New Poem - Dubito, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Three Acts of Solomon Corwin

To close Pride Month 2026, S P Clark brings us this narrative poem. Dubito, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Three Acts of Solomon Corwin traces the quiet evolution of childhood uncertainty to adult peace. The poem explores doubt, self-understanding and authenticity, revealing that the greatest act of courage is not coming out, but learning to inhabit one's own life. Rich with recurring imagery of light, silence and journeying, it ultimately celebrates not extraordinary achievement, but the profound dignity of an ordinary existence honestly lived.

Dubito, Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Three Acts of Solomon Corwin

S P Clark

Prologue

This is the story of an ordinary man, living in an ordinary way;

Some might say there’s nothing special here to see.

He gets the train to work, buys his food, bumbles through every day;

he is who he is, and that’s all Solomon Corwin wanted to be.

Aged fifty-one, living a mostly happy life, living in love;

three bedrooms, two cars, in a friendly neighbourhood

where his kids grew up – fondly bickering with pushes and shoves.

He’d built this ordinary life, though years before he never thought he could.

Solomon’s story is one that we have all heard before;

the story of many folk who all go by different names;

a life I’ve encountered a thousand times or more.

He’s a modest man, that’s why I’m writing this, as he never declaims.

To understand his life, and how he came to stand

where he is now, I have to take you back to when he was a lad.

This current happiness was something he never dreamt of nor planned;

that’s why I’m writing his journey down, a journey many have had.

Act I: Dubito – The Cost of Not Knowing

At twelve years old Solomon Corwin felt isolated with nowhere to stay;

it seemed the other kids had a script that he hadn’t read,

they all knew their roles, while his felt hard to play.

He’d pretend to agree, try to laugh along with things they said,

but he felt cast out, forever one step behind.

The boys all fancied Gemma – popular, the coolest girl in school,

he searched in himself but he couldn’t see what the others could find.

He felt deeply unsettled, he felt like a fool.  

When he was fifteen, he felt a vibration inside, a physical thing,

a sensation; an emotion beyond his control.

He noticed a boy in a different way, and his body started to sing;

to be drawn to a boy was never a conscious goal.

An unignorable tremor that grumbled and came from within;

it scared him to think and to know that if he told people, they wouldn’t be kind.

Just like a loud stirring rumble, a chime through the din;

his body knew something, aware long before his mind.

The first thought that struck like a dagger was not one of acceptance,

Solomon invented multiple different explanations;

perhaps it’s a phase, I’m just lonely – the familiar sentence;

attempts to force feelings from his brain without contemplation.

He remained curious, kept questing, but hid his feelings away;

scared of this shiver, and aware of their judgemental eyes,

too timorous to acknowledge it, fearful of what they might say.

His shoulders were leaden, heavy with tears and weighted with sighs.

He knew who he was by the age of eighteen, he knew he was queer,

but kept it locked inside, buried in the depths of his soul.

Unrevealed truth for fear of the slurs, the things he would hear,

so he lived in his lie, broken apart, never feeling quite whole.

Family conversations at the dinner table and the hate on the streets,

the torment in the corridors, and the bile found online;

terrified of the consequences – the names and the beats.

Representations he watched while hiding in shadows were far from divine.

By twenty years old he’d experienced hate and put up with the looks,

these things weren’t the worst, the worst was feeling the shame.

His friends thought they knew everything: his favourite music and books,

but this truth buried deep inside him, they never could name.

Unable to say anything, he felt unable to stand and declare;

he was surrounded but alienated when out with the crowd.

He longed to open up, to finally expose, but struggled to share.

The unspoken reality occupying his mind was now screaming so loud.

Act II: Cogito – The Cost of Knowing

Late nights were spent in the library researching, investigating the history;

articles, letters, and forums to browse;

glows in the dark, glimmers and shafts of hope; all were a mystery;

he hunted for answers to the whys, whens and hows.

Solomon sought for some evidence to closely hold,

Confirmation that perhaps there existed a future for him.

He just found bleakness and blackness, being left out in the cold;

reams and reams, pages and pages of pain leaving him grim.

Solomon Corwin, away from these pages, found some light in the dark

in the shape of a singer who proudly displayed

his sexuality with dazzling lyrics and his image, in ways casual yet stark.

He leapt with joy as he watched him time and again, repeated and replayed.

Somewhere deep in these songs and the tender way Boy George sang,

he found that hope for the future, a future without tragic end;

a moment of ease and reflection amidst unnerving pangs.

Finally lifted, raised up by the message it sends.

He began to re-evaluate, over his shoulder looked back at his past;

childhood memories were now differently placed;

from the earliest, first emotions, things made sense at last:

the hurt hurts far less although never entirely erased.

Life was recontextualised, untangling his brain,

his mind began to wander, to walk untrammelled paths, but never did drift.

If he wanted the sunshine in his life, he’d have to learn to withstand the rain.

Nothing outwardly changed, but something started to shift.

Within that shift, Solomon started to compartmentalise,

perhaps nobody else need ever know,  or perhaps I’ll keep it to myself;

thought he could bargain with himself, wear a mask – a disguise.

He never thought of the pain it might cause, the damage to himself.

Solomon imagined a life of quiet, existing in silence for all of time;

remaining hushed, dampened down, not singing to his own song.

This secret wasn’t needed; he had done no wrong, he’d committed no crime.

Attempted to negotiate with reality itself, but reality never plays along.

Solomon Corwin, now twenty-two, was filled with fire, a festering rage,

no, not angry at himself, but the anger lingered for all of the wasted years,

the fears and denials that trapped him in a cage.

He screams for release, but nobody ever hears.

Frustrated that all others lived their truth without consequence,

but this exasperation was vital to break shame’s stronghold.

He walked exhausted by anger, years of negligence;

wanted to turn from this unspoken path, it was exhausting to try to withhold.

Act III: Ergo Sum – The Cost of Truth

In the dappled light, he sat silent in his bedroom in his first flat of his own,

He thought and he thought for hours, rehearsing what might be said.

No longer liked shadows he sheltered among, no longer could do this alone;

before the words could be uttered, coming out had to happen inside his head.

He wanted to thrive in the truth, not shy away from uncertainty;

he’d reached a turning point, a decision had been made;

no longer cared for their opinion or judgements, or rigid uniformity.

He had to cross the bridge he must build, on a path that he laid.

Solomon Corwin chose someone close, a friend in whom he could confide;

at twenty-five he decided to let his vulnerability show.

Fought back tears, wouldn’t let them fall, but he no longer could hide;

he had to share, the words had to come, he had to let it flow.

Sat with a drink, beside his friend, filled with fear and hope,

the terror of his buried, innermost thoughts being said aloud

might lead to feeling completely free or being hanged on a rope;

didn’t expect elation nor jumping for joy, but hoping one day to be proud.

Quickly the disappointment coursed and spread through his being;

with each bad reaction, each back turned, each change in how he was seen.

Unspoken hostility in the words and their eyes stopped Solomon from healing,

spiteful words and heads turned away and rumours whispered in-between.

The awkward behaviours, the spiteful, hurtful attitudes,

everything from vitriol to a return to the hate, clichéd words hidden in dross.

He knew he had to let these people go, not respond with platitudes,

but he’d rather walk away with his held high while accepting the loss.   

Within this forest of disappointment, Solomon found some reassurance

from those who listened and wanted to learn, with arms around his shoulder.

Some would walk the long road beside him, easing his need for endurance;

the load was not so heavy now he had friends to help carry this boulder.

Solomon had discovered that the secret weighed more than the reaction

of those who rejected him, of those who just didn’t approve.

He began to breathe untarnished air, and sleep with a sense of satisfaction;

one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, he started to gradually move.

Solomon Corwin once again began to re-evaluate, now thirty years in age,

coming out really wasn’t a transformational move,

but he had realised that truth didn’t break him, it just turned a page,

and in rhythm with his heart and soul, he realised he had nothing to prove.

Through years of darkness, blankets of guilt and breathing sullen smog,

he’d forgotten or perhaps never learnt how to happily live out his days;

so he caught the light in his life, and began to see through the fog,

and saw a possible future to live, to live like the others, in ordinary ways.

Epilogue

For twenty-one years now, he has built his world in dazzling light,

looking back with some regret at all the years he’d missed,

remembering the long, cold miserable days and all the restless nights,

all the moments wasted, and all of the guys he never kissed.

Now he holds the hand of the man he loves and hugs their children near,

walks with a smile, gets the train to work, makes dinner, and mops the floor,

and lives this ordinary life in harmony, facing the day without internal fear.

Solomon Corwin’s mind wanders and peers back through his closet door.  

© S P Clark