the one I wear for interviews, the one I wear for funerals. feeling up the firm creases ironed into the thighs of the trouser-legs, steamed and starched lapels are licked by tidy cuff-links, the black plastic buttons catching on the fly, concealing inner pleats, that intricate machine-stitched framework of ligament and vertebrae that ripple up each supple limb. the restraint of coat-hangers sliding under their clavicles inclines their climaxes, the only sign of which is the soft fraying of the hems around their wrists and ankles – ignoring the moths and embracing the unprecedented pleasure of finding someone to hold on to, of making love in the dark.
– OSP
This poem is a whimsical piece that is definitely only talking about clothes.
{This piece was originally published by the wonderful folks at Forever Endeavour. You can read the poem on their website here. Be sure to check out the other posts on their website, too!}
Blossom, the ginger girl Blossom, whose sisters saved the day Blossom, whose trait was being smart. Blossom, commander and the leader. Everybody loved Bubbles since she was funny, and stupid, and we loved to laugh at her, or with her, and Buttercup, too, was easy to understand, the toughest fighter, but Blossom was the one who told them what to do, and Blossom was the one no one liked.
Her neurotic tendency to control was understandable, as the oldest of three super-powered triplets, someone had to keep them in check, and her father was too busy inventing, and as eldest sisters often do, Blossom had to become the nag she is. Out of sugar, spice, and everything nice she was ‘everything nice’. What a multitude of things to try and encompass. Things I find nice: wiggling bees, the crunch of a browning leaf, forbidden kisses, brand new shoes from Primark, and before I begin to sound like an off-brand Julie Andrews, I will stop there. Blossom was all these things and more.
Blossom was my favourite, and she leads this poem since I remember no one shared this thought with me, especially not my friend who once was on my list of everything nice, and still is, sometimes, nice, but tinged on the edges like a burnt photograph of a dead family member, who was lovely, but was dreadfully, awfully racist.
He wasn’t racist, but he was a prick. and when I said ‘blossom’, unbothered, after he asked me my favourite Powerpuff girl, after the forbidden kiss he had given me, as we crunched leaves in the park. The comfort of our supposed closeness still had me in a world where the usual self-questioning aspect of my personality had evaporated into nothingness, I said ‘Blossom’.
He gave me a look that said why, question mark exclamation mark, question mark, exclamation mark, why Blossom?!?!
She seemed to understand the socio-economic political weight of their weekly villains: of a mutant monkey, a stereotypical seducer, a gang of green Mexicans, a hairy hillbilly, and my favourite, ‘HIM’. You know, ‘HIM’ – the devil who was a fag?
That gets laughs when I say it, but I think Blossom knew what it meant that three small girls beating down nonconformity, even evil nonconformity might not have been the best solution, Bubbles would cry, Buttercup would soldier up, Blossom would relish in the freedom of violence.
I get why no one likes Blossom. she isn’t as clear as anyone else on the show. How can you be a singular expression of yourself, let alone an expression of everything nice? too many parts, too many spaces to represent while fighting crime, trying to save the day, arriving just in time. I was in love, and I don’t know where to put all the emotion I felt for him, even in poetry, where emotion is cheap as brand new shoes from Primark.
Often I wonder how anyone can do it, when we are built from everything awful inherited from everyone before us. Often I see how even the kind must lead with their fists. It is easy to be naïve, and it is easy to be violent, but it is not easy to be everything, let alone everything nice.
But I’m going to try, I’m going to try, because Blossom is my favourite Powerpuff Girl, and don’t tell anyone, but
I’ve had some time off uploading things from Stirling Poetry because getting work published in magazines and journals has been my focus.
But I’ve not had much luck. So I’m still going to be submitting some poems to magazines, which means they won’t make it here, but I still want to keep this website active and just have fun with writing poetry and creating things for myself again, especially now I’m done with University.
So, I’m starting a new project called ‘gag reflex’, which is going to be a series of poems about things we’d sometimes rather not talk about or ignore. Like the one above, about what our bodies are made for, not made for, and how we have the choice to do whatever we’d like, even if it’s just to give blowjobs.
I hope you find something in it. I have designs to turn this series into a self-published zine, so watch this space? Hoping to return to a regular upload schedule. But please forgive me if that doesn’t work out.
Charity shops full of boxes,
boxes full of clothes and cloaks.
What secrets lie in winter coats,
shabby scarves of faux fox-fur?
They have seen better days,
resigned to rest in peace among
other homeless memorabilia.
Whose neck might they have slinked around
as she slipped around the sleeping town?
This film-noir scene
might flash on a screen:
a scarlet lip, an echo of stilettos
on cobblestones,
a dropped ring in the river.
These clichés feel warm and familiar
a kind of closeness,
despite measured attempts at coldness.
Memories boxed up
in the back of Oxfam, next to ABBA CD’s
a half-broken toastie machine,
some dead grandfather’s dinner jackets,
and the teachings of Buddha in paperback,
sixty pence for his wisdom, a way
of looking at this fleeting world:
A flickering lamp, a cataract,
a bubble in a stream.
A star at dawn, a moving cloud,
a flash of lightning, and a dream.
/
This is a poem about one of my favourite places to go to: Charity shops. Where else can you find all sorts of old bits and pieces? A lot of it is rubbish, but you can usually find a hidden gem or two. And you’re supporting charity, so it’s never ‘wasted money’, either!
Sorry for being a little inactive lately. I hope you enjoyed this one!
The goddess alights
her body a cool Grecian marble,
the Louvre’s winged warrior:
those pinions thrust back
for want of arms
or a head.
Yet she talks,
through her rippling robes
and light-footed step
on the prow of a boat,
returning from a war waged
and a war won,
she seems to say: welcome home, a merited rest
awaits, after decisive victory.
Her arms and head
were never found;
just fragments of fingers
in storage drawers of
an Austrian museum, or
a fingerless stone hand
slid under the rubble
at her excavation site.
When world war broke out,
victory left, for Château de Valençay,
along with Venus de Milo,
and Michelangelo’s Slaves.
In the moving van
she stays silent.
She has seen no war like this,
and somewhere dark,
her head shakes in fear.
– OSP, 2018
This poem was inspired by the statue of the same name (also pictured, thanks Wikipedia!). Reading about how this statue, which was meant to inspire and celebrate victory, was actually hidden away when World War 2 broke out struck me as kind of ironic.
Is that the correct use of ‘irony?’
‘The Winged Victory’ (the poem) was also an exercise in trying to do a little more ekphrasis (poetry after art) and to describe how beautiful this Hellenistic statue truly is. There seems to be a complete ease and weightlessness to the figure, despite being made of stone. I hoped to get this across with the sparse lines and three-line stanzas.
Until next time!
P.S. I tried making a nice image with the photo and the text together, but WordPress struggles to make showing it to you easy. That said, there might be something coming up that will put it to good use anyway!
My fever, invisible charisma
operates in the black;
stealing cells away.
Is this what has become of me:
virus producing machine?
I seem awfully good at it.
My fever, a trembling triathlete
wet with river water,
chafed with hot sweat,
Wading out in the waist-high swell
and flushing out neon phlegm
as if drawing from a well.
Feeding it peppermint tea,
I am an excellent host,
I hope my virus will not leave me.
My head inflates like rubber balloon
thin, translucent, monkey-faced
scarlet hue, baboon’s-arse skin –
Can’t even wank for want of air,
lying limp in bed, in hand,
invalid to the tiny crystal child,
My sweetest protein-fat friend
has me making more
than I ever was before.
– OSP, 2018
This poem had its’ beginnings in an exercise I saw online which asked you to re-write one of your favourite poems, or put a different take on the same theme. I chose ‘Fever 103’ by Sylvia Plath. You can read her (vastly superior) poem here.
I’m not ill right now, but I wanted to convey the feeling of not being able to do anything – and yet, your body is actually doing many things trying to fight off the virus. It’s a strange state of being exhausted because your body is working overtime, but you feel like you’ve not done anything because it’s not normal exercise.
When I am ill, i question my self-worth. My body seems at much better use as a host for a virus than for writing or anything else. I didn’t post last week – that was due to self-doubt. I need to remind myself to keep posting regardless of my confidence levels. I hope to be more consistent in the future.
‘Paradise’ comes from an Old Iranian word, Paridaeza.
The root pairi means ‘around’, diz means ‘to form something’,
by implication, ‘form a wall.’
I enter a walled garden:
fragrant plums grow fat
from spindly branches,
a river whispers.
I leave a walled garden,
and the rest of the world
rushes right at me.
– OSP, 2018
A day late – but better late than never!
I’m going to start writing little pieces underneath each poem, just to explain some of my thoughts while writing.
I often struggle with the balance between solitude and being invested in other people. I think I am a bit of an extrovert, but do like some time to myself, certainly. This poem uses some etymology to dissect why exactly isolation can be helpful – Paradise is literally defined by its’ limits.
However, this also cuts you off, separates you from everything. The poem ends by leaving Paradise – sometimes the real world, though frightening and huge, is necessary to continue with what you want, with what you need. There has to be some kind of balance between the two.
Thank you for reading – I hope you found this insightful!
Decadent boy-emperor,
extravagant sexual deviant
with eccentric tastes for Syrian deities.
He daydreams of parties and peonies,
and dines with black panthers
prowling around the dinner-table,
beside Heliogabalus.
Ruling over public baths
selecting cohorts, courtesans:
“Whoever has the biggest cock!”
Playing whore in private rooms,
lying nude as harlots do,
the virile and the vile came
inside Heliogabalus.
Semen stains the rose petals
smothering all the party-guests,
insatiable aesthetic goals,
an aesthete in licentiousness.
An androgyne antihero
for all faggots everywhere,
lovely Heliogabalus.
Some later nights beneath that jaundiced skin
and the string of beads standing in for pearls,
Marge Simpson thinks her life will soon begin
when she hides in the bath and sets her curls.
Earlier, she walked to the Kwik-E-Mart,
even though she just went the other day.
Does Marge have anyone to show her heart?
Does anyone care what she has to say?
Does she have secrets to share with a friend?
As the white laundry sheets flutter outside
and Marge sits inside, does she comprehend
loneliness, or is she preoccupied
with how suburbia leaves her alone –
cleaning husband’s mess, uttering a moan.
– OSP, 2018
stirling poetry 