DISCLAIMER: This webpage is not being to make money so no need to sue me
for having published these poems…if anyone has a link to these poems anywhere
else on the web, please email me.
By Debra Bruce
Some men can strip
a woman down, while
they put a building up.
A whistle, a look –
One hoot from him as he dangles
from a moving crane, and off
go my clothes, and I am all ass,
ass, flaring with every step.
My body gets so hot so fast
it burns the air everywhere
with shapes of me but only he
can see them.
Chances are there’s nothing hard
on him but his hat. Still,
what I feel makes my nipples burn
and not with lust, or love.
***
Anonymous
I’m eighteen,
he’s nine.
At night
I carry him to the ivory bed
He’s more son than man.
Damn the lousy matchmaker
who found me a husband
small as a nail.
In the middle of the night
he pisses on me.
***
By Alison Fell
- An orgasm is like an anchovy
she says,
little, long, and very salty.
- No it’s a caterpillar
undulating, fat and sweet.
- A sunburst, says the third
an exploding watermelon
I had one at Christmas
- Your body betrays, she says,
one way or another.
Rash and wriggling, it comes
and comes, while your mind
says lie low, or go.
- Or else it snarls and shrinks
to the corner of its cage
while your mind whips it on and
out
out in the open
and so free
- As for me,
says the last
if I have them brazen
with birthday candles,
with water faucets
or the handles of Toby Jugs,
I don’t care who knows it.
But how few I have –
keep that in the dark.
***
By Caroline Claxton
YOUR IMAGE:
I am a lesbian
I open cans with my teeth
I have a domineering mother,
Except when I have a domineering
father,
Sister, brother, school-friend, neighbour, gay man who came to
read the gas meter
When I was six.
I creep out
At the dead of night
To steal men’s underpants
Which I wear – under my tweed
skirt.
I live at Greenham
Except when I live next door to
you.
I go to drop-in centres
For the left-wing-commie-cigar-smoking-butch-bulldykes-against-the-bomb
Paid for by the GLC.
I have fourteen fingers
We grow extra ones
You know.
I leap out from under ‘man’hole
covers
To grab ‘straight’ women
And I’m secretly plotting against
Russia
To ‘dis-arm’ Ronald Reagan.
HOW IT IS:
You’ve never quite got it right
About me
So let me tell you about myself.
I am complicated but
Surprisingly average.
I do everything
And as for jobs
I have a good job, a bad job, no job
I’m fired from jobs, I create jobs
I’ve worked just about any kind
of job you can think of
Except Prime Minister
Unfortunately.
I am a thousand colours
And come from a thousand places
I come in a thousand places
And out in a thousand places.
I am behind you in the bus queue,
The cinema, the supermarket.
I live everywhere
Except Buckingham Palace
As far as I know.
I am older than spoken word
Traces of my bones lie in the
stones
Beneath your feet.
I am made of rock
Harder than diamond
And your sticky, sticky lies.
I am more women than you would believe
And more woman than you would understand.
What am I?
***
*My Black Triangle*
My black triangle
sandwiched between the geography of
my thighs
Is a Bermuda
of tiny atoms
forever seizing
and releasing
the world
My black triangle
is so rich
that it flows over
on to the dry crotch
of the world
My black triangle
is black light
sitting on the threshold
of the world
Overlooking deep-pink
probabilities
and though
it spares a thought
for history
my black triangle
has spread beyond his story
beyond the dry fears of parch-ri-archy
spreading and growing
trusting and flowering
my black triangle
carries the seal of approval
of my deepest self
***
By Jo Crayola
First of all, real ones don’t have
tattoos,
Which count me out for a start.
They generally shave their
armpits
At least the ones you see
advertising themselves do;
And they don’t sport bruises like
these ones,
In these places.
In fact, you could be forgiven for
thinking
They didn’t even have places like
these.
What they do have is laps.
Yes, a lap.
For a cat to sit on, or a baby
Or a husband to bury his
despairing head
(And that’s another thing I forgot
to mention.
They also tend to have husbands.)
For themselves they never despair
Or if they do, we won’t remember
it.
Or else we mention it only later
When we grow up and go to therapy.
They are of course warm, soft,
enduring,
With their receiving bosoms,
Their string hands,
Their sharp tongues
And their worn spirit.
They are excellent for taking on
holiday
As they keep up everyone’s
morale.
Even if it’s raining.
Or the campsite’s over-booked.
They don’t wear nightdresses like
this one.
They don’t wipe snotty little
faces
With a corner of their t-shirt.
Or wear monkey boots, refuse to
comb their hair
Or allow a
Very small boy
To wash their back in the bath.
No! They are entirely different. Look
at them,
Chatting together in the doctors’
waiting room,
Prowling the shops, pushing
buggies, yanking toddlers.
Some of them are younger than me,
blonder, skinnier,
Yet still seem to manage it.
They are the real ones,
Watching at hospital bedsides,
soothing foreheads, plastering
knees, buttoning coats and
remembering wellies;
serving up tissues, fruit and aspirins
at every impromptu picnic.
One day I suppose I’ll join them,
When I’ve had the tattoo erased
by laser,
Given up scoffing the sweets he
brings home from parties,
Grown a lap, and a husband and a hairless
armpit;
Stop lying on my bed listening to
loud music
When I should be making the tea.
I don’t know how exactly it
happens,
But I’m waiting for it
(and meanwhile watching Neighbours,
to get in practice)
I only hope that when it does,
He will have the grace
To be a teeny-weeny bit,
Ever-so-slightly
disappointed.
***
Is ‘vagina’ suitable for use
In a sonnet? I don’t suppose so.
Meaning of course, the sound
of it. In poems.
Meanwhile he inserts his penis
frequently
Penis’. It is short, I
know, and dignified.
I mean of course the sound of it.
In poems.
This whole thing is unfortunate,
but petty,
Like my hangup concerning English
Dept memos
Headed ‘Mr/Mrs/Miss’ – only a
fishbone
In the throat of revolution –
A waste of brains – to be
concerned about
This minor issue of my cunt’s
good name.
***
*Why Dorothy Wordsworth is not as Famous as her Brother*
'I
wandered lonely as a . . .
They're in the top drawer, William,
Under your socks -
I wandered lonely as a -
No not that drawer, the top one.
I wandered by myself -
Well wear the ones you can find,
No, don't get overwrought my dear,
I'm coming.'
'I was
out one day wandering
Lonely as a cloud when -
Soft boiled egg, yes my dear,
As usual, three minutes -
As a cloud when all of a sudden -
Look, I said I'll cook it,
Just hold on will you -
All right. I'm coming.
'One
day I was out for a walk
When I saw this flock -
It can't be too hard, it had three minutes.
Well put some butter in it.
-- This host of golden daffodils
As I was out for a stroll one -
'Oh you fancy a stroll, do you.
Yes, all right William. I'm coming.
It's on the peg. Under your hat.
I'll bring my pad, shall I, in case
You want to jot something down?’
***
>>> Back to fave poems
<<<