KEITH ST CLARE
VANGUARD MAGAZINE
In 1966, three years prior to Stonewall, Keith St Clare became Vanguard magazine.
Vanguard was for the untouchables pushed aside by gay assimilists and the heterosexuals they attempted to replicate. It was a forever open dialogue between the denied, forgotten, persecuted youth, drug addicts, transgenders, drag queens and all gay men and women.
Although Keith stopped publishing Vanguard in 1979, it is a living magazine. The content is controversial and remains true. It is a combination of every medium, a breath from every culture. Each issue is reality and optimism: art, poetry, interviews, resources and tragic news.
Unlike almost all others at the time, Keith always published Vanguard under his real name. He also published his home address and phone number.
THE FOLLOWING POETRY WAS PUBLISHED ONCE IN 1967
THIS MAGAZINE
For me
This edition has been
The thing
Of a sense of survival,
Of faith in myself
And not love.
Man and woman may fight and kill
Or love or lie…
They have free will.
Holy God whose powers should
Be greater, aren't
Poor God can do only good.
Faint from assault
From the campaign still ahead
I’ve sat
And played like children
My fingers in sand
And with thoughts held by air.
We’re all right.
Sometimes we pass or glance,
Embarassed
Because we are down.
Rather than
This summer sits still
On the clouded windows
Draperies within.
But fingers of an icy
Autumn are caught in
My hair.
The dedications
And love belong
To Will
And to our friend
Michael
In the east
Did you know that sex
Is a river of boats
With bowls in them?
Homosex sex in place of sex of
Striking sticks between bone boxes
Or shoulder blade cheeks to love
Song of operated, plastic
Good touchings and making dougnuts
Of dildoes curing the marriage bite
Of a good double need, consolation
And not caring about wasted seeds
On babies.