testosterone

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Em König

when i forced my queer arm elbow
deep into the cavern
of our chest, i was reminded, again,
why i no longer buy blue
glitter | partly
it’s about microplastics
lodging in gills and cracks
and the ocean’s blinding
enough without our help, but typically
like musty letters or the humidity of
testosterone
it’s because it never disappears and never breaks
down.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

At Rome

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Penny Newell

We never went to Rome together
but as I have it
we wake early and seek out sharp coffees
spend the day brushing hands
flirting with a previous idea of us
rush to the room to make love
under white curtains
on a pile of tourist maps, your winter coat.

Pilgrim stream under window
wick-hold the candle
steady now
cassock of flow
impeached women.

On the last night I paid for a guided tour.
You pointed out umbrella pines.
I pointed out the brevity of our attendance,
the thin foot of our welcome here.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Argo Notes

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Toby Fitch

1

irreverence of being a baby
amniotic fluid sonic bubble & blood
i find you forget you
the heart’s action & breathing
i keep forgetting you
makes spontaneous gesture possible
but you remember me
our conference about breastfeeding
i lose you feel sad
come to recognise
radical alienation from our
body / use you as not-me
utterly dependently falling for
ever morbid & bad
blockbuster Oedipal bad
met by ordinary devotion
my anti-interpretive delinquent mood
my dirty mirthful
queer as pregnancy itself






2

no such thing as reproduction
only acts of production
inching toward the state he
thinks we’re all girls
writing echoes uncannily
shot through w/ darkness
don’t have to be disappointments
came from the fluid world
still clouding thru memes
the me & the not-me rage
that what is good is always being
destroyed for feeling real as she comes
to know me as real / just
another human animal among us
flying anuses / speeding vaginas
having been gathered together
held w/out a point / a lack
no memory save the sense






3

our body grew stranger experienced
surges of heat ghosts
who proclaim w/out these sheets
we would be invisible
spinning in the murk of cells
are programmed to unfurl & you can’t
reverse this helix of hope & fear it’s dark
we develop even in utero
in response to a flow of projections
reflections that ricochet
loose & hot in our house
made from stuffed-up stars we materials
may never leave this world recycling our
many whats made from wheres unwittingly
backed into a paradox paranoid-tending
we tend to bend in order
to develop & diss eminate
there is nothing you can throw at us
that we cannot metabolise






4

another form of paranoid i
slash them out //
edit myself
into gendered baggage sorry
for the confusion
sorry for whatever sorry
there are many speakers
who allow themselves the tremblings the lovers
& exes that make up
the mood half-dressed & staring
juts out of focus
you glimpse something radishingly intimate
a window my danger
a cloud my suffering
sunlight my nihilism
sex my abject ions
nine-tenths of the words i’ve stolen
are free but there’s no escaping
toxic material / the self
w/out sympathetic attachments
is either a fliction
or a lunar tic perhaps
it laced my ilk






5

the subtlefugue of my life’s
intervals of sun followed
by veils of red light
no real night will aspire to contain my shit
shadow on a wall
w/out a will to power we purr
or flee & demur / shift & refuse / write
slick amphibious
amorphing shapes of self
specular pleasure
in drag as thief or murderer
become our own stalker start smoking
again / difference happens
when the pleasure’s not only taken but
openly displaced in fragments
make a portal swing open






6

preserving the radical radishes
i have a bad habit of deeming myself lost
a little spooked by text
do you want to be right or
d’you wanna connect
i started leaving my charms at home
which asked too much to rent
the aim is not to answer questions
it’s to get out / get out of it
the air was hot
pro-Babel & shooting white eggs
bulbous beautiful
tears sprouted
ready to burst
we could be fucking the specific forces
that mobilise & crouch
behind us on this piled endangered planet
tiny being in difficulty
proposing an
alternat
ive






7

albeit stripped of pronouns
structurally vulnerable to being
hated or resented by somone
frothing in cargo
shorts i acquiesce into
participating in a belief system
that litotes its den
omination as metaphysical
that overestimates the maturity of adults
& fields unwanted //
monologues from
a cab driver //
just as ice has
no coordinates
a bloom of drops rose
indifferent to my doubts my
snowball self does not
wanna rep //
resent






8

people are in/different from each
other at the infinity pool
plural & specific
at deep play in the makeshift
Wolf Man’s memory of his parents’ encounter
& the girl having the feathers sewn onto her butt
easy to get juiced up
your brain doesn’t easily switch
not the same thing as in an ontological either/or
succumbs to the temptation to master
any gender any sentient being
no longer able to rip or delve into subversion
their light towers flooding
with titular features
think of how freaked
some people get
that the anus has tons of nerves
needs to be able to discriminate by feel
between solid / liquid / gas
part of mainstream domesticity
our studio w/ orange shaft lavender shadow
inviting more night storms to come
bash at the reality of my fantasy
protected by a force field
right to be free






9

not on my way in any way anywhere
a feeling of & a feeling of but
& a feeling of bi
you didn’t get the meme shel
lacking over their version of reality
genitalia of all stripes are all
slimy & pendulous & repulsive / / / what
even smell of a-holes beyond wanting or
being wanted
ashamed & undaunted i refuse to
engage in terms for ums like you
because of all the triangulation
my dirty secret has always been that
this is of course about me
for another by virtue of another
the shit stays messy
for the loosening that needs to happen
in order to speak a windswept kind
of edible twilight becoming animal
becoming molecular a thick bank of
rainbow above got sober
before i got wireless






10

words change depending on who speaks
the wings each flies w/
letting an individual fuck take
precedence over a categorical one
our unwitting collaboration
which i emerge from abandoned
to admit or omit every appearance of May
gender be more than just colour
collapse w/ all his gear on
in a paroxysm of will she know i’m good
on gleaming dark wood
floors me
(we look happy
now that there are
children in my life
it was our mountain
along w/ a sun cloud & two birds)
or will she mistake me
for an evil twin in triangle skirt
as a means of making peace w/ a
bummer i feel a loose sense
our flickering nature
/ nurture






11

i roll my eyes from the floor
“feeling real” is so moving
twenty-four hours a day soaked
in the immediate awareness of your sex
i rework the traps the happiness police patrol
give the state the flip
someone once policed your mouth
exploring slivers of light
filtered thru the paradigm we baffled
w/ ardour
you survive what i do to you
such ordinary self-serving we inter
lope & enter whatever shit
storm comes on sure
we can play Baby Bear
speech impediment games but these recalcitrant
mispronunciations get cold feet
in the epic line of frothy lunatics
their GOD HATES
(fill in the blank) signs
bewildered at the nature of today
crowded & contrary
the winternet promised
cheap gothic mandates
on a beach w/ a peach faux finish






[‘Argo Notes’ is ostensibly collaged from The Argonauts (2015), by Maggie Nelson]

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Aberration

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Kathryn Hummel

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Finding Herbert

Posted on November 1, 2018 by R L Swihart

They circled Powązki more than once,
stymied and frustrated on the brick perimeter,
finally rolling over uneven paving stones
to practice parallel parking like
everyone else

*

Red wall. Neglected entrance. A beautiful truce
between gray and green

*

D. O. M. Luckily they ran into an aide-de-necropolis
carrying a watering can, eyes like bright corners
of a wet sky. He had the secret number
and an imperfect map

*

She handled the device, fed it the correct data,
translated the voice: Seek ZH in Section 14,
near the catacombs

*

Along the semi-rectilinear paths,
she picked Polish celebrities
like asphodels

*

He (Niemiec/Numbnuts) spotted only Wieniawski
and Chopin’s Family

*

And suddenly, one stone stepping out of the mosaic: there he was.
There he wasn’t. He was with the others and alone. More black
than gray, but still shining. A universal cross. A sub-INRI.
A fairly horizontal slab for rolling ordinary bones.
Not yet. Not yet. And no one said it.
She’s still combing her hair.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

I Look at My Body and See the Source of My Shame: Ecstasy Facsimile

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Mark Anthony Cayanan

Heavy thing, cigarettes and stale sex on your skin, why hog the blanket only
to apologize. I bite into my soul like a pretzel, it’s no
good, wipe blood off my lips with yesterday’s shirt. To regret an experience is
to nullify it, your 7 AM mug says. I wish my life worthy
enough to deserve erasure, I throw your ankle socks into the hamper. I lipstick
all synonyms on the mirror and slump my shoulders for
emphasis. I can balance a tray of plates on one hand and dishrag the smirk off
your face with another; besides that, I am ruthless
in amusing ways. I traveled from my country to this flat to be an actress and
morph into self instead. I wanted to be an almanac of
someone-elses but end up awake in bed an extra hour, nodding to reasons your
life should’ve been grander: without you until morning
I’m the body those lives give. Dear adversary, whose faces do you savage in my
dreams away from us, it’s time we make our god do unto us.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

(with(in)side) out

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Indigo Eli
Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Drag Act

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Kevin Cahill

When you consider the flea,
inbeing I mean,
hopping through whole
possibilities of cinema:
the assorted drag act
and bodies – old crossdressing injuries
in and out of roles
where we fit
crape hair, crap heir
to breakfast rolls, tin cans,
being Queen, being Titian,
tic-ridden,
so we will say
afterall
whether in coronets,
or to someone in chains,
My father, my son.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

TRUCK STOP BITCH

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Megan Dunn

Hey there baby, it’s been a while
I look tanned
I look good
I look /
I look
a lot like trouble
a damned piece of arse
in this hot desert truck stop.

Got me own cabin
made outta tin
got me some rollies
2 weeks slabs of beers
got me the eyes
of a low-lying lizard
the paper-thin hide
of some nasty wasp

there’s dead tyre tracks
homing in from the distance
splayed on the dirtpan
carousing like snake trails
slithering up to the toe of my boot
I’m kicking them back into dust
into bullshit –
no need to keep evidence
wouldn’t you say?
Already got
one man inside
when I unbolt the door
he won’t run anywhere
already got a small plug of explosive
stored in my teeth should I need to bite down

The long hot horizon that’s always been shady
is still trying to trick me there’s something out here
I think I hear civilisation a-coming
But it’s just the gen’rater grunting its dream

Got a circle of diesel marking my boundaries
got me some matches got me some fun
got a juke box and teardrops
tin cans final notices
ribby dog sniffing at
piles of bones

So yeah come on join me
Bring your own shotgun
I’m wearing cuttoffs I’m wearing spite
it won’t hurt I promise
and you ortta know
what in our legacy ‘promise’ is worth

This time
I’ll bend backwards
for you baby sure
you got deadlines, commitments
I got thighs and supplies
I got a guitar and some old packing crates
got a view of the future
that stretches til sunrise…

come out come on baby
come out come on baby
come out come on baby
you know what I am

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

I had a tooth ache

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Jessica Liebelt

my tooth is drilled

the vibration penetrates and

I realise I own a body

for the first time in 28 years

someone stands in the mirror

I am not there

the vibration penetrates and

waves of iron wash me

my body was a car

something I couldn’t drive

something to use until

it broke and killed me

the vibration penetrates and

I remember all that I

put in my body

because it wasn’t me

you shove things in a car

and try to forget them

going to the dentist is

taking ownership

this is my car

this is what I have to deal with

the drill cracks the car open

inside is a girl

hiding in the corner

of all parties

sipping alcohol

wanting to leave

my tooth is drilled and

the car becomes a weapon

turned against that girl

becomes a club to

beat us with

I want to talk with that girl

but what do I do with the car

I want to dance with her

but what do I do with my hips

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

BINARY BOUND

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Georgia Cao

01101001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01100101
01100101 01111000 01101001 01110100 00100000 termination
execution authorised by CTRL
ENTER
speaking words only you can offer
with breath
in
out
in
in
in
*this is no longer breathing
out
out
breathe out
DELETE the finger pads are rebelling
against every instinct, where there are no instincts to follow
your face in a blank screen
against every colour you think you can name
your eyes like moth to a flame
COMMAND Z opportunist
there is no world beyond this one
there is no past in this future
you have been fooled
you are a FOOL
LOOK! I’ve sent you out there
I’ve sent you out there
and now you’re being greedy
now you’ve poured gasoline
onto your ears
slapped yourself in the face!
and COMMAND V a half-smoked cigarette
on your lobe
just to save it for later
HI-CAPS AND HI FI AND
HI MUM AND DAD
click select copy
dial up
in action you salvage a façade of creation
of
beep-beep-boops
of smoke in your eyes
a pair that can barely read past the page
where there is no creation there is no freedom of thought
and how short sighted you must be to miss a sequence so queer
01100100 01100101 00100000 01100110 01100001 01100011 01110100 01101111
00100000 01101001 01101110 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100
01100101 01110100 01100101

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Is it safe to cross?

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Linda Collins

At four inner-city traffic lights, councillors in Wellington, New Zealand, have replaced the “green man” figure giving pedestrians right of way with that of popular transgender identity, the late Carmen Rupe, as a tribute.

Over the other side of the road
is a bearded teenager
in a prim plaid dress
just been shopping at Best-for-less.

Cutie-pie with the fuzz
and bulging bag of fast-fashun
wants to cross, waits
for the go-ahead buzz.
No green man’s flashing
a hetero, gamete-loaded gait –
instead, volupt u o usness
teeter-totters at the cross-now,
a neon femme fatale: Carmen,
transgender activist, night-life queen.
Gone, but recently honoured by
city fathers as a traffic signal – not a
stripper’s red light, but green,
on display to say it’s okay to go,
you can make it, you own the road.

But is it really safe to cross?
Bearded teen picks at dress hem,
nervous, looks both ways,
even though it’s one way.
Carmen signals C’mon
with a sway, sway.
But the dead don’t have
car-plebs hurling
the T-word, the It slur,
or faux-soft calls hinting
at faux co-mingling.
It’s brave what Carmen’s signalling
in beehive hair and clingy gown.
But it’s still a jangled town,
just see how all the phobes
jeer when cutie dares
stop right there and pose,
busts out a Carmen pair,
points imaginary stiletto toes.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

some days he was sure

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Margaret Owen Ruckert

they were on a school camp
somewhere in the wilderness
to learn about nature

four friends together
swapping secrets in the dark—
‘I stole a packet of chips in the shop’

‘I found Mum’s bag & took some money’
‘I gotta a massive stash of food under my bed’
then silence all waiting

the last nine-year-old
almost ready to say
‘I think I’m a girl’

but something held him back
he wasn’t absolutely sure
& these were his only friends

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

say a body

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Virginia Barratt

fingerbirds
mosskin
sneck
pours
knoes
meat
fleet
 
and a gyre
                                                                        centrifugal
 
            more than eleven orifices
 
            more than one oh!
 
            more than one i
 
            more than one—

fattongue
phantomlimbs
torturemouth
shimmerbody
offwithher
stutterheart
everytthingontheoutside
 
swan’sneck floating backward, unhinge the jawbeak
throat at capacity
all thrumming air stretched
 
say a body
 
just say
 
with the mouth?
 
say a body with the mouth?
 
what is mouth, is no saying, falling out of language?
 
the mouth that cannot speak
ends the world
 
the mouth is not made for speaking everything
is not made for birthing the body
in toxic saliva pools
from the river to the
 
worlds end if not said by a mouth saying a body saying the world using words in order building a body with hands connected to arms that are not birds or even the thought of birds that cannot fly without the saying of flying riding on the thrumming breath through a flailing neck and no throat architecture even imagined no arcs no naves no flesh folds closing no plosives meaning something harsh or soft 25 verterbrae cannot say a body exists and the worlds end with unspeaking breath going back in all the stars unshining the earthbody a platter a hole a dream all the darkness alive and dense unspeakable
 
it shimmers, the unsaying end,
 
it shimmer-shimmers

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

A Queer Elegy

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Christine Burrows

straight now, your John’s a man of his word
your ex-girlfriend’s on hormones
goes by Shaun, binds their breasts; wasn’t a stretch

the bipolar came out of the blue at 32
heroin had bound like glue, swaddled shared shame
but, what’s in a name?

(at 18 Tony was an Auckland punk
died Joanne in a Brixton haircutters chair at 28 in ‘88. AIDS)
 

swimming outside flags, the blood tide nearly drowned us too
the pullback rush, the relentless undertow.
we’re Facebook friends now. we post elegies, share
photos of our lost on birthdays and death days

(bikers on K Road gang-raped Dean, 17, for looking like a girl
suicide at 39 finally freed him from the rapists’ rack)
 

in the thick of it, with the blinding bind of lovers and haters
pricking us like voodoo dolls, our lived experience lacked narrative
was pandemonium in a dungeon of distorted mirrors
making off, making out with the zeitgeist

(Zed, a gordian knot of pain and desire, sped east at 21
AIDS sucked the flesh off his sassy bones, ash at 45
his sisters insist it was cancer & cherish his quirky ways)
 

remember? we magicked up poems and pipe dreams to wrap
around our isolation like warm black cloaks.

Johnno, Shaun, you and me – we are old now
stitching new rainbow quilts from rescued remnants
train wrecks with track marks, glad of the luck
that pins us to the present, while pining for friends passed

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

A DREAM OF THE CYBORG AS METAPHOR FOR THE HISTORICAL BODY CALLED LANGUAGE

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Francesca Lisette

I’m looking for a body written in secret lines, indefinable flesh gleaming upward
A moment in the revelatory arc of disowning not-being. taut.
Time passes by in guises, ducking & frowning,
waving, holding out a cocked hat.
where to start? one toe poised over
the threshold of a nunnery
sincere in clarity
devastating of hope in its ungainliness.
i dream the air is full of fishes
nodding past me
& the sky made up of cracked haloes.
i thought i was seeking a specific
encounter: no, animality claws
back at the permeability of distinction.
watch as a flare of gold
lights the roof of its mouth. coincidence?
sly catalogues lay down amid the bushes,
foxgloves, snakes. i am no longer a
native speaker, emotional imaginary
dissents w/ the referents of my habitué.
unseated, i will slowly remove these forty-five nails
from my neck one by one, telling you as i unpick
& toss them away, how each came to be there.
the only way to escape life is to become a diamond or a mirror
or a book, & on certain nights, even i don’t want that. the faces
of our enemies contain much information it would be well to
observe. now there is a kind of shaking part,
where the joints & jaw & kneecaps & organs shudder & flutter
more deeply to remember their being-which-exceeds-language.
caustically retreat. a blaze of gone smells. slowly it is surfacing:
hair flat & gleaming like a palace, broad tectonic structure,
dripping lobes. the trigger, the unmet wounds, the source of all
your glory. dare to part the blue mouth. the gaze is a tunnel
tracking dated hallways of grace. what fear is, a thing which
we call living, sneaking between radiators & fridges, quiet
moments of pausing. between kitchen & garden. between
bus & restroom. between rent & payday. between sending
a message and getting a reply. between grasping & yielding.
between a straight line & its folding. between the sensual &
the airless. between the sexual & the stale. between
waiting & arrival. between hatred & forgiveness.
between fate, & every moment we have not lost. between
staying & passing through.
you!
body of unnameable radiations
dissolving in amniotic syntax:
meet my eyes

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Adolesce

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Matt Hetherington

still at that dreamy stage where
the days have become decades
& one finally begins
to comprehend the truth of being
alone, face-down in the hospital
doing my best to keep you in my
heart, hypocrite lecturers & fans
of perpetual air-conditioning, sour cream
& conservative governments
but my mind’s not right or left
it’s more akin to windscreen-wipers
in a bomb i can’t remember the model or
year of, in an underground car-park in the desert
with the radio just able to pick up
the last non-screening talk-back station left
which i’ve strangely called & am on hold to
& the waiting music is something resembling
‘greensleeves’ played by a machine from june 1982
it’s all about the timing, how one follows each
like the same thing & the good gaga google-goons go
goo-goo over & over about it & share there, natch
& you don’t want to be left all alone, well maybe

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

I’ve got something to say

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Rae White

Will I always be   scowling, cowering
up tops of trees under   stars, slumping
my shoulders? Will I always be media-
frenzied and flung under   palatable rainbow
buses? Will I always be   a warning   a cautionary tale
to you? i.e. keep the   kids away from
that one: a ‘genderqueer’   (sic) costs
an arm and a leg and   hormones
to upkeep. Don’t buy it, don’t engage, let sleeping dogs
lie to me like I’m someone   you don’t   want to hurt.

  When everything else in your life is sturdy
  statements, why am I the   question?
  Why do I ask, can you   love me (as I am)?
  Rather, that you should   (be happy) to love me
  in sickness and amidst my   unhealthy eating
  habits. Thus I have (timidly)   written: please
  plead with me your case of   shame at my
  flailing sins, because could I not be   your blessing
  cloaked as that baby   you once assigned   and held?

Note: This is a response poem to Alex the Astronaut’s song ‘Not Worth Hiding’.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Broken Dictionary

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Ray Briggs

marriage (n.): longhand for merge
meaning: two become one
meaning: you.

yew (genus Taxus): an evergreen
with striking red berries.
In a wide circle around it
nothing can grow.

circle ((x−h)^2 + (y−k)^2 = r^2):
a special case of the ellipse
in which the eccentricity must be 0
and two foci are one
meaning: you
meaning: follow the curve for long enough
and we’re right back where we started.

start (v): to end
up yet again
at the edge of a mirage.

mirage (n.): an apparition, as of an oasis
in the desert, in the imagination
of one or more persons.

one (S(0)):
1. unity
2. an indefinite pronoun
for an arbitrary individual
3. the beginning of an order

order (v.):
1. to arrange neatly
in the approved fashion
2. to compel to obey

to (art.):
1. expressing motion in the direction of
“how do I get to the horizon?”
2. identifying the person or thing affected
“you made this promise to me”
3. the number before 3.
4. also
5. when you repeat something so often
no one can understand it anymore.
“to two to too (2)”

true (λx(v(x)=1)): specified inductively
by merging the values zero
and one.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Marriage Suite

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Katrina Schlunke

They told us to be respectful so…

You squashy turdball. Sucking off the far right christians in slow stamp licks while your high court handmaidens hold the curtains up and the camps ticking over.

They told us to be respectful so.

We hope it will be all right. We hope we can put our small rainbow signs up and only sun will fall on them. We hope walking along with our badges on and an outward step calls forth only indifference
or complicit grins. We hope. But we shall not forget as you will forget
that you made our equality something to be voted on but not too seriously.
Non-binding.
By post.
A kind of, sort of, vote for folk you see as,
a kind of, sort of, people. And as we walk past forgotten post boxes
we will remember you. For a moment holding hands ring fingers entwined. And emboldened in gold.

They told us to be respectful so.

We became respectable.
Kind of.
Sort of.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

EO

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Annalise Pippard

You like to tell the story
of when you first noticed me

denim jacket
and a pretty punk bob.

In those days
I drank my coffee

and you drank yours
every morning

on heat but
casual as hell.

In a different bedroom scene
we were Freud’s

masturbating sisters
flushed, pacing about the room

call it parallel play.
Baby, I say, stroking

your Chelsea while
we talk about sex.

It’s always been this way:
you need a mother

and I need talk.
Of course I wonder

what it would be like.
You know how to whistle

don’t ya Steve?
You just put your lips

together and blow.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

untitled 1

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Kristin LaFollette

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Chivalry’s Not Dead (It’s Just Been Criminalised)

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Zenobia Frost

Text sourced from Miranda Devine’s Daily Telegraph column of the same name (16/12/2017), and its comment thread.

Whole poems used to be written in praise of Miranda Devine. But feminism
changed all that.                    Chivalry isn’t dead,          it’s just late to the meeting:
it’s been holding the door to the boardroom since 8.55am, unheeded.          Harvey Weinstein
snuck in while chivalry was sleeping standing up. We need to understand
the role that feminism played in empowering men like that.          When modesty is stripped
like a tablecloth from underneath a banquet, that’s when Harvey charges in for the feast.
                    Pigs like Weinstein were only allowed to continue because of the cowardice of other women
who wanted to get their initial leg-up (no pun intended).                     Dating has been replaced
with joyless gadgetry – flicking off all those :( faces with a finger.                     In meat-space,
                    women are flesh and blood,          and men are flesh and blood, but real courtship
isn’t about flesh or blood.                     Sex and connection are decoupled.                     No
one meets anymore in bars or at sports games.                     No meet-cute is had watching
The Bachelorette.                     Miranda interviews a man, a bit of a dreamboat,
whose book will bring back chivalry.                     I still show respect for women and give my seat on the
train to women, but now it is out of protest rather than obligation.                     Feminists can at least say
they stopped the dreamboats.          The author says Tinder is a sausage-fest for the unfaithful.
                    I’ve heard that Bunnings is a weekly sausage-fest for lesbians.                     If you want
to be a real man, take her out.          She’s not an e-conquest.          (That’s when you rort AOL
with a second Internet trial CD.) If I am polite it’s because of the training instilled in me.
May I please have my cookie? Chivalry isn’t dead, it’s just been criminalised.
Now you can’t give up your seat or hold a door or buy a gal a drink without being dragged off
                    to feminist prison – in pink pussy cuffs.                     Why don’t those frightbats speak up
to the real criminals?          That Harvey Weinstein sure wouldn’t have gotten far if only women
had acted sooner.                     And now they won’t shut up.                     Every second guy
                    is a Weinstein. They’re so busy, no one’s writing Miranda her hard-earned poems
in the comments.          Not that many little girls dream of being a Daily Tele columnist
when they grow up
                                                                                and, anyway, the femmos will all die out
                                        when they can’t find husbands
                                                            to help them make more little feminists.
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Carbon Dating

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Danny Gentile

We are divided by Colorbond and legality
finding only quandary in the fine print.
A figure bends before a typewriter, striking

and striking and continually returning to
the same point, the same itinerant waiver
made in the same index by the same key.

Carbon copies lay their stain on everything
and are peeled away to give a grey facsimile,
the non-idealised present from a definite past.

The pallor has no expectation of this happening
again. It has been revealed and shaken off from
the original and all the division, the notation,

the rummaging for words to give it authority
will not let the attribution of each laboured
phrase more than a moments speculation

before the thought moves on. The bell will
ring, like a tiny bicycle travelling. The carriage
will return like a car not hitting the right gear

and fingers will seem snide and calculating
as they often do in this protracted happening
which crosses the page and knows no temper

other than its reach toward an ending. You
are not contained here, in the processing,
arguing words. You are not contained in an

alphabet which straps you in an armband
of apology. When the fences are raised
and the argument over, there is only a garden

seat to hold you in contemplation, long after
the unsatisfactory copy has been dealt out
to all those who may feel its vigour, bill-posted

or tacked against a lean-to of unacceptable
risk. The placards have been torn by the wind
or shredded in anger. The opening of green

is now simply a locked gate in the iron. When
the face of the question is returned to again
it will be as if all the words of pro- and con-

came and went and meant nothing. The sky
is seeded with letters ripped from the page
and the air around you is a fingerprint which

dissipates in the rain. We have drawn these
lines and they are now a frame or cage, and
everything written is extrapolation towards

an ending. Is this the only copy? I hear
someone say. Is there only one expectation
you hold for a legality? My only answer is

in the page that now flies uncontained in
the wind. If you should want another you
must look to the typewriter which made

me do it. Let it ring like a telephone as
the next page is ejected. Let it ring like a
school bell, a shrill sound for where it began.

Let it ring for a year of so little colour, where
the patience for legitimising words seeps
in ink from a key held down far too long.

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