what we have (and people seem more concerned with groceries than Captain America issue 10, as far as I know. But! It is a used book store, so we do get new things in from time to time. You know, until Madison's economy collapses entirely because everyone seems more concerned with vaccinating immortals and creating social inequality in place of, you know, protecting local businesses and daily life.
I'm waiting for the between-war-Germany-style inflation to strike, myself. Or are we skipping that and moving right on to Police State
Anyway, among the stakes of Dungeons & Dragons rule books and Essential Incredible Hulk Volume 1, I found a rather interesting book by Alan Moore called 'The Mirror of Love'. It seemed, to me, rather out of place wedged between mad scientists and elves so I took it down and gave it a read.... And -- it's a book of poems about positive and negative figures who have been historically important to literature or society and the position of homosexuality within it. I found them very inspiring, even though I was rather shocked to discover them in this place and from the same hand that brought us V for Vendetta and From Hell. None of the poems are titled, but at the back of the book it explains who they are written about -- Sappo, Shakespeare, Gertrude Stein...
And on page 46, accompanied by a picture of his lipstick stained tomb, is the poem written for my dear, dear Oscar. The molly-houses rattled in the wind.
The climate changed, as Oscar Wilde learned to his cost, too fond of working lads; of feasting with panthers.
His beloved's father, a marquis, denounces him as a sodomite.
Pressing for slander, recklessly, Wilde was exposed, condemned to Reading Gaol then exiled in disgrace
Page 54 holds one for Wilfred Owen.
The First World War, ironically, allowed new closeness: young men lived and died together in foreign mud.
There, Wilfred Owen gave his love a sonnet and disk of identity, bidding his heartbeat kiss it, night and day, until the name grew blurred, fading away...
[OOC: I'm basing the bookstore on LIBRAIRIE ASTRO, my local comic/fantasy/sci-fi book store. Because it's easy. It's pretty cute and I've always been fond of it, so there you go]