14 Works by Ms Saffaa

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Ms Saffaa


Ms Saffaa | MilkMan1 | 2013

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Posted in ARTWORKS | Tagged

Deaf

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Candy Royale

The spines of books
digging into our skin
I feel them pressing in as we kiss
this joining of multiple loves
intellectual divine
The hot mess of your sex
panting pressing wet
black lines on white pages
neat and tidy between hard
tangible covers more solid than us?
It’s better not to get existential
while sheets are getting twisted
I’ve resisted these thoughts before
when the sun was filtering through
the stained glass of our tiny house
the currawongs were dipping their beaks
in the compost heap
knowing they’d struck worm gold
Every time I’ve repelled these thoughts
I’ve eventually come back
rappelling down that hare hole of fear
at losing this us this brilliant unbridled us
that could give that stained glass a run for its money
where we spiritualise sensuality
incense burning oil heating
we forget about this
often bleak situation
we’ve been thrust into
On that dance floor when we first met
I told you I was a poet
you spoke about the power of language
to give voice to those parts of us most integral
how without it we’re almost nothing
Almost
That night we got high
danced until sweat drenched
our feet ached
we collapsed onto your mattress
found more energy again
Now we push the books
off the edges of our bed
as we push each other
to the edges of ourselves
repelling the finite once more
ignoring the sound of it knocking
above the currawong calls

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

revoke

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Candy Royale

the horizon
a flat lining heartbeat
encroaching darkness
retracting all
until the formlessness
stays the madness
)fluttering breath
the wings of bats overhead(

remember when you
used to envy her pillow
permitted to retain
her sweat scent spit

the sky
is a liar
tall tales still
in thin moving clouds
the threatened downpour
dissipating the promised
cleanse diminishing

remember when every
dip and curve was
your revered nation
religion and patriotism
suddenly consummate in
your previously anarchic
being as your fingers
whispered secrets down her belly

the trees
are sentinels
protecting the no ones
protecting them
in the shade
she’s most brilliant
parts of her hidden

remember when excuses
tumbled from between lips
still wet from her lips
still wet from your cunt

the sun
made from bees
vibrates mightily
burning even the most
conscientious as though to
prove a point

remember when she
started disappearing into
her ugliness
flushed cheeks fresh
with “fuck you’’-s so violent
your breath left
erratic patterns in your
chest connect the dots
gone all wrong

the birds
a cacophony
of ordered chaos
a crowd of witnesses
crowing at dawning rituals

remember when tea
scolded both
your tongues each
morning
but even that
couldn’t burn the
laughter out of you
both

the earth
unsteady shifting
not half as strong
as its reputation a mass of
impermanence

remember when she
realised you could die
denied it every day
until she fled
across that lying sky
into that beatless
horizon

..?

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Silence (Maria the first)

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Candy Royale

Standing on the platform
at Central Station
nervous fidgeting
eyes darting

seeking your face out
amongst moving masses
there you are
rushing towards me

anxious smile I hug you tight
with a mouthful of hello
knowing the awkwardness of
three years of relative silence

would settle upon us quickly
it did
so I hug you again
willing myself to be present

Instead
I’m back in the car with you
three years ago
when silence stretched between forced

syllables
I was an arsehole
who took away your agency
made a liar out of me

broke your heart
I remember the way your voice splintered
how you reached out
I pulled back

turned inward
so deep
I couldn’t see it
etched in us

Back on the platform
pulling away from our strange embrace
mouth full of everything unsaid
I see what you’ve managed to erase

what’s been carved into me
I am aware of everything
too suddenly
willing myself to be present

Instead
I am somewhere in an alternative universe
where I could have been happy with you
could have loved you

for a really long time
if I hadn’t been such a coward
my mouth is not full of anything now
it’s dry as you ask about my flight

my thirty hours traveling
we find safety in the banal
I fill the air with similar noise
I can’t look at you

all I want to do is look at you
actually all I want to do is kiss you
Three years of silence
all I want to do is kiss you

We are sitting in an empty library
books propped open
in a language I can’t fathom
like our new language

so hard to navigate
I tell you I really like your partner
it’s a lie I fucking hate them
they love you

like I was never able to
They remind me of me in many ways
I dislike my reflection in them
you tell me you’ve never felt more loved

in all your life
I want to apologise
take your hands
tell you I was so afraid back then

all the time
then press your lips against mine
beg you to forgive
everything I put you through

believe me to be a better being now
I don’t
I just listen smile
will myself to be present

Instead
I’m back where you and I stood in a turret
atop a castle
in another country

I was inside you
your breath on my ear
as you told me
you could never ever refuse me

Here in the library
I am overcome by the need
to test whether
you can refuse me now

I tighten my fists into balls
push my nails into my palms
and let “I’m happy for you, really I am”
tumble out my mouth over and over again

Later I tell you about how sick I’ve been
embarrassed tears run
I wipe them away hurriedly
telling you I never cry

both know that’s a lie
you tell me to take my own medicine
be vulnerable for once
I talk of being a burden

you call me your friend
– never a burden
“friend”
who knew that word could cut so deep

three years of silence
you have moved me into friend
hearing your voice utter that
fills me with regrets which can not

tumble out of my mouth
You’re happy
I’m happy for you
really I am it’s just

I should have loved you
better back then

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

don’t look down

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Candy Royale

your scars
a brutal beautiful
forging through life
even as deaths gristly
hold tries to drag you
down the jagged edges
of scar tissue something
like a zipper you joke will
be your next
tattoo

dust particles
tap dance off the edges
of furniture light splayed
like the sun’s split wide
trying to say ‘look at my
hot stuff babe’ while the
pain rides every
internal nerve

you are wound tight
like when you were young
you’d wrap rubber bands
round your pinky blood
gathering at the tip til it
turned purple suddenly
you’d be afraid it’d drop off
the swelling making it
harder to remove the elastic
your panic a pin prick spreading
swiftly

that sensation is
your every day
the opiates a liquid dip
muting a little more
with every hit
your fingers trace
again those battle lines
on flesh carved
with tiny knives

people dip their heads
over the precipice
just to feel their breath
catch in their chests
you would give anything
to be able to scrabble back
from the ledge

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Dear Mr. president

Posted on November 1, 2018 by CAConrad

Dear Mr. president
there is only one human
body on the planet whose
gender you get to identify
after that it is
none of your
business
just let
the windmill
burn around him
Boris Karloff trapped
under a wooden beam
we had much to leave behind in
order to follow the river to the sea
every time I wear
that hat I
can hear
her
queer
sisters
lovers
murdered
not the sheriff
not you Mr. president
give them dignity
even after death
but they never
and I never
needed it
fuck you
we win
it all
our
genie
leprechaun
froot loop tonguerer
ferocious ecstatic venerated queen

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

The Doctors Say

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Mark Ward

I mustn’t use my body as a dance move,
as a way for me to prove the voices
wrong; that we are rash choices,
that without the coupling we’re just skin.
You can’t deny the smile that comes
with cumming, there’s a silent thrum
shared, he loves me, but I knew this.
I’m just scared that without proof it’s
beyond my reach, something I can lose.

I cannot use my body as I choose,
as a way to just shut up and play the hits;
songs we make up with our jigsawed bliss,
a shared light widening until we’re thin,
unthinking, breathless, cramping, voiceless.
Today they say that I must change the noises,
the method. My body is a bleeding gum.
I feel your fearless tongue, our bodies’ scrum,
your viscous grin I could never disprove.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

Looking for Hot GAM

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Andy Quan

Looking for hot GAM, 37 degrees Celsius
neither feverish nor cold-blooded
well below boiling but able to melt
ice. Not averse to skin, his own colour
nor jealous of body fur or the large
strange builds of other races. Me, I’m
turned on by brawny intelligence, defined
sensibility, buff in both ways. We could
go for long knocks on the brain, sip
piña coladas or something more
apropos. Lapsang souchong, baby.
Did you avoid an Asian mother
complex (not hot)? Can you object-
ify yourself ironically? Can you laugh
like me about pulling faces in the mirror
‘Am I handsome?’ Not to say I wouldn’t
date other races. This is just desire in
flux: settled, embedded, illusory. I’m
lately distant from the shared gay hobby
of temptation and lust but recalling
past fantasies, I’m game for a certain
toughness, square jaw, the tensility
of how the skin holds together, tight
what it encloses, remember chase
and capture sweet as lotus seed
paste. Then I’m ground and radared,
squirted and selfied, grindred and
gaydared, classified with private pictures
unlocked. Interested? Face photo
(not the dick pic), stats, tell me a
secret … not that one, too obvious. My heart,
stinking with pride, hot with reflection,
I offer in return.

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

THERE ARE ONLY 16 GENDERS

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Robin M Eames

There are only 2 genders: the SEX DISCRIMINATION ACT
& the 2013 amendment to the SEX DISCRIMINATION ACT


There are only 3 genders:
AFAB (assigned female at birth)
AMAB (assigned male at birth)
& ACAB (all cops are bastards)

There are only 4 genders:
Violent Femmes
Men Without Hats
Queens of the Stone Age
& the Holy Sisters of the Gaga Dada

There are only 5 genders:
401 Unauthorised
404 Not Found
409 Conflict
422 Unprocessable Entity
& 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons

There are only XX & XY
& X & XXY & XYY & XXX
& XXXX Gold & XXXX Bitter
& other discontinued genders

There are only genders

Posted in 88: TRANSQUEER | Tagged

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.

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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

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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

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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

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