We Said This

Suspended in ambience
We applaud wet pages,
Reclaiming acquaintanceship,
Bombing barriers.

Managing mania, we
Fragment stagnation.
Redraw our faces,
Plumbing the depths of desperation,
Reconfiguring the perfect cup of tea.

We see the fleeting,
Invisible in mirrors,
Casting a net of happiness,
Searching for silence –
Twisting in darkened, teasing streets.

We greet the weather – it’s easier –
Eschewing intimacy with coldness,
Picking bigger battles.
Flickering destinations beckon,
Swimming in fantasies of honey-sweet strangeness;
Convoluted, tantalisingly inconclusive,
Listening for friction, infiltrating freedom.

We stage childhood heists,
Pirating reflections of identity,
Shining a dark light on dreams
Of vulnerability,
Spelling out connections,
Budding confidence coming with the dusk.

We open the only locked doors,
Walk in circles, talking truths,
Rebooting veracity with clean slates,
Flushing out scepticism with the
Perfection delineated in differences,
Breaking the bad binds tied by
Cowards digging graves, making
Weakness bleed from unjust wounds.

The long and the short of this is
That obsession is for life;
A deformation devoutly to be wished.
Metaphor melds into the elegance
Of skin, and letters are fetters
Of limbs, and the glitter of
Afterglow owns us,
Marking us with stars as we
Sleep - feral, beautiful, and doomed.

And all this night words
Chain us – willing servants,
Shouldering the burden of
Lucid truths, and we are…
Gorgeous


This was another of those tribute poems where I take inspiration from all the artists who perform ahead of me and give them a stanza or so each. I really like doing this – it’s a nice way to say thank you, and also means that I focus on the poetry rather than fretting over my own set. The gig was “That’s What She Said”, run by For Book’s Sake, and the artists were, in order: Carys Hanna, Kia (?), Elysse Adjemon, Marcelle Mateki Akita, Emma McGordon, Alice Short, and FBS founder Jane Bradley. And it was fucking lush.

Juno - for International Women's Day

Last weekend I was interviewed about female role models for a film about IWD. I was doing well until I couldn't remember the word "intersectionality" - a mouthful at the best of times - and I kind of stumbled.  But it worked out okay, I think, because I  was able to explain the concept in more depth. And passion.

That experience had me remembering a talk I attended where someone suggested that, because educated middle-class women are doing okay these days, feminism is no longer necessary. I boiled silently (because I was working at the talk and couldn't storm the stage), but I promised myself I'd respond, and here's the (draft - it definitely needs work) poetic riposte, started last night - there are probably sufficient clues to work out who it was:

Juno

Here are lines on a screen,
Here are numbered truths,
Here is a quiet celebration,
A congratulatory stage.

And here is rage,
And disbelief.
I look up to you
And gauge the narrowness
Of your gaze
The ways your numbers
Let others tumble
Into what you have not said...

And you could be me
In twenty years' time,
White as milk,
Educated to the hilt,

Comfortably well-spoken,
The only discernible difference -
You do not love women
As I do.

And you smile kindly,
Talk of victory.
You consider the race run,
That we won,
Job done -
Down tools, everyone.

I wonder.
Do you see beyond
Your comfort
To even the streets
Outside your door,
Poor in sympathy
As you are rich
In every other measure
Deafened by your learning,
Unable to step into the head
Of the next woman,
Leaden legged,
Knocking on the pane
Above her head
Put back there, tidily,
By you.

How do you dare,
When the invisible millions
Howl for their aborted daughters,
The halters they wear,
The burdens they bear,
The gruelling lives of those
who cannot share
Your blessings,
Voiceless while you,
Who never bled for any other,
Claim to speak the lives
Of every woman born to silence.

You pluck the tongues
from their skulls
In big sisterly insistence
That you know best,
Wrest their stories
From their grasp,
Palm off their gasps
As needless attention-seeking.

What will we tell our daughters
About you -
Schooled to ruthlessness,
Deaf to the call of blood to blood,
Dumbfounding quintessence of smug,
Unwilling to touch the outstretched palms
Of those outside your graphs?

I will falter,
I will stumble,
I will seek to be proved wrong
As many times as I can bear
And bear up the steps of those
Who fall by the wayside of your carriage,

And those who move

On different paths from yours,
Celebrate the victories,
And rage for the pain,
Safe in the knowledge
That those I hold this close
Are true family.

And I will call you by

your real names
As loudly as I can,
And bare your shame.