I interrupt this broadcast

I command your immediate attention

A few heart stopping seconds to put you in the moment

 

Brace yourselves

Wait to hear what follows those four chilling words

Chills on the back of your neck

 

I am a metaphorical figurehead of impoliteness

Gate-crashing the spotlight

Have you ever heard of a polite and pre-announced heckle?

A presence amongst an outraged public who give me my name,

the heckler

 

I am Heckler!

Super Heckler!

Homo Heckler!

 

One in the eye for politeness

Heckling

Shortest, briefest, neatest, tidiest way of getting an idea across

And I heckle with finesse

 

‘You two (men) can’t kiss!’

 

Well boo you, hoo, hiss

Screw you, don’t give a piss!

 

Newsflash!

All systems dislocated

I am the stop

the pause

the break

within those smooth running

operations of homophobia

in your head

I will derail you!

 

You see me as impoliteness

An unfortunate behavioural aberration

Nasty scum on the margins

Relegate me to the realm of vulgar and uncouth

But I am outspoken and courageous

Me being queer

for you is a heckle 

an interruption

a violation

I will keep on interrupting

Interruptions poetic, lyrical, unexpected, transformative

I have to do this

I have to interrupt the world

To save the world from you

Like a bolt out of the blue

Decapitating heteronormativity

Disrupting your commitment to continuity

to sequence,

to pattern,

to order everything

into a heteronormative box

Heroic, public speech superhero

Suspending rhetoric

Preserving the right to speak out of turn

I preserve my right to live out of the confines

of what you declare as normal

 

‘interrumpere’;

(inter) ‘between’

(rumpere) ‘break’

 

We are Hecklers

Super Hecklers

Homo Hecklers

Flash mobbing

Streaking

Protest Marching

 “Habet! Hoc Habet!‘”(‘He’s had it!’)

 “Mitte!” (Send him back!)

We take our lead from the Roman gladiatorial games

Downturned thumbs 

 

We will break the between spaces from the start

so your homophobia can’t even make it past the finish line

We are Slapstickers

We get knocked down but we survive!

We take great pleasure in seeing your prejudices come undone!

Schadenfreude!

Us queers have split-second timing and wit

volume and a sharp tongue on our side

And most importantly,

the gift of humour

Our humour can wreck anything!


You think you can do a put-down

well wait until you hear ours

Puncture and prick

We, gobby queer insurgents

have a catalogue of weapons to defend, parry, attack and destroy

 

And what you gonna do Mr Heteronormative?

Who’s heckling who now?

 

Approach 1)

Abandon speaking

Leave

Approach 2)

Carry on

Start again from scratch

Appear emotionally unscathed

Ignore

Approach 3)

Battle of the put-downs

Stand up to the heckler

Demonstrate resilience

Defeat the heckler! (We’d like to see you try)

 

What’s your comeback?

What’s behind your smile?

What are you plotting?

What’s hidden inside  your bag?

A trumpet, a rat, a snake?

Something to calm your nerves?

Have you ever heard of a nervous heckler?

 

This is political dissent

From religious foundation and English Dissenters

We join those who speaking out against mainstream orthodoxies

 

 

Queer is a disruption

We are the disruptors

Young queer people

We're space architects

Imagineers

Creating spaces that destroy our fears

We survive in spaces where we thrive

and our beauty comes alive

 

Yet these spaces we create, we animate

by constant self-policing

Say the right thing

Body image

We’re feeling quite oppressed ourselves

This community is not all rainbows

Antagonisms and heckles from those within its colours

Body shaming

Identity naming

We will heckle you in just the same way

No-one is superior just because you are one of us

No one gets off scot-free

 

We intervene in different ways in the constant stream around us

We open up spaces that disturb the course of everyday life

We aim to reframe the way in which you see and understand the world

Changing the direction of the conversation

re-routing it into different territory

Directing the flow of emotion

Puncture emotion so it gushes out like a liquid through a burst pipe

Tension relieved and exploded through laughter

Our laughter bears no stamp of sympathy or kindness

Laughter not absolutely just

Nor kind-hearted either

You can beat us down but we are hecklers and slapstickers

Glorious in getting up again and again