Out at Home
Jackie Robinson is exalted
as the first Black man to play,
but far fewer fans remember Glenn Burke,
the first ballplayer openly gay.
Like Jackie, he played for the Dodgers-
(different coast and a different time.)
Glenn came up to the Majors
In the summer of 79'
Burke was strong and tall and fast
And some teammates called him " King Kong"
Though he roomed with Reggie Smith on the road
most nights Reggie Smith slept alone.
Burke befriended Young Tommy Lasorda
which was why he was traded away.
Old Lasorda couldn't deal with the rumors,
Nor acknowledge his own son was gay.
Glenn Burke rode the pines while in Oakland
Billy Martin never gave him much chance
When Burke injured his leg in Spring Training
That ended his time at the dance.
He drifted, his playing days over,
He used, he stole and did time.
An accident left him a cripple
Unprotected sex ended his line.
No shock was the A.I.D.s diagnosis-
His sister had long known he was gay.
When she took him in he was dying
when all others turned him away.
Sandy Alderson, with the Athletics,
took pity on Burke in despair.
The team paid for his A.I.D.S. medication
and covered the cost of his care.
Sad is the fate of the Athlete unsung,
dying apart from his team.
Glenn Burke showed that a gay man could play,
That a Gay Athlete also can dream.
Glenn Burke passed a long time ago
But his story deserves to be told.
He said when your suffering, dying of A.I.D.S.
Even days in the summer are cold.
poem by John F. McCullagh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Two people have been really liberating in my mind; one is Wittgenstein and the other is Burke. I read Burke before he was a secular saint, before everyone was reading him.
quote by Clifford Geertz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Poetry Course
I was stumbling through the college grounds
On a day, eight months ago,
It was wintertime, in a fading light
And the ground was covered with snow,
I was there for a course of literature
Set up by Professor Burke,
They said that he had all the answers, then,
To the Poets, and all of their work!
I'd never read too much poetry
What I had went over my head,
I thought there was too much imagery
To understand what they said,
The class was small, I sat by the wall
And tried to avoid his frown,
Whenever he asked a question
I was afraid that he'd put me down.
I didn't know anyone else in there
I was feeling bereft, alone,
But one of the students that sat by me
Had a face that was set in stone,
He was shrunk right down in his overcoat,
And he sat there, stroking his mo,
So after the class, I followed him
And he gave me a brief: ‘Hello! '
I can't ever say that we were chums,
He was far too quiet for that,
We'd wander together, lost in thought
And I was the one to chat,
He'd answer me with a short ‘Hurrumph',
Occasionally answer: ‘Hah! '
And often he'd sound almost profound
With a short and considered: ‘Bah! '
The only time that he came to life
Was when Burke was discussing Rhyme,
Burke curled his lip at the thought of it,
And said: ‘It's a waste of time! '
My friend sank down in his overcoat
And he gave out a funny sigh,
With Burke extolling the free-form art
Of the moderns, and told us why.
He tore up Coleridge: ‘Christabel,
Is just an unfinished dream,
And Wordsworth, him and his leeches - Well!
It seems to me quite obscene! '
He massacred Noyes and his ‘Highwayman',
And Kipling he threw in the bin;
‘‘The Raven' is boring, it's much too long
And the rest of his stuff, just spin! '
Exams were held on a frosty night
With a hell of a fog outside,
My friend was down and dispirited,
But he wrote with a quiet pride,
The final question on rhyme was set
On ‘The Raven' - give a critique! '
I think he would still have been writing there
If we'd had ‘til the end of the week!
The marks came back in a day or two,
I'd scrambled through with a pass,
My friend walked off on his own that night
His shoulders were hunched at the last,
I never ran into him after that,
He'd said, ‘I'd better just go! '
The marks for ‘The Raven' had let him down,
They'd flunked Edgar Allan Poe!
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I don't want to say, 'This is where Im going to be in five years and Im going to get there no matter what.' I want to leave it open. I'm not a desperate actress dying to star in a B movie in a bikini.
quote by Brooke Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Death At Ones Elbow
Oh glenn
Dont come to the house tonight
Oh glenn
Oh glenn
Dont come to the house tonight
Oh glenn
Because theres somebody here
Who really really loves you
Oh glenn
Stay home
Be bored
(its crap, I know)
Tonight
Oh glenn
Oh glenn
Dont come to the house tonight
Oh glenn
Oh glenn
Dont come to the house tonight
Because theres somebody here
Wholl take a hatchet to your ear
The frustration it renders me
Hateful, oh ...
Oh, dont come to the house tonight
Oh, dont come to the house tonight
Because youll slip on the
Trail of all my sad remains
Thats why, thats why
Goodbye my love, goodbye my love
Goodbye my love, goodbye my love
Goodbye my love, goodbye my love
Belch
song performed by by Smiths
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Safe
Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, Chris Sarandon, Anson Mount, Reggie Lee, James Hong, Robert John Burke, Oksana Lada, Danny Hoch
by Boaz Yakin from Safe (2012)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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One time we did have 300 acres in watermelons. That was fun.
quote by Delta Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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And we live in a French Quarter a lot of the time, in New Orleans. And the camaraderie of everybody there. Everybody takes care of each other.
quote by Delta Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Seven Sages
The First. My great-grandfather spoke to Edmund Burke
In Grattan's house.
The Second. My great-grandfather shared
A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once.
The Third. My great-grandfather's father talked of music,
Drank tar-water with the Bishop of Cloyne.
The Fourth. But mine saw Stella once.
The Fifth. Whence came our thought?
The Sixth. From four great minds that hated Whiggery.
The Fifth. Burke was a Whig.
The Sixth. Whether they knew or not,
Goldsmith and Burke, Swift and the Bishop of Cloyne
All hated Whiggery; but what is Whiggery?
A levelling, rancorous, rational sort of mind
That never looked out of the eye of a saint
Or out of drunkard's eye.
The Seventh. All's Whiggery now,
But we old men are massed against the world.
The First. American colonies, Ireland, France and India
Harried, and Burke's great melody against it.
The Second. Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen,
Roads full of beggars, cattle in the fields,
But never saw the trefoil stained with blood,
The avenging leaf those fields raised up against it.
The Fourth. The tomb of Swift wears it away.
The Third. A voice
Soft as the rustle of a reed from Cloyne
That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap.
The Sixtb. What schooling had these four?
The Seventh. They walked the roads
Mimicking what they heard, as children mimic;
They understood that wisdom comes of beggary.
poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.
quote by Edmund Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
quote by Edmund Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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That was my choice at that time, and I still say Nixon was a great president. A very beautiful and wise man.
quote by Solomon Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
quote by Edmund Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Falsehood is a perennial spring.
quote by Edmund Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.
quote by Solomon Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.
quote by Solomon Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.
quote by Michael Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You're supposed to remember, and still forgive.
quote by Delta Burke
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
quote by Edmund Burke
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Feather Cap
Oh what to do
we toil endlessly
no one listens
onwards the ship goes
time, the Cap wants to own
more sail,
more sweat
worth? is the result
feather in a cap is all she is
Addicted
Kat Graham, William Levy, Boris Kodjoe, Sharon Leal, Tasha Smith, Tyson Beckford, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Maria Howell, Hunter Burke
from Addicted (2014)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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