Photographers Unknown, But, Once You Start Living, It Never Ends
“Mais, une fois qu’on a commence’ de vivre, ca n’en finit plus.”
-Anne He’bert, La Robe Corail
yes, I could be transparent, have no more than 2 meanings
for every sentence, smother the small inhalations
in duck-lined beds (instinctual)
but I am not
tired, only some part of me, the corner of intellect
reserved for newspapers, educated company, family fights
won’t shut up, won’t misread for me, play blind man’s bluff or
any game with kissing and shut eyes won’t say – this means
nothing. I am safe-
from harm, I take baby steps dangle limbs over balconies
sit on cane back chairs made for light men in linens even dance
fat-legged, convinced of rhythm but from love all manner
and logic, knoves if necessary nothing closes me, nothing
to danger, a smile pulled from the eyes, where smartness lives
or a wrist, the left, folding surrendered air in cross-cuts language
for events microscopic, just as loud but to love
no tricks no practiced feints of hip or cape, no tangles of scarves
to swirl over the very idea because love happened, once, and
like anything charming love was just another language, another dress,
a sneaky link of party half-grins spread chair to chair, room to room
sogning the trickster from his mark
–R.M. Vaughan, Untitled, Invisible to Predators, ECW Press, Fall 1999
Born in the city of Saint John in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1965, Richard Murray Vaughan was a poet, novelist, and playwright. He earned both his Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing and his Masters of Arts in English from the University of New Brunswick. Openly gay, he was playwright-in-residence for the
years 1994 and 1995 at Buddies in Bad Times, a professional Canadian theater company. Originally focused on staged adaptions of poetry, the company became dedicated to the promotion of queer theatrical expression during the 1980s.
RM Vaughan published many works in his career, including fiction, poetry, anthologies, stage plays, and journalistic articles for such publications as the digital digest Utne Reader, the digital LGBYQ2-focused Xtra magazine, and the print newspaper The Globe and Mail. Vaughan’s memoir about his struggles with insomnia, entitled “Bright Eyed”, was published in 2015.
Vaughan has written many poetry books and chapbooks. Some of his most successful works include “A Selection of Dazzling Scarves” published in 1996 and “96 Tears (in my Jeans)” published in 1997 by Broken jaw Press. The most recent collections of his poetry include the 2004 “Ruined Stars” and “Troubled: A Memoir in Poems” published in 2008. His single poems have been included in over fifty anthologies.
As a novelist, RM Vaughan’s work includes “A Quilted Heart” in 1998 and “Spells” in 2003; as a playwright, his work includes the 1998 “Camera, Woman” and the 2003 “The Monster Trilogy”. Vaughan’s short narrative and experimental 
videos have been exhibited in many Canadian and international galleries and festivals, and are represented by V-Tape and the Canadian Filmmakers’s Distribution Centre.
RM Vaughan’s works often touched on queer stories of coming-of-age and eroticism. He had a taste for the supernatural and macabre, and was captivated by the world of the celebrity. Vaughan published the book of essays “Compared to Hitler” in 2013 which featured many of his opinions on contemporary culture.
While working as writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick, located in Fredericton, RM Vaughan was reported missing on October 13th of 2020. His body was reported discovered ten days later on October 23rd; his death was not considered as foul play.
Note: A collection of six poems by Richard Murray Vaughan can be found at Canadian Poetry Online, located at: https://canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca/vaughan/poems.htm