Jonathan Ned Katz: "Dan Allen" (poem), June 1972

Many years ago,

in June 1972,

to be exact,

Dan Allen,

Instructor of English

at the City College of San Francisco,

picked me up

at the Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse,

in Soho,

in New York City,

after a performance

of my documentary play

Coming Out!,

my first foraging

for our lost gay history.

(Or did I pick Dan up?

It was so long ago!)

After the show,

as I recall,

when handsome Dan said

"Wasn't that great?"

I said, a little coyly,

"I wrote it."

After sex

sweet Dan and I

talked of Walt Whitman,

gay history,

and gossiped about this and that.

When he was young,

said Dan,

perhaps almost in passing,

perhaps a little embarrassed

(it was so long ago!)

he appeared in a pornographic movie.

(That’s it, that’s it, I recall no more,

I'm sorry, I'm really sorry,

It was so long ago!)

Dan died of AIDS in 1985.

Now, so many years later,

I like to think

there's a film some place

in which Dan lives on,

humping happily,

earnestly erect,

still up and coming.

Author's Note: When Dan went back to San Francisco, in the fall of 1972 he developed one of the first gay literature courses in the U.S. Now, the Dan Allen Scholarship, established in his memory, is awarded twice a year to qualified gay, lesbian and bisexual students at the City College of San Francisco. I'd like those students and others to know about and enjoy this bit of Dan's (and my) history.

See: History of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Studies Department, City College of San Francisco