GLR May-June 2024

lesions on his leg. His HIV status was confirmed upon return ing home. Using his celebrity as a bully pulpit, he publicly an nounced that he was living with AIDS in Rolling Stone a year later: “In a way it’s really liberating. … Part of the reason that I’m not having trouble facing the reality of death is that it’s not a limitation. … Everything I’m doing right now is exactly what I want to do.” Rather than slowing down after his diagnosis, Haring ramped up his art-making and political activities. In his jour nals, he described his life as “working obsessively and con stantly every day. … the only time I am happy is when I am working.” To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in a 1989 exhibition at New York’s Lesbian and Gay Community Center, Haring painted the men’s bath room on the second floor with his “Once Upon A Time” mural, which celebrates the pre-AIDS world of unbridled gay male sexuality. Haring died in 1990 at the age of 31. His memorial service at St. John the Divine Cathedral in Manhattan was attended by “more than a thousand invited guests.” Kenny Scharf and Ann Magnuson were among the less reverent at the ceremony, jok ing that “Keith would be really bored right now,” as they recre ated some “ shtick and act” from Haring’s Club 57 days. In his endnote, Gooch succinctly articulates the transcendent power of Haring’s example and work: “ In our own era of engagement by so many artists with any available surface; with personal icons and licensing; with activism, collaboration, communica tion; and with the fostering of community, Keith seems more than ever one of us.”

cover of Dave . My point being, as always, rawness, nakedness, intimacy, and un abashèd truth. T HE W IFE OF L OT Were God to take me by the hand to my bed reserved, the Promised Land, would he find me, wistful, gazing back, toward smoking hills and ocean black, Mournful of this world gone sour, longing in that sacred hour for one last breath of clover sweet, the voice of sorrow, wrath, allure, temptation like a treasured wine which seeps from grapes yet on the vine; I think, all things considered be, the Lord might have to pardon me, that whilst that final second tolls and angels harvest all good souls, That I, as hearts are laid to waste, may linger for one final taste. Trebor Healey is the author of Falling and A Horse Called Sorrow , among other books of fiction. a deft embrace, a swollen teat, The eyes of lovers, insecure,

I find that reading bad writing fucks up my own scribbles. The same way that reading Dickinson will keep me from writ ing free verse for a week. It’s like having a Blondie song stuck in your craw. I pick my writers much more carefully than I ever have my lovers. But then, a good novel lasts forever... TH: So you’ve returned to the hills of North Carolina where you grew up. Many poets do that as they get older, and it seems a poetic homecoming. How is that going for you? GGD: I’m a natural for Appalachia. Of course, Asheville is a hip and happening town, with terrific food, mysticism, and whatever you need. I didn’t venture too far out as I didn’t want to live amid neighbors with guns and bibles. Now I find I really don’t want to be around people with guns and bibles, so I’m looking still further out in the hills. The world is batshit crazy, but there’s an inescapable logic and exquisite, sexy, and profound simplicity (and sanity) one finds in folk who grow their own food and chop their own wood. Also, #1 on my bucket list is to hug a Sasquatch. I’ve hugged an ET (that’s another story), but I have a thing for wookies—I want to meet a real one!

Actually, I’d really like to die in a coun try where English is not the first language. But getting my life, in its entirety, and six cats to such a place isn’t easy—none the better for wars and plagues. So, we shall see. I find that I’ve always ended up where I’m supposed to be. But let’s not wax philo sophical or we’ll cause eyes to roll. Let’s just say that I’m always awaiting my next orders. TH: Tell me about Dave , the most recent volume (due June 21st), and this fabulous new edition of Notes from a Marriage . GGD: Ah. Dave was the eternal lover paradox. The angel on my shoulder, the devil-in-the-blue-dress. We couldn’t live with each other, we couldn’t live without each other. Circumstances eventually pulled us apart; my big regret is that I was n’t with him at the end—though I believe he ended up back with his family in Florida. I do remember assisting him on a job and administering an IV antibiotic dur ing lunch ... That said, he deserved his own book, since I shot him all the time. His life was a perpetual pose. I love the form of these two books—small, hard-bound, coffee-table editions. Simple, pretty and elegant. And they show dick unabashedly—even on the

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May–June 2024