DAWN (1973)

The sun streaks slowly around a mountain top,
Blinding off the snow and ice.
Night crawls behind blades of grass and behind the trees
Ending as merely shadows.
A chorus of birds accompanies the sound
Of wind blowing snow not yet frozen into an icy crust.
Deer awaken and push their pointed hooves
Through the crusted snow
On their way to drink water
From the noisy stream.
The Symphony of sounds
Blends together
Into a
THUNDERING CRESCENDO
TELLING THE WORLD

IT'S MORNING!!

THE TIDE (2/8/73)

See them rolling with the tide,
Powerless to stem their ever increasing slide.
Crashing, turning, smashing against the stones.
What a pity that man is made of bones.

His power lost against the massive push
Of others pushing toward the rocks,
He falls against the stones,
Crushed by the massive human tide.
The Tide retreats and he lays broken,
Gasping on the sand.

The tide returns and crushes him again.
Retreats, returns, retreats, returns
Til nothing now is left.
He has become one with the tide.
His oneness is no more.
He now joins that massive force
Pushing others to the shores.

But, what of those still wrestling with the sea?
What hope is there for them?
And what is left for me?
To meet the sea head on,
The power overwhelms,
And we die amidst the waves alone.

But there are islands in the sea
Where a man can go ashore.
Coves and inlets await him there
Peaceful--resting--still.

He need not meet the sea head-on,
But, slip into one of these.
With strength regained and protected from the sea,
One is one and two are three,
A new form of human unity.

The peaceful calm
The quiet of night,
Guided by a ray of light,
To each his own impossibility,
For me to be me
And you to be you.
I love your possibility!

The coves in which we hide
Are simply beds in which we lay,
Taking rest, regaining strength
To conquer and overtake the tide.
But, together in that bed must we lay.
For loneliness produced that massive tide.
The coves of your body,
And the inlets of your mind;
In these are found the refuge that we seek.

Let me rest beside your body
And take refuge in your mind,
Til I am you and you are I.
But, we both know who is who.
Then, with others we have joined,
Let us walk together and gently calm the sea.

Community is What We Stand For (RCJ August 30th 2003)

After reading Robert Regier's article in Saturday's Forum (Aug. 16th), my first reaction was to refute his accusations point by point. But, I'm not going to do that. We have already done it many times and he just keeps bringing up the same old discredited garbage.

He talks about all the studies proving how horrible homosexuals are. Yet, he's never cited one. The likes of Mr. Regier have their minds made up and aren't interested in intelligent discussion. They are a political group and as such they are about "spin and distortion" not about the search for truth.

His attempts to define me are ridiculous because he doesn't know me. His attempts to define the Black Hills Gay & Lesbian Youth Support and Resource Center are equally ridiculous because he knows nothing of our mission or purpose. It has nothing to do with us.

The reality is that it is about Mr. Regier and his political ambitions. He has to define everything in terms that are most advantageous to him. Unfortunately, ignorance, hate, prejudice and hostility are the things which serve his divisive and polarizing agenda best.

If anyone wishes to have an intelligent discussion about the issues, we are fully prepared and capable of doing just that. We don't need Mr. Regier's permission or approval for the mission we have undertaken. The problems and concerns we are addressing demand attention and we are dedicated to giving them the attention they warrant.

We are a group of local citizens who have come together because of our concern for the safety and welfare of a bunch of kids, their families and this community.

Our foundation consists of people from all walks of life. We have both gay and straight members on our board of directors. We have both gay and straight parents involved. One of our primary goals is to save and strengthen families by helping parents to understand and come to terms with their gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender children. There are too many kids on the streets being exploited by predators because parents have disowned and kicked them out of the house.

We are dedicated to bridging the gap of understanding while Mr. Regier and his so-called Family Policy Council are into exploiting it for personal and political gain. It is the youth and their families that are suffering because of it.

In June 1972 Jeanne Manford walked beside her son in the New York City Gay Pride Parade. She carried a sign which read; "I love my gay son." At that moment PFLAG was born. PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) personifies what we are all about. We are about people caring for and loving one another, no matter who they are or the way God created them. We are about parents loving their children and children loving their parents. PFLAG of Western South Dakota is now a reality.

I might add that one of the proudest moments of my life was walking in the first Black Hills Pride Festival with my mother at my side. There was another presence with us that day. We all felt it and commented on it. It is that same presence which continues to guide us in our mission. We are doing what is right! We are doing it in the cloak of His Love! It is a cloak of many colors.

We are also about helping our schools to become a safer, more nurturing place for all our students. We have programs and information available to help deal with bullying and harassment. While our focus is on creating a more nurturing environment for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, these programs help all students.

Our primary focus is the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students themselves. Our mission is to provide them with a safe, nurturing environment. We want to help them become positive, progressive participants in our community. WE want to help them avoid the pitfalls of of drug and alcohol abuse, deppresion and suicide. Every child has the right to feel good about themselves and how they were created. Positive self image and self-esteem are the best barriers to self-destructive behavior. If you want to empower youth to be the best they can be, then let them know that they are loved, cared for and respected for who they are.

Mr. Regier's closing statement is frightening! If "tolerance is downright evil," what does he have in mind for intolerance? And what is he going to do about me? he talks about loving homosexuals. So why do I feel threatened and intimidated?

If that is his concept of love, then I do feel sorry for him. That has no similarity to the love that I've found in the Gospels or the Love that God has placed in my heart.

We are about helping build a community where everyone can belong, contribute and feel good about who they are. We are about the freedom to believe and live according to the dictates or one's conscience. We are about respecting and celebrating one another, not in spite of our differences, but because of them.

We are about loving God because he cared enough to make each one of us different. Is our community big enough to honor, respect, love and celebrate those differences?

That is what we stand for and what we are about. What do Mr. Regier and the Family Policy Council stand for? What kind of a community do they want and advocate?

Unrepentant Judgementalists, Rapid City Journal, July 31, 2005

Recent letters claim heterosexuals don't announce their orientation. Heterosexuals announce it every moment because it's part of their identity. Just as being homosexual is my identity. It's who I am!

They claim homosexuals wouldn't have problems if they remained silent. Been there! Done that! For too long we've been bullied and intimidated into silence by dogmatic and "unrepentant judgementalists." That silence has allowed these bullies to define, stereotype and diminish our existence based on ignorance, fear, prejudice and hate. They would reduce us to projections of their vile imaginations.

Silence steals our individuality, self respect and dignity. It denies our human reality.

We won't be defined by those for whom reality is relative to selective beliefs flowing from fear, hatred and exploitation. And which faith is subservient to personal, political and economic ambitions utilizing the "bearing of false witness" toward other people.

Religious freedom demands everyone live their lives according to their own beliefs and respect other's right to do the same.

The God of Love doesn't deny the reality He created. I'm real. I love. I exalt in being part of His Love. I'll not remain silent before the sacrilege of "unrepentant judgmentalists" who diminish or condemn that love.

MICHAEL COATS, Rapid City

Travelin' (Feb. 1974)

I've traveled this country over
From its mountains to its plains.
As I've spent my life getting older,
There aren't too many places that I haven't been.

I've seen the exploding misty sun
Break the chill of a frosty autumn night in Maine.
I've felt the shimmering waters of California
Engulf the sun and send the moon to do its dance again.

I've helped a newborn calf escape through blood and pain
To set its wobbly legs on firm and fertile ground.
And I've put them back to ground again
When legs no longer dance and bound.

I've lived and loved with people too,
Worn and weary with History in their faces.
The love, the hate, the fears they chew,
When visiting them in their private spaces.

I've seen men in fields with plows and rakes and hoes.
They love the earth; its wind and rain and dirt.
The earth in turn sustains them full
With food and drink and love and shirt.

I've seen men too would rape the land
By choking it with concrete, gas and soot.
They would have the joyous fruits of nature's hand
Waiting on them hand and foot.

I've seen winter's shiny fields of black,
Hued by green in early spring,
Change to oceans of waving gold
With the harvest it will bring.

I've seen men's minds, once in harmony,
Overpowered and controlled by different shades of green and black.
I've seen the cold and hostile arm of nature
Reach out and bring them painful, screaming, dying, back.

I've seen men love.
I've seen men hate.
I've seen men and nature toil and struggle
To build, to grow, to live and create.

I love this land of lofty peaks and rolling prairies,
Gentle streams and cold, clear lakes.
I love its people too.
It's their civilization that I hate.

With the caress of wind throughout my hair,
Let me have intercourse with thee.
I create not other
Than when nature puts the tools in front of me.

Let me touch your mountains
And make love to your fields.
Let me share my seed with others.
Of you I live and in you my spirit shall yet yield!

After Sixty Years Or So Will We Know? (March 1973)

Born into a world of confusion,
And breastfed with a life of illusion,
Their morals and mores on our brains they bestow
The seeds of disenchantment and delusion.
After sixty years or so will we know?

Life's patterns are well formed by age six.
Santa Claus and Easter Bunnies
And Jesus on His crucifix;
Fantasy and fact, they're both real they do crow.
Which ones are real and which are the funnies?
After sixty years or so will we know?

Puberty comes 'fore we're able to see
What life's all about. It's been hidden since three.
Be ashamed of your bodies and its parts never show.
With bodies well hidden and minds trapped inside,
You're prepared for a journey on a two-faced-up-hill-slide.
After sixty years or so will we know?

When old age has found us
And bodies can't score,
The minds never were and the bodie's no more,
We're groppin' and stumblin' for something not found.
It was left at age three to run up aground.
Free your minds and your bodies and then it will show.
After sixty years or so we will know.

Give body its freedom and also the mind.
Don't allow either to get lost behind.
Be proud of your body. Mix it with mind.
They both give us pleasure and together they climb
To that point in nirvana where all is in mind.
The memories of passions and love allowed freely to flow,
Together in union, Our love it will glow.
Then after sixty years or so we will know
That life moves beyond us, but we've helped it to grow.

You must be a man
And get it while you can.
A man must be strong
or he can not belong
To a race of beautiful bodies
Who've ravaged the lives of all tender young lotties.
With minds that are worthless, They're just there for show,
After sixty years or so will we know?

Will we know that manhood is gentle and loving and kind?
And there has to be something more to his mind
Than plotting his conquests and plunders and rapes of his kind.
If minds blend together, communications not blow,
Mayber after sixty years or so we will know!

Gay community your family

Rapid City Journal; June 21st, 2003; Pride Fest 2003

I know there are going to be people reading this who say: "Gay Pride? You've got to be kidding." So let me start by saying that there is a lot of pride within the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community here in the BlackHills. I might add that it is not a small community. There are a lot of us here and there always has been.

We are not a group of militant radicals. We are your friends and your neighbors. We own businesses. We are your employees. We serve the community in many capacities. We shop in the stores, eat in the restaurants and attend your schools and sit next to you in church. We are an important part of your community. We are your community.

Many, like myself, grew up here in South Dakota, but moved to other parts of the country where we could be free to be who we are. But, like myself, most of us dreamed of being able to move home and be able to just be ourselves. "To be free to be me."

While none of us chose to be homosexual, we did choose to live a decent, honest, hard-working life. We are as diverse and unique as this country. We are Americans, and we are South Dakotans. We are proud of our contributions to both.

There are those who consider us to be anti-family. We are not anti-family. We are your families. We are your sons and your daughters. We are your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles. And in many cases your mothers and fathers.

We love our families even when our families sometimes find it difficult to love us because of all the misinformation being spread about who we are and what we want.

We are here! We are proud! And we love you!

As I stated, most of us grew up around here. We know the struggle involved in trying to come to terms with who we are in this environment. We know the problems gay, lesbian, bisexual and trangender youth face everyday in this community. That is why many of us have united to say: "Enough is enough."

It is with pride that we honor the courage shown by gay, lesbian, bisexual and trangender youth in being themselves despite the harassment, discrimination and bigotry that confronts them everyday. It is with that same pride that we honor the courage and unconditional love shown by parents and families fortheir gay lesbian, bisexual and trangender sons and daughters.

It is out of that pride that we have formed the Black Hills Area G.L.B.T. Youth Support and Resource Center. We are a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing support and resources for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, their families, teachers and anyone who works with them.

We currently sponsorGay RALLY (Respect ALL Youth). It is a support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth, ages up to 24. Its mission is to provide a safe, non-threatening, alcohol and drug free, predator-free environment for these young people to come to terms with themselves and their environment. Our goal is to help them become whole, integrated, emotionally healthy, progressive, positive participants in their community.

We are also laying the groundwork to organize a support group for parents and families of GLBT youth. To provide them with the support, resources and assistance they need to help and understand their sons and daughters.

As I watch these young people, against all odds, carry themselves with dignity and self-assurance, I know what pride is! I also know that it is courage of the highest order.

The Forest for the Trees (1974)

Each man must live life the way he sees.
Some see forests, others trees.
In my past down many paths I've wandered.
Life goes quick and shouldn't be squandered.

One looks at forests and sees the whole.
For what is life without a goal?
One looks at trees. Man, there's the gem.
The whole, and more, from all of them.

Down each path were many trees.
My life did grow as friends were these.
Thank you fate for many strong and sturdy trees,
When I was down and on my knees.

I've lived with hate and with love.
I'll fight the hawk and caress the dove.
Some men's lives are best at wander,
To live with all and then to ponder.

To live, to learn, to grow, to think,
From this path I can not shrink.
The rings of trees are growth marks of the soul.
Each year the scar adds knowledge to my whole.

Comin' From the Country (1973)

Comin from the country everything's so new.
The buildings are tall and the sky's not quite as blue.
Comin from the country do I seem new to you?
You all talk strangely here.
Do I talk different too?

Comin' from the country
It's all I've ever known.
I've loved the grass on bare feet
And watching a small green haze
Take over after the seed was sown.

If I were from a city,
Maybe I wouldn't miss the sound
Of birds or the blade of grass.
But comin' from the country
That's the content of my soul.
The golden haze of dawn
And the fire sky at night
Mean more to me than coal gray skies
And air that ain't quite right.

The people here seem different too.
Callous from the bumps and hurts of livin' in this stew.
It teems with life, but all seems dead.
Has livin' left you too?

A horse, a cow, a moonlit night,
A dog, a cat, the midnight rat;
Each has his place; some in darkness, some in light.

But the flea bitten pigeon still looks for a home.
The symbol of a city, lost and alone.

Comin' from the country
It all seems so strange.
But, if I were comin' from a city,
Would it all rearrange?

Hell is where you're at.
Heaven's where you've been.
Nirvana's somewhere up ahead.
And Livin's somewhere in between!

Ode to Christmas (1972)

Christmas time is here again.
It's hard to tell today
Just when it did begin.
It's time for joy and cheer,
And for friends to share a beer.
For love is what it's all about.
It's time to laugh and sing and shout.

But something's gone from Christmas
When you're forced to be away
Defending honor of cold and brass.
When was it love was to have its day?
Herod slew babes to protect his throne.
We slay all just to keep the dollar prone.

The babe was safe layin' in the manger.
Herod not yet had the bomb.
So the kid was free from danger.
Christmas past, present and to come
The joke keeps getting stranger.

I remember Christmas as a kid
When long before the Christmas sun had shone,
The tree of all its booty had been rid.
The tree stood naked, bare and all alone.

Having done its job so well,
It now is left alone to die
Amidst the cornerstones of hell,
As in a dung heap it does lie.

But that's not what comes to mind
When I think of what was left behind.
Those gifts were cheap
But what they did represent
Was something I could not help but keep.

The Dakota morn was crisp and cold.
But, inside, all were warm.
'Cause all knew that Santa Claus
Had brought a gift of love
From a warm and human soul.

Christmas may be different here,
'Cause I'm alone and gone
From those I've held so dear.
But, of one thing I am sure.
I learned what Christmas really was
On those cold Dakota morns.
When the walls of human hearts
Kept me from the cold.

The winds they have grown colder
Than the ones I knew back then.
And others have joined the wall.
And together we get bolder

What we learned yesterday
Is what we are today.
And, what we learn today
Is what we'll be on Christmases to come.
Thank you for giving me
Those cold Dakota morns.
The tree, the wall and I,
We need never be alone!

The Winds of Change (1973)

The Winds of change blow freely
Against the stony crags of tireless resistance.
The crags change slowly, almost unnoticed.
But change they do, and change they must.

What gallant battles these rocks do wage.
They must fight with all their might
For when they change, they are no more.
Fight for your existance you giant boulders
Who keep all within enslaved throughtout the centuries.

The savage winds of freedom
Blow where ere they please.
Aided by the cleansing rains
They wear away the granite faces
Reducing them to sand.

And sand, once freed, travels with the wind
And floats freely with the tides.
Its freedom gained
It moves awhile
Then finally settles down.

But its freedom had its price
As smaller it becomes.
It gathers to it death
and the foul remains of what used to live.
Worms and insects find prey here
leaving foul and smelly excrement.

Then all join hands;
The wind, the rain,
The sand and death.
Each is lonely. Each is free.
Together, joined by common bonds of productivity,
Life springs forth; green and red and blue and orange.

From death comes life.
And life feeds off death.
What lives dies too.
And more life springs from it.

A vicious circle? No!
But a never ending circle of change.
Each new link in the chain
Ends the identity of the old.

But new cannot exist
Without the foundation of the old.
And the winds of change blow freely
Against the stony crags of tireless resistance.