This is the poem which should have been on the back page of this issue of Socialist Challenge. However, as you can see from the blank space, it was not printed. Our printers decided and the management concurred that they would not print the poem in question. that other labour movement papers will do the same.
We are therefore distributing it as an insert in the paper.
AS WE GO TO PRESS; Judge King-Hamilton has sentenced Denis Lemon to nine months suspended and fined Gay News £1000. We print the poem for which Denis was found guilty below. We reprint it as part of the fight for freedom of expression and the press, and civil liberties. We bope As they took him from the cross 1, the centurion, took him in my arms the tough, lean body of a man no longer young.
beardless, breathless, hut well hung.
He was still warm.
While they prepared the tomb 1 kept guard over him.
His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. 1 was alone with him.
For the last time I kissed his mouth. My tongue found his, bitter with death. flicked his wounds the blood was harsh.
For the last time I laid my lips around the tip of thal great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy.
The shaft still throbbed, anointed with death's final ejaculation.
I knew he'd had it off with other men with Herod's guards, with Pontius Pilate, with John the Baptist, with Paul of Tarsus, with foxy Judas, a great kisser, with the rest of the Twelve, together and apart.
So now I took off my uniform, and, naked, lay together with him in his desolation, caressing every shadow of his cooling flesh, Slowly the fire in his thighs went out, while 1 grew hotter with unearthly love.
his dear, broken body all open wounds, and in cach wound his side, his back, his mouth I came and came and came as if each coming was my last.
And then the miracle possetsed us. 1 felt him enter into me, and fiercely spend his spirit's final seed within my hole, my soul. pulse upon pui, unto the ends of carth the crucific me with him into kingdom come.
Same sex lovery suffer, patiently and gladly.
une upon the other, till they die of lust and pain They know what we had done, but felt no shame or anger. Rather they were glad for us, and blessed us, as would he, who loved all men. And after three long lonely days, like years, in which 1 roamed the gardens of my grief all others. And took me to him with He loved all men, body, soul and spirit. even me.
hugging him and trying to warm him back to life.
It was the only way 1 knew to speak our love's proud name. to tell him of my long devotion, my desire, my dread something we had never talked about. My spear, wet with blood, They is the passionate and blisstul crucilixion They intlit these loving injuries of joy and grace within the horny paradise of one another's limin, with one voice cry to heaven in a last divine release. Then lie long Ingether, peacefully entwined, with hope of resurrection, as we did, on that green bill far away. But before we rose again, they came and took him from me.
secking for him, my one friend who had gone from me, he rose from sleep, at dawn, and showed himself to me before the love that now forever dares to speak its name.
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nted and published by Relgocrest Ltd., 328/9 Upper St., London N1 14 July 1977