Terra's Tales

Brackish

2011-03-09T23:09:00.000Z

After the wet season, before
the midsummer night's drought,
I flight for the floodplains, where
the northern downpour bleeds out
and sweeps its love to the mouth
of my lungs. I sleep in the crux
of an oxbow, let my dreams flux
and flow fractured, deltaic. For this
is the way I piece myself apart,
a resolution, my absolution
in a new avulsion.

During the day, I move south
towards the river mouth, picking
pebbles, coral fangs from the riverbed.
A loose tooth is a common truth
in these parts. Bones are febrile,
eyelashes are made of chalk, salt.
Tears turn brackish. They cake
and crack on the flats of my hands.

This is my Pangaea,
this swollen geography,
this slacken land.
The point of no return.

Here, all else ends.

By dusk I meet the saltmarsh
and dehusk, grow halophytic
in the nightlight. I pull out
my hair, my fingernails, and
fill the gaps in my spine
with reed rhythms, saline.
The final rite: turning flesh to grass.

Tomorrow, morning mist
will drag the whitewash back,
ashes to ash.

And I will walk the water,
with a pocketful of stones
and something new to throw
beneath the glass.

* * *

Spite is a dangerous vice, but I still think I'd rather crucify than learn.
I hope this hurts like it's supposed to. As much as you hurt me.

.

Let's play spot the obscure literary / lyrical / geographical reference! Any excuse to indulge my love of random geographical terminology... xD

Feels Blind

2011-02-14T16:47:00.004Z

The first thing I remember was the hunger.
Waking up and thinking is this natural? -
the way you fit your hands round my waist
and hold me like a doll, or toxic waste
from a post-nuclear family. - At arm's length.

You said the greed was my fault,
something to do with the biological seed
of what makes me woman. Makes me wrong.

I was told I don't belong here.
I was out of my depth, treading water
with all the other daughters who dared
to speak before they were spoken to;
those who woke and refused
to have the words choked out of them.

You said I was ugly, held down and half-drowned.
That I look best behind glass, or better still, beneath it.
Blow off the dust and learn to trust us, you said.

You tried to give me a new face, subservience,
but I couldn't fake it, couldn't take it - the silence
that lay behind. The binding of all those thou shalt knots.
You taught me my boundaries, gave me a baptism
in your fiction - made me the eve time forgot.

I watched your red tide rise before you pulled me under.
I told you this feels blind. Your words burned
like a lighthouse, guiding in the night:
Out of sight, out of mind.

* * *

With the last couple of poems, I wanted to take a break from all the narcissistic personal stuff I've been writing recently. So here we go, something more explicitly political than I've written in ages.

As always, the formatting's all out of whack, so please view this on my dA page for the proper version.

Inspired by the Bikini Kill song Feels Blind and, less obviously, I:Scintilla's Cursive Eve (although a lot of the original references to that were cut in the redraft). I'd really recommend listening to Feels Blind to fully understand where I'm coming from with this. It's also an epic song, so you're missing out if you haven't already heard it. (:

Stargrazing

2011-02-14T16:42:00.002Z

On nights like these
we like to call ourselves stargrazers,
deep sky tourists.

We head up to the headland,
where heaven grafts itself to earth,
stitching the breeze between
our cheekbones, our fingertips.
Below, the sea stretches out
with an endless hush. You tell me
we'll sit in the rift
of the tide's smile to keep in touch
with the muchness of being
and believing. But seeing

beyond that pale of blacklight
is another matter. You have a map,
so you take the back of my hand
and paint a picture in mime
and synaesthesiac rhyme:

Our sky is like cat's eyes
kaleidoscoping along a wide road,
a highway of air and neverending
distance, with stars that sink deep
into tar - or maybe sheets - like sleep.
Think of travelling by car, you say. Of flying
then falling. My stars stutter
and flicker with motion sickness.

Our sky is like quicksilver,
mercury melting and jigsawing
across the universe. Sometimes,
metal seeps into the image
of a bird, a snake, a mask –
remnants of a late-forgotten past
and old light, slipping between
floorboards. You tell me to think
of a fence, of running my fingers
over the bars of metal, and feeling
distance, opening itself like an oracle
in the inbetween. All or nothing.

Our sky's a broken bone, home
of frostbitten toes, flyaway hair
and the way my cheeks chafe
against the wind. The sky splits
where the sunset sits on the horizon,
like an open door:
you say, and something more -
but you must be looking away
because your words are hushed, lost
in the anatomy of the Milky Way.

I understand,
I do.
I - I - stand
and shiver.

Your sky's a treasure trove:
a hoard of metaphors for
light, love, and the empty spaces
between the stars. It's your future,
your oracle opening onto the wide
unknown. It's matched to your map,
this place where the heavens
unhitch themselves from earth
and float from your throat
to where the moon is berthed
against a sea of sky. It's here, you escape
to Space, shuttling
on the back of the sea's
uneasy breath, her salted perfume.
While I sit and split; lose touch.

You tell me it's beautiful,
but I'm not sure I believe you, not yet.
You say to keep an open mind.

But how can I know what beauty is
when my sky, all I can see, is blind?

* * *

Written for the Spoken Word Poetry workshop hosted by The Writers'-Workshop.

This took so long to draft and re-draft, and I'm still not completely happy with it...
The formatting's not quite right here (as always). It's slightly better on my dA submission, but still not perfect there. Sometimes, the internet just hates my poetry. :P

Inspired by the lyrics to Stolen Babies' Mind Your Eyes:

Doors will scare me,
Windows leave me blind. :heart:

Surgery

2011-02-04T22:19:00.000Z

Something most people don't realise
is that coral splints, painted brown,
screwed into the skull and mounted
like a crown allow for a preternatural
reconstruction. A rebirth; to break free
and shed skin like tears. A kind of shipwreck
surgery that makes a child look like a deer.

* * *

This, it turns out, is what hypothermia does to my brain. >__<; Based on one of Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts, as featured in the Nirvana song I Hate Myself and Want to Die:
"Most people don't realise that large pieces of coral, which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by common wood screws, can make a child look like a deer."

In The Dialect Of Insects

2011-02-01T22:05:00.001Z

I hide in cupboards
and under the stairs,
underjoyed, black-eyed
and fossilised, over-aware
of the bitemarks forming
along my arms, my fingernails.

And thereby hangs a tale of
treacheries and transparencies.
I can't deny: I am gutterspined,
my own bone-laced anathema,
my own dead, buried face
to the ground. Lulled

and dumbfound by the clicks
and spit of this insect language,
I find safety in the rhymes
and rhythms of the cockroach waltz,
watching the flick and swish
of clockwork in motion.

Time, passing. The metaphors
latching their claws into my chest.
I'm running out of words to stave
off this drought. And all I know is
that this is lights out, the final rite,
and I will sleep hungry tonight.

* * *

Right now, it feels like insect speak is all I have left.

.

Yes, parts of this are heavily influenced by Jack Off Jill's Cockroach Waltz. It's one of my favourite songs and I've wanted to write a poem based on it for ages.

That said, I was seriously tempted to title this 'Ugly Bug Ball', but then sanity prevented me. xD
(If you don't get the reference, then I'm afraid you've had a deprived childhood).

Camisado

2011-01-30T17:06:00.001Z

In a double dream, I must spell out the storm:

how the half moon spoke in reams
of folk lore, pipe dreams that tore
the sky in two. How the walls
began to blister and you, sister,
took your place beneath my skin.

We met stargrazing, your eyes electric,
lacing your lies, your intricacies,
like a cat's cradle. And I, stumbling, stuttering
on in a maze of scars. My modern morphia,
sister scarecrow, I'd follow you to the depths
of my chest: to the mumblings and fumblings
of my heart in the dark. To deceit and defeat
and the great empty longings beyond.

For this, this is how
the camisado begins: with broken people
under a broken steeple, an arch of
aching arms and wing bones, steeling.
With the way the day is swallowed by the sun.

Undone, we write our own religions:
a crucifix made of spoons, knives,
our twisted lives. You say faith's
a virtue, but it's not for the effaced -
we who leave no trace above the surface.
But cut me open, explore me, rip me up
by the roots, and you'll find proof
of the things you cannot see: the truth.

Nemesister, teach me madness,
teach me freedom. Let me loose
control. Map the cavities, fill in
the gaps and when day breaks black,
I'll take your hand. Together,
we will meet the dawn where the sky
puckers like a bruise and I finally lose
touch.

* * *

Fear is my religion.

.

No, life and language and I are not getting on a the moment. Sorry about that.
I guess you could consider this a re-write of Monologue(s) or even You're. Yes, that's right, I'm back at square one again. :/

The first line is taken from Louise Bogan's Song for the Last Act. ♥

.mars

2011-01-13T15:50:00.002Z

.

He still choked on goodbyes,
words like 'charred' and 'charnel',
but it always fell to Mars to make
the house of bone and regolith,
to take fingerprints from the dead.
He breathes the scenes of crimes
time after time in his own grim theatre.

Like a surgeon, he sculpts the earth,
wreaks revenge and wreckages.
Teethes soot and stones into the tired wings
of ribcages, wishbones - each one

a promise. That one day,
bulbs will breach the eyes of skulls,
that fruits will fill the skypits of the lost.
One day, these bruises will amuse, and
all that bloodrush will be just blush
beneath his skin.

.

* * *

Ta-da! The final piece in the mythology series!
_{[Yes, I'm fully aware I've missed several key gods out (including Pluto, dammit!), but 6 gods, 6 goddesses is quite a nice, balanced number.] :P}

Mars was the Roman god of war, revenge and courage, but also spring and growth in nature. That sense of rejuvenation is what I found most interesting about him.

You can see the rest of my (now complete, at least for now...) mythology series here or on my dA page.

.vulcan

2011-01-13T15:46:00.003Z

.

Dug deep beneath the earth, there is no light.
No footholds to electric nights or larvae of
synthetic flights. No future. Just Vulcan,
bone lonely, with only his primitive kind of hunger
and a longing to hear something other than
the cemetery talking, walking over him. Unearthed.

This is his forge, where the flower of amnesia,
allowing one man to rewrite another, grows molten -
blown into glass, gunpowder and pyrotechnic stars.
Past, present, but only the future scars in the dark,
this life in transition. And though over and over
he's said it's over and done with, there's always
more. Always a greed, a need for hunger.

God of fire, Vulcan sulks alone, lying low
below the mountain. Nurturing burns.
He's learned to hide his heart, smoked
and charred, but still he chokes electric,
growing on into stone.

.

* * *

Vulcan – god of fire, blacksmiths and craftsmen. His forge is beneath Mount Etna, where he forges weapons for the gods and heroes.

I've always imagined Vulcan as a wretched kind of figure, twisted with loneliness. Probably because my interpretation is based on the impression I got from the Roman Mysteries series I read when I was little (I was quite literally obsessed with it, at one point :P).

Wrote this several weeks ago now (sorry for the slow and multiple updates!), and I'm still not entirely happy with it. There's something a little iffy about the way it slots together...

You can see the rest of my mythology series here or on my dA page.

Notes From A Famine

2010-12-26T15:41:00.000Z

Lost in sleep, charting
streams consciousness forgot, she
speaks in poetry.

She raises sleepshot
eyes to find a guide – listens
to the sound of skies.

This is where the seeds
of dreams are sown – where muses
grow and feed on stars,

night air arias.
Sleep is hunger, says the Moon,
hung high and rung white.

* * *

Insomnia, again. Gah.
So tired and depressed right now. It was only to be expected, but still. I've had enough. :/

.

First time writing haikus. How did I do?

Reconstructing (De)Construction

2010-12-19T10:00:00.002Z

I'm only sleeptalking,
speaking fractured poetry -

This is how it feels, I decide,
to be fixed - no longer
building night on the inside,
but succumbing to fantastical de-
constructions, marvelling at the map
of binary constellations written
under my skin. To feel no fear
staring wide-eyed at the sun,
at old letters of rejection or
even my reflection. Knowing
she's near; understanding she's un-
done.

This is how it feels to be whole:
to watch my breath thin
and bend the glass geometry
of these bottled skies eastward
to collect the sunrise. To memorise
the way the light builds and breaks,
and to love every lost second,
each heartache.

And this is how it feels, I realise,
to sit and cry for days,
when you can only sleep
for seconds, minutes. Defiance:
knowing the weight of the world
is heavy as god, but
beautiful as her insides.

* * *

One day, I'll feel this. All of it.

Liar, Liar

2010-12-10T20:58:00.001Z

If l'appel du vide
is the urge to drown
all sense of self - to split
and accumulate bruises -
then to fabricate fables, to
forge fictions as I do
is nothing more than
poor impulse control.

I do not mean to confuse
or abuse the truth. My lies
are like thalidomide -
junkyard art shoved into being,
or the shards of
gasping hearts breaking
out of code. Making mundane myths
a la mort, a la mode; I'm caught

in distortion, pretty as drugs.
Junkie; addict. Liar, liar,
I require a fix of fiction -
the lies I tell and spin to sell.
(Some tears, a loose tooth,
the unravellings of truth.
The sum of myself out of
all that's left to give).

* * *

I'm attempting to come to terms with my own constructedness. The amount I lie – entirely pointless lies, mostly – is getting out of hand. Most of the time I don't even realise I'm doing it, it's only a while later that I'm like 'Hang on... That wasn't true. Why the hell did I even bother saying that?'
It's compulsive – like the want to throw myself under every car that drives past, the urge to fit myself into the smallest corner of my room or the sudden need to smash my wrists against something.

I don't have a clue what's going on anymore. :/

Make Like A Train, Take Tracks

2010-12-07T22:02:00.001Z

This is escape
(or so we'd like to believe) –
taking the train through nowhere
and reaching now here. We'd hoped
for such a scape of waste
land, where the sun gutters
from the sky, and our footprints measure
not distance, but scope. Where, other
than the echoes of electric exoskeletons,
hoarse codes from broken throats,
the world is mute. Colourless.

When I talk of a landscape,
I speak of this silence:
this space, this time,
and how it means forever.
An emotion bled-out,
compressed -
under snow,
under duress.

* * *

I wrote the majority of this on the train back to uni after one of the most surreal weekends ever. Whilst feeling all insubstantial and disembodied and unreal, we passed through a mini snowstorm. You could just see the pylons looming out of the white like the imprints of skeletons on fossils.

There's nothing like nowhere to get you back in the here and now.

Terra Firma

2010-12-04T14:01:00.001Z

This is an allegory; I
am not what I seem
and yet this means something.
Re-read, and you might realise
the abstraction behind my eyes -
a break like toothache
I shook to bake. Instant magic.

I talk good, you eat glass -
we do crosswords behind our backs:
each clue cryptic, a crypt.
This fable is a whole world
under the kitchen table,
curled like a cat or a cardigan
or a knife.

Life, distilled: a cold brew.
That’s what I offer you.

Across this mirror,
this terra firma,
I’ll throw my reflection
towards the light -
hoping that someday,
it might mean something
to me, too.

* * *

Hello, self. I've a story for you.
It ain't gonna be pretty, but it could be the truth, if you'll take it, if you'll make it your own.
Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.

Twickenham Garden

2010-11-18T23:43:00.001Z

The garden is dead.
The sun is spent
and the earth is sunk,
sullen. And everywhere
the scent of soil,
defeat. Deceit
in the shape of a serpent.

And here I stand:
a senseless piece
of this place; a faceless
participle caught
in the present tense,
in the I am, I make,
I do –

I make-do with the dead.
With the lost marble
limbs and the mandrake.
I suck venom from the snake
and sap the crocodile's tears,
for I do bring the spider love,
fear; that old self-traitor.

O the webs we weave –
the stones we've sown
into the horizon,
entwining spine
and time
like so much rope
round my neck.

Dream, she says,
of the age-old tale.
Sleep. Weep.
The fruits of my pilgrimage.
I'm in over my head,
and O, I know that
the garden is dead.

But this is not
the end of the world,
no -

It's just the beginning.

* * *

This is not solely my voice. It's just my take on a re-write of John Donne's Twickenham Garden.

I think all the late nights and excessive tea-drinking of uni life are finally starting to get to me: I'm actually starting to like Donne.

.jupiter

2010-11-04T23:28:00.003Z

- Is this your first time drowning?

I'd let you speak for yourself, but I note
that in your – not inconsiderable – credentials,
it states you're a compulsive liar.
And you've a throat of thunder, at that.
You've been choking back
on atelophobia ever since you woke
under turpentine skies. Wondering why
the cat has nine times to die
and you have none.

- What happened to the sun?

You know only too well.
You gripped it too tight
and snuffed out the light.
Show me your borders,
your whalebone girt,
and I'll show you the way
the rays will pucker your skin
like a Nazi lampshade.

- What about the thunder?

Yes, what about the thunder?
The way you dialled telephone numbers
on knucklebones? The way you put your ear
to the floor, one foot in the door,
and felt for a pulse?

Each of these is a symptom of acute
sickness of the mind:
labyrinth disorder and your own kind
of Stockholm syndrome.

But I'm curious -
did you ever get an answer?

- And who sent the rain?

The answer's the same;
the same old shame
burning like a bolt
through the blue -
all that's left of you.
I am the perfect mouthpiece,
the missing organ,
and you say it all
in the way your bones
groan under stress.
In the stories I spin.
And in the way you begin
to stumble as you
carry yourself
home.

* * *

Yes, the mythology series is still going!

Jupiter – ruler of the gods. God of the sky, lightning and thunder. He had many alternative names, including 'of the light', 'thunderer', 'defender of boundaries' and 'sender of rain'.

There is only one voice in the poem. He's the doctor or the politician or the priest - the mouthpiece of the gods, who really never get a voice of their own.

You can see the rest of the mythology series here or on my deviantart page.

Tales Of A Tub

2010-10-30T14:16:00.000+01:00

This is it:
the storybooks,
the soft carpets, and now,
at the end of the corridor,
the bath is running.

The water is tongueless, breathless.
I make a well in the thunder,
and shape a space for myself
to rock shut in the crux of a chemical
imbalance, this dyskrasia. It tastes
of finality: the salt of stones
and shattered wrists. Restless slumber.

But
it is also this:
my fists clenched on the future,
a destiny of my own design,
my own undoing. There is no aura,
no mystique – just a raw kind of power.
An open weakness. No more
tapping tables, knocking on would-
have-beens. I'll just lay back,
get waterlogged;

get ready to dream.

* * *

Dig, Ophelia. Just keep on digging.

This - this was painful. It's based on something that happened a while ago now, but I've never quite managed to tell anyone. I'm going through dark spaces at the moment, and I keep reliving this, over and over. Thought maybe it's time I let it breathe.

Again, sorry if this makes anyone feel uncomfortable.

Title's taken from Tale of a Tub by Plath, which this is in no way based on - it was just something I stumbled across again whilst wracking my brains for a title.

The New Zero

2010-10-28T19:56:00.004+01:00

You say
there is no sense
in long nights spent
spinning myself out of glass,
the web of imperfections that
choke out my reflection. But I'll
do it anyway: trace the scars that map
the arms, the rough husk round zerospace.
Taking each new glitch, each old, unspent
love and shaping it into formulae, answers.
And if you could only understand one
thing about me, I wish it were this:
that there are two sides to every story,
and while there's one in composition,
the other's weighting,
in position.

* * *

'God, how self indulgent, I thought, but whom should I indulge if not myself? ... [They are] battle scars. "I have a heart to break" is all it means. "I am killable". ... It was never supposed to be a way of life: it was about survival.' – Emilie Autumn, The Asylum

Sorry if this makes you feel uncomfortable – god, I know full well how it can make people feel. But it's something I felt had to be said.

Title is from this song of the same name by Rasputina. I feel it fits.

Please go and see properly formatted version of this here on my deviantart page.

Fever Pitch

2010-10-20T18:48:00.002+01:00

This is the only way I know myself:
from here to here; the clutch of gut
between an armspan. And you –
you are the whorl of pyrexia
in my chest, a knot of words
I can't quite express
except in a kind of half-rhyme,
in a rhythm that falters like a pulse.

And I know my boundaries;
that there to there's just air – a gulf
before the sure borders of your shore.
A full fathomlessness, bream-deep;
seasick retrogrades, and a thousand reams
of water to tread.

But I feel just fine,
I could run forever -

For you,
I would scale the depths
of this fever pitch,
and bring you back
what's stitched to the linings
of my ribs: too deep breaths
and a casketful of sleep.

* * *

For you.

I woke up today and realised that I am not a robot, after all.
[I am in fact, a nuke bomb, but that's another story...]

♥ Fever Pitch – The Romanovs
♥ Incident in a Medical Clinic – Rasputina
Perhaps two of my favourite love songs ever. Not that either of them is actually about love. :P

Rhetorica

2010-10-13T18:48:00.003+01:00

It is for the best (they said).
They meant the fall. But
there is only light when the sky is rent
and I have sold my soul for another attempt
at this -

the chimeric fantasies, psychosis
in the palm of a hand. It has a certain charm
about it that few would understand,
like a clam that's swallowed a pearl
and lets the ancient words uncurl
across its tongue.

My own poetic prophecies didn't turn out so well.
I drunk a whole epitaph; my own epoch
that I picked from the pockets of time.
It was a binary kind of silence, acted out
to the knitting of heels to train tracks,
the breaking open of mouths, sealed.
They said the sighs would interrupt the songs
but I never had a melody to begin with,
I never had a voice. No choice but to let
the ceiling slip; to learn to inhabit an emptiness
once more.

Sometimes I check the empty spaces
between the collarbones to make sure
I'm truly alone. Paranoia's my symbiotic,
my rhetoric, and all I know
is that when I go out
I'm never
coming
home.

* * *

There are two sides to every story. This is one of them.
It's the most wonderful and terrifying feeling. Last time, I couldn't stop laughing for hours on end until it caught up with me. Hitting earth again really hurts.

Let's play spot the reference! There are several literary/lyrical references here (from 2 songs and 2 books). Anyone who manages to guess one gets a virtual cookie. <3

I Capture

2010-10-05T23:29:00.001+01:00

Let's talk about something else.
I have decided that I am not going to grow
into anything other than who you think I am,
and that in this, I will finally be life-size;
happy. Through you, I will save myself –
memories of a scrap of civilisation, bone
china and tectonic plates - a relic
for the children of friction, clutching
at my wrist bones, my knee caps,
their scattered gravity.

Once, someone said We are all born undone,
and that we would find ourselves in nots –
the hips, the ankles, the knots of rib and spine.
The spacetime in between. I capture
the tarsal, frozen in a footprint;
you, a series of scars.

This is what I want to believe in:
the architecture of a fiction,
of a woman with a Mona Lisa smile.
I am not what I am, but what you see:
a whorl of semiotics; an artist's impression
of me.

* * *

Enough talk about me. Let's talk about you.
What do you think of me?
(L7, 'I Need')

I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons I write confessional poetry - to get someone else to answer the questions I can't.

Quote is from Moll Flanders. Which I still haven't finished. First lecture is tomorrow! :\

Sleeptalk

2010-10-01T16:41:00.004+01:00

I buried the dead
and they came up stories.
- Angle of Repose, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

I am made of a series of stumbles;
of mispronunciations and a rhyming guide
to natural histories. Nights spent revisiting
the mysteries of the frame of a lightbulb,
fish nets, home. Such screams and sleeptalk
as dreams are made on and I am torn from –
as I am forcefed a pulse and a rhythm
and a mantra to forget them all by day.

I am the tempest:
the tongue of a soothsayer,
a palm full of future; and I'll keep
sleepwalking, snowfaced,
until I have nothing left to say.

* * *

And I'm running out of words.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to touch this up later - I'm not happy with it as it stands. Just needed to write something uber-personal again because I feel like I haven't been myself in a while, and it's starting to scare the crap out of me. :\

Now back to my reading list! [/procrastination]

Angle of Repose is an insanely amazing song, I love it so.
Also, Shakespeare references ftw!

.Liquid Mercury

2010-09-20T17:58:00.005+01:00

Writers-Workshop is holding a workshop on concrete poetry at the moment, and since it's been quite a while now since I last entered one, I was determined to rustle up something for it.

So here we are, a visual/concrete version of .mercury.

Please go and see the full-sized deviation here. For some reason this has gone all blurry in the resizing... :|

Stock:
+ Texture from Insan-Stock
+ Photo by moi

You can read the rest of the mythology series here and here.

.mercury

2010-09-16T19:39:00.004+01:00

.

It is the magnetism that brings him back,
back, to the indigenous days of May, with its
terrestrial tilt and cadence of moonshine.
That, or the wide smile of a rift – a chink
or broken link in time.

That's it: it's simply scientific, he tells himself;
the puckered truths, traded dreams, the guilt –
it's all just a trick of kinetics, the fevered frictions
(or fictions) of the messenger. Esoterics.

But still. It's with pursed lips he meets the rip –
the shafts of split light that belt Orion
like snakes stitched at the hip, or a cruel twist
of fate, quick as silver. And this time there's no note
for him to relay or relate, because Mercury believes
that no one could be quite so helter-skelter,
so hand-to-mouth
as he.

.

* * *

Mercury was the Roman god of trade, profit, merchants and travellers, and acted as messenger for the gods. His main festival, the Mercuralia, was celebrated in May, and his symbols were the caduceus (a staff with two intertwined snakes) and a purse (hoho, moar wordplay, oh yes). The word mercurial is derived from his name, meaning something/someone volatile or unstable.

Inspired by this wonderful poem by the lovely archelyxs and Virginia Woolf (the final phrase is taken from a line in 'To The Lighthouse' - 'everyone could not be so helter-skelter, so hand to mouth as she was'.

Check out the rest of the mythology series here or here.

* * *

Finally, another mythology poem! (:

Sorry about the wait, things have been getting a little more hectic lately what with uni looming so close, and I've still got loads to fit-in in my final week at home. But I felt I really needed to write something, just to reassure myself that I still can.

It's a really weird feeling, knowing that everything's about to change. I've been trying to see the past few months as a really long holiday rather than just a limbo, but now I'm starting to realise just how much I've got to leave behind; how much of a new weight I'm going to have to take on. It's exciting, yes, but hella scary too. :P

But in the meantime, I've been trying to fit in seeing everyone for the last time (my friends and I are holding several farewell Midnight Tea Parties to mourn the temporary loss of each other), buying loads of new crap (I now own cooking utensils! Be very afraid...) and just generally sitting round feeling exhausted and listening to the entire discography of L7 on repeat. Good times...

Earthspun

2010-09-10T21:03:00.003+01:00

Home is held in a dark place, a dank place,
beneath the musted plates of glass where, once,
I curled and crept into the rusting lungs of some cabbagepatch god.
Here, words are trapped, tapped into the husks
of my fingernails, the mouldering beds of marrow.

In the silence, I have learned to turn and face the wall;
to let the earth knot and clot in the back of my throat.
My tongue is swollen to a bulb: a stopped geranium that’s fixed to falter,
enthralled by the depths at which I can slumber without
going under. In this silence, I have learned to burn

and breathe beneath my breadth. O the beauty of usage!
I will weight in this angle of repose till I am fully gorged.
And then, when I seed and sleep, my bones will grow and strike their maps
of rot and roots below, to a Mother who is all glut, all mouth.
I will be sown - a row of milk teeth and raw kidney stones –
into the gut of the undergrowth.

I am already half unstrung, and plumped for hunger.

Just a little longer –
till I am gone to the ground, till I am sleeping sound
amidst the cracked vowels of the earthspun song.

Just a little longer
till I truly belong.

* * *

Alternative title: Sowing Stones in Glass Houses

More mythology poems are coming soon, I promise! But first, this: my entry for Lit-Community's contest, of which the theme is 'belonging'.

There are several references here to Plath's poem Who, which is the first in the Poem for a Birthday sequence (on which this is also based).

Operation Enduring -

2010-09-04T22:43:00.006+01:00

Once in a while, it rains. And it rains hard.
A dislocated pictogram remains of the past:
the shafts of broken glass, the wedding ring picked
from the ash, the rag and bone anatomy that’s
strewn across the street. Under the tin shell of a bunker,
the people stuttered to defeat whilst waiting out the storm,
watching as the debris of their lives is sunk into the sands
of Helmand province. A man laid waste land.

This is home, someone says of a lean-to:
a couple of knotted sheets and the smell of old blood.
Next door houses heartache, Hell.
There’s an open wound in the concrete
where it’s been beaten back into a gaping,
a hunger. The children linger round the rim
like restless spirits; red-eyed, bent-backed, thin;
their skin scarred and puckered by the indents
of a rib cage, the shards of shoulder blades.
The throb of leaden hearts. This is a place

where the sky closes over heads
and mountains, sealing secrets; the broken
teeth and bones. Where a legion of poppies
raise their opiate eyes, open-mouthed at how
quickly the children can find themselves lost,
unborn.

Here and there, a stack of rubble slumps
like a charnel house or a cairn of cold stones,
which must leave them something like a sickness
for home.

* * *

My entry for Penessence's contest Afghanistan: The Pity of War.

Finally, something new. The process of writing this took several days, and even now I'm not sure it's quite as I want it to be. War poetry is not really my area, so I did a bit of research into the genre. I found some wonderful examples here, if anyone's interested.

Oh, and some more good news! Recently my poem .vesta was awarded a Daily Deviation over on dA. This is a pretty big thing for me, since it's an award I've wanted ever since I first joined dA (which is over four years ago now, eek!), so I'm super happy. :)

And do you remember that piece I wrote a while ago, Dog Days? Well, I won first place in The Flame(s) contest!

Muses and News

2010-08-29T20:44:00.005+01:00

So, my laptop is currently suffering from some lovely kind of virus, which won’t let me do anything on the computer – no internet, no opening files, no nothing. I have to use my laptop in safe mode, which, if you've ever used, you'll know is incredibly clunky and slow, and generally infuriating.

This is making it difficult for me to write anything at the moment – seeing as I write everything on the computer because of the massive amount of drafts and edits I go through for each piece. Added to that, I seem to be running dry on inspiration, which is never a good thing. I need to find new methods of self-inspiration. Perhaps a trip out to somewhere cultural (the middle-of-nowhere where I live is a bit lacking in 'points of interest')? A change in weather would be nice, too. Divine intervention, anybody?

But my writing-life isn't all bad. Lately I've been lucky enough to get a couple of features around dA: a DLD on my piece .vesta (my third, hehe), this week's featured member in the wonderful group TheWrittenRevolution (which has been an amazing help to me over the past few months; it has loads of fantastic members, many of whom have helped me improve my writing through their helpful comments and feedback), and a lovely journal feature of my mythology series from the wonderful KneelingGlory - who is a far better writer than I can ever hope to be (*cough* goreadherworknow *cough*). As always, it's a surprise and an honour, and a definite cheerer-upper whilst my laptop has died. :D

.neptune

2010-08-25T20:21:00.003+01:00

.

After the months spent in utero, walking feels strange.
Ground is sound in colour, synaesthesia beneath the heels,
watered down to reveal a horizon of endless blue, and Neptune.
Opening himself like a oracle. He is all mouth: a throat
of thunder, teeth a string of binary numbers. Kether of kelp,
barnacle bones strewn in every bottled message, each letter of
HELP scrawled into the shoreline. A missing-person clue.

Feet rubbed raw, he heads for the ocean, where those water-
logged wishers wash such surface wounds with their salted tears.
It's a pain that's only real when you're reeling, that you can only
find when hanging from fish-hooks and the coral-plugged ceilings
in the backwaters of your mind, though it's hidden behind
every dark glass. Basketcase, they may have said, but it's a fatal
tendency to identify the whole being with one interest,

and this will give him a certain distinction when he's dead;
an heir of tragedy. He looks out to sea, and sees white horses
ride the rip tide, dragging their kelpie cries and their jesus hair
through the air. They seem almost to catch and cloy, buoyed by
their bloated bodies. He would rather breathe water. But no –
he's over-exposed, caught under x-ray, so that only the bones show
through, blue-blooded. And by this, he knows, he's finally found his way
home.

.

* * *

Neptune was the god of water, the sea and (quite randomly, I feel) horses in Roman mythology.

The final stanza of this poem pays quite heavy tribute to Sylvia Plath's Medusa - one of my favourites.

The line 'a fatal tendency to identify the whole being with one interest' is a quote from critic A.C. Bradley describing the fatal flaw of Shakespearean tragic heroes. It's one I had to learn for my English Lit. exam which has stuck with me.

And if anyone's wondering what the hell this is all about, it's about the mother. It's always about the mother.

You can see the rest of my ever-growing mythology series here or here.

.apollo

2010-08-23T19:21:00.005+01:00

.

Apollo, sleepcrawler, trawls the sky between day and night.
Behind him, the sun enters like a dreamer, shattered. Kite-
boned and obstinate, he soars toward time, dragging the raw
white eye of light, fixed inside beside the solar plexus.
Just another dead weight.

This, he knows, is important. There are few things you can learn
from a ball of burning gas and light eight minutes too late, but
from his aerial migrations he's made several notations on life.

One : to shoot stars, you must become bulletproof. Collect your
heirlooms in the hatch of the attic, patch the holes in your roof,
and learn to read braille by lunarlight.

Two : only one who fell was ever an angel. Try to fix fictitious
fractures by splint or flint, one crude paper wing at a time.
Repeat for any rip or tear you find in the fabric of the universe.

Three : he's not star-struck, he speaks only the truth. And he's just
realised that only the weak use their eyes – and that in these bones,
you can hear the horizons sing.

.

* * *

Finally, another proper update! And yes, this series is still ongoing... :)

Apollo was the Roman god of music, healing (who taught man medicine), truth (he supposedly couldn't lie) and the god of light. It was believed that every day he harnessed the sun to his chariot and pulled it across the sky. He was often portrayed as an archer.

The line 'only the weak use their eyes' is a from a song by The Romanovs called King. It's one of my latest obsessions.
And the line 'in these bones, / you can hear the horizons sing.' is a reference to the words on The Millennium Centre in Cardiff, 'in these stones horizons sing'.

And, as always, I'm going to have to ask you to see this in its proper format here on my dA. There's probably some way of formatting on blogger that I'm just too lazy to figure out, but nevermind.

You can see the rest of this (now quite epic) series here or here.

Libertine

2010-08-18T20:49:00.001+01:00

i.
I am practising being a dead man walking - exactly the kind of game that it's easy to emerge from, carrying on, figuring that you are determined to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred, zen.
Libertarianism is just one step away from anarchy, they said. And it is. But it's also one step away from independence and getting out of the shelters of altitudes; the atmospheric pressure. Life is not easy here, where space is on the other side, the outside.

ii.
One man smiled and said I am worried that there's something not quite kosher going on here.
But I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination, and imagination is more important than wondering on the inside.

* * *

I am just one step away, and sometimes it's nice to speak in tongues that are not my own.

This is my first attempt at a poegle, made from the phrase 'I am just one step away'.
Made for fun, really; I'm just trying anything and everything to distract myself from thinking about the impending doom of my A2 exam results tomorrow.

.juno

2010-08-15T17:08:00.004+01:00

.

Summer seeps back into focus once again, and Juno
spends the moonless nights bending back into spilt-
oil images of sleep, lulled slick in a gulf cradle. She
dreams of tar babies, dredged from the deep, sucking
thumbs and fingers that spread oceanwide with the tide.
Each cry is sunken to a slumber, whilst someone shuffles
and mumbles excuses about fishbones caught in throats
and how no-one knew nightmares could float on water.

Only with heels congealed together could the tar children
translate the runes of an ocean beaten back into the ruins
of its own past, or understand how casting hydrocarbon-cut
ruts in the sea floor has scarred the shore. And only Juno,
hand-on-heart-on-sleeve (-Queen of kerosene, the god-breathed
babies and every marine casualty that slept too soon-) can realise
why the insides of the earth were uprooted in the pursuit
of persistently plastic things.

.

* * *

I've been meaning to write about the gulf oil disaster for ages, but it has taken me a while to think of the right words to use to write it with both shame and respect. Unfortunately, I don't think writing about this can ever be too late to be relevant.

Juno was the queen of the Roman gods, protector and special counsellor of the state. One of her titles was 'she who brings children into the light'.

~~The line 'of persistently plastic things' is definitely not a reference to the lyrics of Angle of Repose by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum).~~

More mythology poems:
.diana
.ceres
.vesta
.venus
.minerva

.minerva

2010-08-10T21:52:00.004+01:00

.

Dawn, and Minerva murmurs from the riverbank.
She's watching scrolls of blue mist drag the lake,
unfurling remnants of a drowned world in its wake:
a glint of fish-tail scales, the torn leaves of love letters,
the bloated bulk of a plastic bag.

She takes a piece of each and logs them in her book
of things she took from history, picked from the pockets
of time. Each has a story to tell: a singed feather; an empty
snail shell. The twisted limb of a tree. Each sings
with its own broken flutings, its own fractured poetry.

When the rivulet where we are borne and met dredges up
the dawn's tribute, Minerva's on the edge, waiting to pluck
these fragments of convoluted memories from the deep.
She marvels at each scientific discovery found as the night
bites down on day, and the shattered sounds of time travel
each relic makes in sleep.

.

* * *

Alternative title: Of Natural History ~~(which is definitely not a reference to a certain album by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum)~~

Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom, poetry, science, learning and magic, and she was credited as being the inventor of music.

Again, I'm going to have to ask you to please see this in it's proper format here on my dA.

More mythology poems:
.diana
.ceres
.vesta
.venus

Dog Days

2010-08-09T18:25:00.004+01:00

This year, the dog days flung
a layer of smog over Moscow;
hung a stray aurora glow
over smoke-choked streets.
A fleet of trees, collapsed black
on themselves like matryoshka dolls,
was licked clean by the keen
tongues of flames – a scar
beneath the wildfire eye
of the dog star.

* * *

BBC News: Dense wildfire smog grips Moscow in heatwave

Of course, this is a problem that is still ongoing. I just wanted to write something in awe of the dystopian beauty and sheer horror of it all.

For a 50-word lit contest, The Flame(s). I haven't entered a contest in ages, so the challenge was nice.

More mythology poems are in the works, never fear. :)

.venus

2010-08-08T20:09:00.004+01:00

.

Venus broke the night. She sucked back the stars
and started to shine with her own brightness. Sick
of cold equations and mathematical divisions, all
these diametric fixations, she preyed for a collision;
for the moon to tap into the craters beneath her fingernails.
This, she called The Pruning – the sculpting of Edens
out of satellites and solar winds, wound round her sides.

She’s tithed to her own tides, moodswung as a river
cut through her insides. She's happiest when her blood
is flooded with lovers swept into her depths, sunk into
astral sockets and crater lakes. Dreamdrunk on Venus'
sweet venom, bloated with pride, they float with the tide
as it seeps in, and take their place beneath her skin.
Feeding her Edens' deep sleep in their terra of love.

But alone, she sits and counts on fibreglass fingers,
interlocked in herringbone knots, and the loveless
dove tales of each pigeon-toed goddess. Solo,
she splinters no night, just whispers like a morning scar.

.

* * *

This is it, dear readers - this is as romantic as I get.

Venus is the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty, gardening and vineyards.

The poem also makes a lot of allusions to Venus, the planet, which was named after her. It is often called the 'Morning Star', as it's the brightest natural object in our skies after the Moon. Venus used to have a Moon itself, until they collided. It has a pocked and cratered surface, with several continents, all named after other goddesses of love - including Aphrodite Terra.

More mythology poems:
.diana
.ceres
.vesta

.vesta

2010-08-05T20:34:00.006+01:00

.

It is time. We feel the pull of summer along our spines
as we head into hibernation. Bed is short respite for our leaden limbs,
our singed hair. The air aches with the wait of it, where the embers
click and sing like crickets. Snippets of sound from the underground.
"This," someone says, wide-eyed with awe, "is what the insides
of the earth look like" - the world beneath, struck through with
dragons' teeth, pocked with open sores. The slit smile of the crater
in a slack jaw. Our scarred skies are littered with lights, many
mechanical suns spun into the ceiling, glinting like electric sequins.

And in the middle of it all, where our tracks meet, lies Vesta,
incomplete. The heat seeps from her as she speaks neat,
untranslatable lines of words, tapped out as if on a bell.
She's a shell and she knows it, tied heart to hearth. She hears
the earth and extracts, repeats an exact echo. Sometimes
she's nearly crushed by the rush of words, spilling into the air
like prayers, but by now we know how to piece her back together.
The boughs of hair that map the family tree; the jigsaw of bones;
the singed rings round her coalstone eyes. The slack jaw.

Three hundred and ninety one summers we have huddled down here.
We tell Vesta to rest, but she won't hear of it, ears fixed to the floor.
"You're sick," we say, feeling for her burning temples, the flames
of fever staking their claim, "and we won’t stand for it anymore!"
She's tired, can hardly lift her head, but she cries like a child
when she hears what we've said. "After everything I did for you –
sang songs stamped in amber, rocked you to sleep-" She quakes and weeps.
After each rebuild, breaking is easy. We simply take her apart; pluck out
her heart. She lies Promethean, slack. Her split sides smiling wide.

We turn our backs, and only then we learn
that we have nothing left to burn.

.

* * *

I think this one requires a little more explanation to get some of the references (and some of my bad puns!). Vesta was the Roman goddess of the hearth, home, family and fire. Her presence was symbolised by a sacred fire that burned continually at her temples until worship of her - and all other public pagan worship - was banned in Rome in 391.

Prometheus was the guy that stole fire from the gods and as punishment was tied to a rock and had his liver eaten out of him every day (which is actually Greek mythology, but never mind).

I heard someone say "This is what the insides of the earth look like" whilst visiting some caves in Kefalonia, and for some reason it kind of stuck with me. So thanks for the inspiration, random stranger! :)

More mythology poems:
.diana
.ceres

.ceres

2010-08-04T21:00:00.005+01:00

.

Harvest rolls round again. We root up the ground, and in the remains,
bury our dead. One day, it’s said, she’ll just stop loving us. Stop giving.
There is a limit to all things. To every word, half-bitten back
in the cheek; to every outstretched reach; to every breath, choked
down. Ceres, the devoted. The sorrowing. Note: the two are remote
yet inseparable. To mother is to hold love in one hand, loss in the other,
and fix them into the bone cradle of your chest, right and left.
It is a savage rite of passage.

So when Ceres steps from cities of corn to streets of crowded houses,
the fields of open mouths seem to glut, swallow her up. She sees
her ruched brown seeds feed those who hunger, not those who need,
and it shakes her to the core. No more the mother of all - just grass.
We see her now through a glass, darkly, as she breaks, face by face. Our traced
smiles sewn stark, child’s eyes swapped for magpies’. Greed is gold.
Love is loss. Her tears flow fertile as she folds, breaks down into the land -
bone in bowel, heart in hand.

.

* * *

Two poems in as many days? I must be on a roll! See, I wasn't lying about the whole mythology series thing either!

Ceres is described as the Eternal Mother, the Sorrowing Mother, goddess of agriculture, crops, civilisation, and the love a mother bears for her child. She was protectress of women, motherhood, marriage, and her worship involved fertility rites and rites for the dead.

Please do read this in its proper format on my dA page.

More mythology poems:
.diana

.diana

2010-08-03T18:00:00.003+01:00

.

There will be thick sleep tonight. Drugged on the dull anaesthesia of lullabies,
even the anchorless feel the tug of the deep, consuming like a love, a hunger.
Above, the moon sucks in the sky like a craving, wide-eyed. Dilate. Diana ditched
the forest for the midnight; she's stitched herself to the undersides of stars.
She spears and speaks through the mouths of clouds. Moondrunk, she's sunk
into the currents of our mumbled conversations; our fumbled demonstrations
of humanity. Hunting a heartbeat amongst a fleet of ghosts.

Sleep is her uncountry; the estuary that feeds her sea of sky. She steers
past the arms of drowned suns and daughters that reach from the waters.
Taking names, notes. Traces of heartbreak in the wake of her boat.

War-torn wishers, we flit and fall like sycamore seeds, feeling not high, but afloat.
Even here she hounds us, smiling like a child, dog-hearted. She is ellipsis, eclipse,
the call of the wild slipped behind the scythes of her fingernails. We close
on the guise of the city, the immutable face of a father, and collapse back
to our tiny premature deaths: sleepscorched breath and the smell of surgery.
Flight, distilled. Diana sits and sighs, the virgin queen, unravelling the night
into morphine; saline; the salt of sleepdust rusting round the eyes.

.

* * *

I wrote a lot about sleep whilst I was away. This is largely made up of ideas I salvaged from the wreckage of my attempt at a longer project...
Anyway, at least Greece (and its amazing mythology) was inspirational. I might make a series of these.

Also, some exciting news! Guess who's been given the chance to join the questioning panel for dA's An Audience with Margaret Atwood as part of their 10th birthday celebrations? Hell yes. :D

(R)evolve

2010-07-11T18:44:00.003+01:00

daughter of wind and water, caught in a corner
at birth, i was cut
from birdnests of radio wires and disconnected
phone cords by earthworms,
and formed from jurassic dust. for me,
life is the in-between,
where i must parachute endlessly, cutting seams
into the sky – markers
of strewn hearts for the cliff-top gulls to pick clean.
sitting pretty, smug;
clammed shut as a pill bug. queen of voiceless calls,
i revolve.
that is, until i evolve, and hit the freefall -

when all that's left will be dug
deep. my spine,
laced with loose stones;
my barnacle-studded bones.
i'll root with heather,
teeth and hair,
and weave a kether of ferns
for me to wear
as i break from air
and turn,
and knot
into the clot of sleep.

* * *

GAH! WHY IS BLOGGER FORMATTING SO UNBELIEVEABLY CRAP - NAY, NON-EXISTENT!?
Ahem, in other words, please please read this in its proper format here. It just doesn't make sense without the structure.

Inspired by my holiday on the Jurassic Coast. In fact, I wrote most of the basis of this on a deserted cliff top. It's the kind of place where you feel like you've been enveloped, caught between three senders - earth, sea and sky - and you're lost, but so definitely there. Surreal, yet very real.

All Our Fair Ladies

2010-07-10T12:56:00.002+01:00

In conversation with the cannibal kids,
cut and paste under city lights,
I began to sense
that something wasn't right.
We’d talked of kidneythieves, broke-
backed beliefs and the stolen babies
of beauty queens, and each of these
the kids seemed to cull out their shells
with an atavistic precision. They cut
their words with care - the reversed
thirst of a drought, turned inside out -
whilst sucking back martinis of mud,
bloody-beaked.

And though the signposts said 'beware',
I never thought the lion’s lair
would be up-market, fashion-knit, clear-cut.
But now, I see these city streets
harbour the secrets of the meat
market; where even the sky tries
to throw off its reflection, caught fleetingly
off the tops of skyscrapers;
those downtown castles
the kids have kinged.

There's no escape:
the kids have run rings
round all our fair ladies -
there's no 'if', 'but' or 'maybe',
just a wall.
Too vast to measure, too tall
to scale; if you stand up close,
you might not realise it was there
at all, though your nose was pressed
against glass: a looking glass
we cannot surpass, that reveals only
the small compass of our prison.

For the cannibals catch their corpses
in the fashion spreads - catalogue
of gaunt faces, matchstick legs
and the vacuous eyes of the latest
post-apocalyptic girl.
The pages cry out perfection:
(immortal and impossible)
the cannibals' lips curl.

I walk in dreams of mushroom clouds,
pallid paper smoke, and choke
on the expectations of a society
that would have me shrink,
silenced.
When, for all their sharp suits,
smooth tongues and fluted throats,
you could almost mistake the lies
these kids promote
as something 'civilised'.

* * *

More feminist / socio-political poetry! This time inspired by Naomi Wolf's 'The Beauty Myth'.
(Plus, 'Duchess of Malfi' reference!)
Again, blogger hates poetry, so please read this in its proper format here.

Yes, I'm back! And I've finished school forever. Now there's just a big gaping hole in my life which I'm meant to fill somehow. Endings are easy, it's just where you're left stranded afterwards that's the hard part.

Sunday's Child Speaks To Sleep

2010-06-27T12:56:00.004+01:00

Once upon a Sunday, I saw god
and she looked like you – moon-eyed insomnia
collecting sleep-dust at the elbows, rusting
ball-joints. She chewed the chalk-lit skies
as they curved chromatic into my stiff yellow collarbones,
and swept up the night. She was busy setting suns
and settling the air, but she took the time
to answer my prayer in lullaby tones.
"Sleep is wrong", she said, simply.
And I agreed. Because alone,
I see you clearer –
hiding behind your rag doll physics as you rip
one day from the next with the kiss of death-
in-life, you shallow breather. Caught on the cusp
of your muchness, I have always been
your interrupted
girl;

sucking the warmth from your kerosene fingers
whilst counting the cloud-bodied creatures
with their faces of the blackout. Sometimes
there are whole nights unbroken,
of plump and pregnant hush; baited spaces
of uneaten breath. Your psalms of silence.
And then sometimes
I hear only the sheep speak
in their tongue of Morse Code,
clicking out heartbeats
as they tap their trials into my veins.
I count their cries on fingers,
but their bleats bleed like rain
and I soon run out of digits.

It seems, (as god said), that
I could learn to love you
if you didn’t smother me.
If you didn’t stifle me so completely
with your windowless pitch
and night-sheep that breathe fumes
to choke the lights. I am Sunday's child,
but you unplugged the sun
I sung to and left me
voiceless, orphaned. Now
I’m just a child who cries when her star sleeps
and your atrophic echoes litter
the ceiling, scattered blackly; latching
onto the backs of my eyelids.
You never did understand
that I only need one shadow. So
I made a promise to cling to my
unbroken daybreak immortality:
Never to let go; never
to close my eyes; never to get lost
in your fathomless deep -

and that when I grow up
I’m never going to sleep.

* * *

[Please see this poem in it's proper format here.]

I was born on a Sunday. This may explain a lot.

Sleep and I have a weird relationship. Sometimes I'm continually exhausted and think of nothing else but sleep; other times I can’t think why I ever need to sleep at all. I'm not sure whether the idea of it – a limbo of unconsciousness between the days – comforts or terrifies me.
The longest I haven’t slept for is 4 days or so. Apparently you go mad at 5, and die at about 10. It's a good thing that 'never' is a continually shrinking time span nowadays.

For the record, I’m not sure whether this is serious or nonsensical. The line between the two has blurred too much recently.

'When I grow up I'm never going to sleep
When I grow up I'm never going to cry
When I grow up I'm never going to try
When I go out I'm never coming home
When I grow up I'm never going to die.'
- 'Sleep is Wrong', Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Terra's Revision Playlist

2010-06-20T18:47:00.006+01:00

We've all been there. Revision is the dullest thing since England's World Cup matches (or even – le gasp – the dullest blog in the world). In order to prevent yourself from doing something stupid to throw off the boredom, like suicide or listening to your sisters throw insults at one another for an hour or so (then suicide), you need something to counteract the sheer dullity of revision notes. That something is music.
So here are my top five albums (yes, albums – single songs are too insubstantial to have any real effect in counteracting the monotony that is my study leave life) for revision.

* * *

I:Scintilla – Prey On You
So the album 'Dying and Falling' has been set back a few months (/eons). But if it's anything like their latest EP, then it'll be well worth the wait. 'Prey On You' marks a definite shift in the industrial band's sound to a more EBM-inspired electro-beat. They've certainly been studying their Ayrias and their Zombie Girls – Seb Konor even does a remix of the title track which has the exact same synths as Creepy Crawler, I swear. They seem more willing to give the synths a greater voice and give Brittany's vocals a rest for a while, striking a nice balance.
Stand-out tracks: Prey On You and Hollowed.

Jack Off Jill – Humid Teenage Mediocrity
We all know revision has the power to completely destroy all positivity. Well, Jessicka knows your pain and your frustration. In fact, she's the queen of teenage angst – and nowhere is this clearer than 'HTM'. This compilation of non-album tracks and blunt-edged originals is all the more hard-hitting for its lo-fi punk undertones. Nothing compliments Jessicka's Kat Bjelland-style angelic to banshee-like vocals better.
Stand-out tracks: Bruises are Back in Style, Girlscout (I couldn’t find the 'HTM' version on youtube, so this is the ‘Sexless Demons and Scars’ album version. Not as good, imo, but nevermind) and Cockroach Waltz.

Räuberhöhle – Deep in the Forest
If you're looking for something to cheer you up rather than wallow in, Räuberhöhle is probably of more interest (this is about as close to pop as I get, so be excited!). The German retroclash singer's musical blend of retroclash, 8-bit chiptronica and lo-fi 'revolution girl style' punk gives you hope that the spirit of riot grrrl is still very much alive and kicking down the glass ceilings of the underground. 'Every Day More and More Ppl Are Going Radical' even samples Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl' – what more can you ask for? Oh, and if puppets, sparkly-pink capes, and people dressed as bears is your thing, then you're in for a treat.
Stand-out tracks: Every Day More and More Ppl Are Going Radical and Angry Dancy.

Kidneythieves - Zerospace
There's nothing lo-fi about Kidneythieves' industrial music. When listening to 'Zerospace', you get the sense that every second of electro-beat, synth and noise has been carefully thought out, and the resulting sound is very polished and clear-cut: what I like to call 'the Collide effect'. Free's lyrics are intelligent and her vocals extremely versatile – she covers just about every vocal technique known to man over the course of this album. The result is a diverse range of tracks; something to suit every mood.
Stand-out tracks: Zerospace, Crazy and Before I'm Dead.

Stolen Babies – There Be Squabbles Ahead
Strangely, someone recommended Stolen Babies on a Kidneythieves page. Trust me: they sound nothing alike. I'm thankful for the recommendation though, because 'TBSA' is a great album – nay, an amazing album. Stolen Babies have a truly unique sound with a wide sphere of influences that largely defies genres – the closest you'll get is circus-inspired punk avant-garde metal (or something along those lines). If avant-garde metal sounds a bit daunting – the genre is known for its experimental heavy metal eccentricity – then don't fret: Stolen Babies combine the instrumental-weirdassness of bands like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Unexpect with the more melodious sounds of a dark cabaret. Dominique is one of the most talented vocalists I have ever heard, and their music has probably the best punk/funk-inspired bass I have heard since Lunachicks' Squid Silver. Besides, anyone who makes the accordion badass deserves respect, right?
Stand-out tracks: seriously, the whole album is note-worthy, but if I had to choose, they'd be Filistata, So Close and Tablescrap.

* * *

I hope that's brightened up your revision experience - or at least made it more interesting! And remember; the end is now in sight!

From Rags to Riches

2010-06-16T17:36:00.004+01:00

HELL YES, my friends. YES.

Remember ages ago I wrote that poem for a Born Again lit contest? Well, my poem, 'Rag and Bone', won the poetry section! *insert image of Terra crazy-dancing with joy here*

Finally, something good comes out of exam leave (two down, one to go!)...

Double Helix

2010-06-10T22:03:00.006+01:00

All I ever wanted was to be simple - right like a well-done sum and broken down to a number in the singular; the answer to end all answers. But then someone left the phone off the hook, cut the [dis]connection and I was left stumbling over silences. To survive, I became a shell for words; a cup for floods – a receiver for all unspoken correspondence.
That was when all I ever wanted turned to downpours, and I lost myself in the rain.

Now, I am
a tangle of wires and loose connections; swallow-strung lines and faulty safety switches. I am the love of liars for words with the lick of life that give false impressions a heartbeat and hands to grip a jealous chest.
I am knees that knock on hardwood floors, bitten lips and fingers that knot themselves over and over, until they are stitched tight and I am undone. I am the trees growing on the underground and the birds humming between the lines, scratching track marks into skin.
I am the water locked in neptune skies, where hoverflies are caught in submarine eyes just before the rain starts to fall. Then, in watercolour landscapes, I am fixed-fluvial - thought interrupting thought interrupting thought interrupting the soundspaces of ceiling-scapes; tongue-tied shoelaces and spatial oddities. I am the daughters rocked shut in the crux of a double helix.

I am dyscrasia, slipping between the steps, the cracks in the pavement. A temporal disconnection: a formula without a face. I am a television between channels, waiting for the storm to pass so service can continue. I am insomnia with eyes the size of moons, pitted against the black of planets and the back of the sun, spinning reflections out of glass.
I am a means to an end. I make a fine fit for outstretched hands; a mouthful of split ends, spitting oceans that are deep and dark as lies; as cavernous as the pits of stones. I am the aching seams of dreams, splitting, splitting -

I am a placebo spaced between teeth, the god tablet, opening and closing on one-one-one- moment spent moving in fast-forward-motion just to look like I had a purpose, a meaning, a definition.
I am as tall as my shadow, tall as stories.

I am king of the silver skulled muses, and I am choking. I’m choking. I’m ch-

* * *

Forgive me, revision sends me crazy (or crazier, as the case may be)...

Yet more attempts at self-definition. But I still think this song does it better than I ever could.

(No, it doesn't make any sense either).

On the plus-side: prose-poem! Yay! Haven't written one of these in ages!

The Salt of Stones

2010-06-04T21:21:00.002+01:00

Some say that opulence
can be spurned from trash,
beauty cut from carbon, and
minted cash spat from the hands
of the dirt-poor to form the monoliths
of the rich that rise tall -
but they forget
that before we stand, we crawl:
shaping love into our kneecaps
and the snaps of our brittle bones.
We’ve been suckled from the salt of stones
and the peaceable scrawls of our old
apostles’ apathy, which we emulate
with the empty coal-toned bleats
of shackled sheep.

And though we speak
of angels and dove-tail
rhetoric, what makes us who we are
is not some higher being, or some flicker
of the supernatural, but our god-tongued
culture: the lick of colour and crescendo
in each flag we strive to thrive under. For
we may pray to the beleaguered skyspaces, but
we’re only prey to our own parasitic verse; the traces
of each concrete cleft we’ve cradled,
stitched and nursed.

Now we’ve bled our grassroots dry.
Our earth is worn and ember-dead, mined
cold, while our ‘scrapers split the sky.
Tithed to a god who always aches for more,
bent-backed, all we’re left with
are the kidney stones that clatter
and clack. The flinted lip
has become a fissure, stitched.

Reality is what we’re led
to believe; what we want to perceive -
we know only what society shows
is true; what can be gleaned from a city
that spits in smokescreen tones.
Who we are is what we spend: we’re
just the means to our own end. Like match-sticks
we’re made to burn – black or blue –
and only the head-stones have learned
to savour the wordlessness
of truth.

* * *

I've been meaning to write something more political for a while, but I was hoping for something a little more clear-cut and focused...

Being ill muddles my thoughts. And this is probably far more coherent than the timed essays I've written in the past few days (oh dear).

Inspired by Angelspit’s 'Ditch the Rest' (and the whole of their 'Hideous and Perfect' album, whilst the title is taken from a song by I:Scintilla.

Lion-Hearted Girl

2010-05-31T20:16:00.002+01:00

It was the cold that finally did it;
drove me inside the wardrobe
where I curled up and closed off.
It was safe there, hemmed in
amongst the coloured wool sweaters,
the neatly pressed t-shirts and the flat
paper ghosts, hanging –
as if in suspense - with breath
baited, stagnated. Their air thick
and warm like syrup, sweet narcotic
cloying in my throat,
dragging me deep like a lullaby
to somewhere dull and safe
as sleep.

But outside, I can still hear you:
a ghost, roaming your own
card-plated home, clawing at the door -
You! Whatcha hiding in there for?
Get out here now – you can’t keep running
away forever, y'know! It's pathetic! (Or,
as the case may be, parenthetic –
just a pause to let me catch my [your]
breath) D'you think I can ignore
this? All your mumbling and
rocking and crying and lip-biting
tumbles as you trip, tongue-tied,
knock-kneed, to Narnia? You
(never could understand how I got lost

in every moment of mouths that opened
over my head, whilst you bore down,
god-sized, well-wintered) think this
is what life is all about,
do you? Being locked up
in that bird-brained-cage of yours,
trying to coax feathers from your spine?
Well it's about time
you grew up, (or even, grew in
to this mind, which still seems
too cavernous; a lonely throne
to fill) and picked yourself up
off that floor. You don’t need help,
just some sense (and sensitivity, but what’s
the difference?). You!
You ain’t nevernevernever
gonna amount to anything
anymore (except a lot of knots
of bones and nerves and intestines –
but, oh God, take them all! Which witch,
in which wrist, is this? Now she's in them,
they're full of flaws!) That's it;
let your head hang - it's all
you'll ever be good for.

Here, you pause, definitively.
Still not adjusted
to this brightness, my eyes are sore.
You always blocked the light
from my skyspace; my one glimmer
of hope. You, and your
cannibal imperatives, your sharp-clawed
verbs. You grip me like a noun, tight,
between two hangman’s hands. 'You'
is a mantra, sewn to my chest. You
are the curse
with which I am blessed.
Oh break-

fast heart! You'll gnaw
my innards, else I rest.
But, steel-lipped though you may be,
maybe I've learned
to steel myself too.
Curled quiet inside my make
shift escapist world; hugged close
in the whorl of a wardrobe,
(either/or)
I've learned to emulate the lion's roar.

* * *

This is the last of my old creative writing club draft re-writes, and I think this one turned out best (probably because it's changed the most! haha). Actually, this was originally in prose, but it only made up the first stanza, which has been almost exactly replicated here, just in poetic form.

Inspired by (hopefully, quite obviously) 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S. Lewis and an amazing poem called Granma Crow. I wanted to work on my dialogues again, and getting the meanings/plots of my poems clearer to the reader. Hopefully I have succeeded - but you'll have to let me know what you think!

Roots

2010-05-30T11:59:00.002+01:00

I have never been fond of gardening -
never liked the mud;
the green that entangles; nor
the dense fresh smell that catches
your breath. There’s no pleasure
in the visceral vibrancy; the pressure
of growth pressing against the sky;
the atmosphere tense
with life.

But once
I found a picture
of that same sky, creased,
the colours mulled by time – and you
below. The same half-
smile, the same blue eyes,
crinkled by the sun, as my own.
There, you rose round the rhododendrons,
a blush of warmth beneath those
bud-starred canopies, as if emerging
from a well-worn sleep.

O green-fingered ghost,
now I know whose earth-bound
pulse I clawed back dirt for.
Amongst the growth, your heart’s
laid to rest, nested amidst the ropes
of my child-like explorations,
my gropings through the dark –
my roots, dug deep
through time.

* * *

Giving a whole new meaning to 'family tree' (ho ho!). >___>

Here you are, Phoeb, this is for you! Another of those creative-writing club redrafts that I said were coming. (You can see the first fail here). I apologise profusely for its crappiness - even though it's been edited quite heavily, I don't think anything could really salvage it.

Just one more of these things to go, hopefully, and then things should go back to (slightly less mediocre) normal.

Out Of Touch

2010-05-28T17:26:00.005+01:00

It seems unfair
to be kept from air - held
in limbo between the white
of the skywashed ceilings
and the whites of the eyes
rolling back on blackness. Not
that they care – they’re used to
this confliction, days of contradiction. To us,
to them, there’s no difference - life
is a picture show in black
and white, and when the lights
fade, you’ll see
that this film’s drawn tight
across our eyes – else you might
notice the pressed ricepaper
wings that shoot crinoline
from our shoulderblades. Despite
everything.

Though,
being fragile as we are,
we are not expected to look
beyond the horizons of the dead-
pan stares to where those wings
could take us –

The doors, that swing
on such geometrical hinges
as to open both ways
are to remain forever
out of touch.

* * *

'I know death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits; and 'tis found they go on such strange geometrical hinges, you may open them both ways.' - The Duchess of Malfi - Act IV

Sometimes it's hard to find an escape route, but remember - every trap has a trapdoor.

This is the first of several pieces that are basically clean-ups of old drafts from creative writing club. You can expect a few more of these coming up, I'm afraid - it's the easiest thing for me to do whilst the war against revision is being raged.

I pretty much completely changed the direction of this one, but without changing too much of the original content. Still not too sure about it though... some of the imagery seems a little too contrived - overused by me, if not everyone else. And you know that your work's not at its best when you begin to be influenced by your revision...

* * *

And finally, some news! Remember that school poetry competition I entered ages ago, with Wasteland? Well, I won! :)

Any Distance

2010-05-22T18:07:00.004+01:00

Any distance you can map, you can fly.
Picture it like this: not as a web
of red and blue looped across the page, but as
a vast expanse of open sky –
with you held in its heart like an opal;
the opus. Your icarus wings carve
sunspots, trail clouds and split
the heavens in two. You,
strung high, the world below blurred
by the fevered myopia of vertigo
and the sheer fear of the fall.
But know this - that however far you go,
you will remain always
the centre of it all.

* * *

For my fellow king's leavers. I love you all and will miss you epically. ♥

Nobody's Home

2010-05-18T20:37:00.008+01:00

1. Spare Parts
She did it to feel real, or so she said:
cut out her caustic catatonia, and donated it to the collection
tin – spare change, or rather, change
spared, as she still keeps her splintered trophies
hugged close to the air, along with the trackmarks that cut
across the ceiling, and the rouged wrists that are just that: bruised
like fruit, with juice just as sweet. But she knows
that fate can’t be rearranged or exchanged –
a foetal-hearted metamorphosis is the inevitable
lullaby that dulls her days,
and though it's only first light,
the time is ripe
for the whitening of her bones.

As the sun unhusks itself
to an earth-spun hush, her silhouettes shatter – collapse
into the blackened bracken that’s struck its roots
through the floorboards
of nobody's home.

2. Birth Day
Her bones crackled for some time
before they were subdued to a satisfactory hue,
and she was tipped from the spilt-ink womb
to the lidless rooms of nobody's home,
where she found her whitened bones had grown
wild amongst the cabbage-roses of the carpet.
A garden weeded with spare parts.

So she sat among those thorns, pumpkin-crowned
and indolent, innocently waking,
waiting for answers
from the mute bulb-skulls
of the flowers.

3. The Waves
She had sat there for hours in vain
when the waves came; breaking against the windowpanes
with their foam-haired brows and rasping mouths.
At first, she was afraid - she shook,
and puked, and pared the moons right out
of her fingernails. It wore her thin,
desperate. Sleepdrunk,
she wormed her way through the wardrobe
and lodged her heart, disparate, between
a hard place and the stone face
of the wall.

It was months before she crawled
back to the surface. She learned
to brace herself for the impact
of the wracked waves' hollowed
bodies; their great blue tongues:
the elaborate act of composure.
Now she meets them with the
stone-lidded eyes of an angel.
Hallowed, statuesque,
she's abandoned all her prayers,
her layers of hope,
and holds only
a fistful
of dust.

4. Whitening
Sometimes, a child is born that is happiest alone. And when alone, they find that Nobody has locked her fingers into theirs, and dragged them to Nowhere, where Nobody keeps her hollow home. Here, Nobody takes their bones and buries them amongst the roots of her bracken-built throne, where they chatter and snap into maps of the heart –
impenetrable dark, where a tunnel opens upon a tunnel, upon a tunnel, upon a tunnel, upon a vein, upon a throat, upon a great blue tongue and the sound of the sea -
widening, whitening,
until there's nothing left but the whiteness
of a whitewashed heart of stone.

5. On Reflection
And she has no stories to tell,
but her clasped hands make a well
to cup the babel; a shape for shadows.
Her eyes are made of glass; her lashes, cut-grass -
they reflect, like mirrors, one whole.

{The mirror is a hole which she fills
until it becomes a glass half-
full.}

She's stuck in the deadlock of
a dumbshow with nobody –
and Nobody’s not giving anything away.

6. Barren
The silence is broken only by footfalls;
the soft calls from cut to cut,
inching the length of her arm like worms.
But there's no mine to be dug deep -
though rot aches from the maggot-jewels
of her eyepits, mouldering peach pits,
Nobody is barren.
Yoked too tight, she steps
carefully, cracking the fragile domes of ghost-shells,
cabbage-rose skulls -
each step and each snap
echoing like a harsh word angled
amongst the scars.

The girls who come here think they are birds.
She'll break their necks else
they fly.

7. The Door
Night time, and nobody's home –
she's left alone to roam the rafters
of the attic. Seeing the framework
of this ghost house is like peeking
behind the scenes, or peeling back
skin to see the skeleton within.
And by God, she's tried;
clawed at all those doors.

But in this time of silted moons,
something's shifted.
Everything is eerie in the dusk: even she
feels estranged, changed
by the low light of rumoured angels.
Little more than whispers, but they’re
the shadows that she’s shaped.
She'll unfurl their fevered wings and
fold them into form. Then,
they'll hold their candles high and melt
their waxen faces until their bones
burn to ash;

till she unravels the map and breaks
through the skylight of Nobody's home -

the knowledge of which is
weighted like stone.

* * *

I'm not going to lie – I quite like this one. I've been searching for the words to write something this personal in ages, and it's so good to finally get it out of the system. I feel like it's the most honest I've been able to be with myself in a while now.

The form is inspired by Plath's 'Poems for a Birthday' which is similarly written in seven parts, each section working as a stand-alone poem, but also as part of the larger piece.

Please go and read this in it's proper format on my dA page.

Which brings me on to some good news - my poem Of Star Guts and Satellites was recently awarded a DLD! This is the second time I've been featured by the group, and just goes to show how much my poetry has improved since my first real attempts back in the summer of 2008 (trust me, you don't want to see those!)

Rag and Bone

2010-05-09T21:18:00.003+01:00

We’re in the cellar – six feet of earth below
the berth of the sun. The air is sour, choked
with dust balls and the smell of pressed flowers – home
to our rag and bone collection
of junk. Here, fragments of our past
sunk beneath dust resurface – broken shells,
toy boats and the water-logged faces
of old photos. The ghosts of childhood float
round this mute room as if passing through
the chambers of the heart. But it’s this debris
of memories that keeps us anchored still: for we
have always been hybrid creatures,
fixed in double exposure; the flint-stitched
children of junkyards.

But despite this jumble of spareparts
and all our patchwork surgery,
there’s something missing -
for if you put your ear
to the floor, you can’t hear it breathe,
and the chest in which we rest
is wooden. Outside our silver-tongued sleepscapes,
these walls are dead; vaulted - and there’s
no message from beyond. The lips
of our bric-a-brac limbs twitch
without sound whilst we founder
in the depths
of our materialist-mothership
wrecks.

Now we long for rebirth:
for the sweet smell of earth,
pockmarked with rain, the feel of grass
between toes and the freedom of growth -
blossoms burgeoning colour and opening, opening
to the pulse of the world. Whilst here, behind glass,
nature’s papered cousins, her blistered sisters, fold
and curl, hiding their beaded hearts
from the daylight that would shatter
their plastic prisms; their stone-cold hold
on life. The same chains that blind us,
bind us to this shadow-barred prison.
This four-walled womb.

We are running out of room. The air is too thick,
too low, and we are forgetting how to grow.
Rag doll daughters, we will breathe water
until our seams split – when the coiled stair
will fold open, jut out -
and we’ll break

into air

.

* * *

My entry for The Written Revolution's Born Again Contest.

This originally sparked from a theme we were given in creative writing group which was 'opposites', but it has gone through a lot of changes since that first, rough draft - which basically spawned the third stanza.Since then it has been through many, many changes of tense, voice and title ('Children of Junkyards', 'Shipwreck Sisters' and 'Rebirth of a Rag Doll', to name a few...) - hopefully all changes for the better.

Any feedback / con crit. etc. is, as always, most welcome. :)

Of Star Guts and Satellites

2010-05-01T13:03:00.004+01:00

-So;
what is it like, learning to grow?

-Well, first, there's a spark:
a kick in the core
of your nerves, like a light
blinking on through the dark. Then,
you've got to think
yourself into the part; ignore your
splintered limbs and learn to stretch,
fearlessly. Like roots into earth.
Question and answer.

-Does it hurt?

-Only being fearless. That's like having flint
stitched into your spine. But time,
you'll find, will heal these scars –
ours is the business of rebirth. Even cradled
in the hold of our half-formed words
we manage to pluck
the stars from our diaphanous skies,
and the chewed jewels from our throats.
That's natural selection for you.

-Or is it just luck? You see, I'm not
even sure how to find my feet
right now, let alone play dot-to-dot
with constellations.

-But you must understand
that the world is full of such complications.
Tracing the veins beneath the surface
isn't the same as finding your pulse
in the first place.

-I get that. But space -
what does that have to do with anything?
Lose the metaphor: you can't confuse
Orion's Belt with rib-bones, or the Big Dipper
with your intestines. They're not remotely
comparable!

-But don't you see? They are.
For we are all born from the insides of stars -
we wear the indelible fingerprint of the universe,
and bear the pockmarks of each black hole
that’s sucked our bones. Spat
from star guts; that's us! We're snips
of trails of comet tails: by-products
of the Milky Way.

-Wait – so now you're saying
we’re cosmic waste? That galaxies
are a scatter of snapped synapses;
fractured nerves splayed
across the universe,
I can believe – but that we
may have sparked from that same circuit?
That our spines once lined
the stomach of some supernova?
What does that make us –
foetal stardust?

-Not exactly. We’re more reflections
of the sun, undone. Like a litter
of moons, we glow echoes, refracting shards
of glass and wisdom equally. Our path
is one of satellites, wound round our hearts;
and it's these glimpses
of poetry, flickers of meteor showers,
that help us grow.

-But you said growing was a stretch,
a flash of light and the spreading of roots
through rock. Question
and answer.

-And that's right.
You've got to have your feet
planted firmly on the ground
and s t r e t c h
before you can learn anything profound.
Sometimes in the asking, you'll find
the answer. Other times, you've just
got to learn to stop staring at the sun
and look around, above, beyond
the obvious.

Be fearless:
persevere, and
keep reaching for those stars -
'cause only when you rise
can your mind open
to the skies.

* * *

This is a piece of performance poetry which, hopefully, will be performed by a couple of my amazing friends at our school's Leavers' Concert in a couple of weeks time.

Hence some of the cliché images - trust me, this is a lot less soppy than the original version!

Inspired by my poem Paper Planes which is apparently one of my friends' favourite pieces of mine, and was the front-runner to be performed. But it wasn't very suitable, so I kind of took it and rebuilt it in a different form. Hence some of the borrowed lines/ideas in this.

This is also inspired by an amazing poem I read a while ago now by mintleaves which is far cleverer and more poetic than mine. It's where the image of 'star guts' comes from. So thanks for the inspiration!

'...And We All Fall Down'

2010-04-25T20:31:00.004+01:00

Barefoot, and dressed in dove-plume hues,
I am learning peace. We're walking through
the cornfield, where the air
runs low and the gold rushes
against our legs, when you give me
the first insight. 'Here,'
you say, 'is a hand of seeds.'
You let go, and the essence of life
is lost in the land. 'Time,'
you explain, 'is built in an hourglass
from grains of sand.'
The lesson is to hold tight.

We go on. Above, starlings soar,
and the sky utters our reflections
whilst the white clouds
and the white clouds drag
me in four directions –
but it is you and your breath that catches
on me with its tiny hooks.
'Look,' you say,
and you show me the way,
picking a path beneath arches
of tree branches and brambles
that entwine over our heads
in a crown of thorns.

We go on, adorned in grass-
stained white, until the light
breaks and we reach the lake.
The water laps your feet
as you pace out, your shadow splitting
from your form. 'This is how
you discard your scars and take flight-'
You return pure.

But I am stuck where the edges meet,
for there lies the broken body
of a bird. Kite-boned, splintered wings
struck stark; the heart
blooming out like a great red fruit.
I bury it quickly, before decay sets in
or you can say
anything.

We turn back. You lack
no grandiosity in the dusk.

'One day,' you say,
'we’ll acquire the air
with our birdnest hair,
and climb, dark-spined,
to the clouds.'

'That is,' I frown,
(having learned the lesson
of the birds) 'until
we all fall down.'

* * *

Learning peace, the lessons of the birds and the art of answering back.

There are some bits of imagery I like in this, but the linkages seem all wrong. From the phrases I started out with, I wanted something more like In The Mother Tongue, but instead, I got this...
So basically, please con crit this all you like, it really needs improving!

Mermaiden

2010-04-20T17:41:00.008+01:00

‘Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;good night, good night.’ – Ophelia
(‘Hamlet’, Act IV.v)

I’m moving through the mirror again in search of you,
watching shadows of the world appear as the mists clear. I look
upwards through shifting waters, marine gaze
hazed by the chasms of lunarlight drawn vaulted: a litter
of broken jewellery. Quartz-eyed, I watch silted moons
shift beneath the surface, looming blackly like negatives,
a loop of O, O, Os –
holes
in the fabric of the dark. The water’s diaphanous -
a thin skin ravined and seamed by ripples, my breathmarks
that echo as endless spheres – each concentric to you,
my blue muse. For you
are always there, crowned with your
laminaria hair, wraith-voice at the end
of my line, tugging tight. One hand on mine,
the other tearing at the weights
round your throat, you float upwards, unravelling
skeins of myth in your wake. You’re
the lady of the lake, medusa, mother –
paragon heart of pith and chain.
My Other – in you I see
me.

Two-toned, jade-boned, she lies
beneath the tongueless water,
waiting to rise.

* * *

Phew. I was beginning to think I'd run inspirationally dry after last week's little batch of poems...

Now for some explanation:

This was inspired by Emilie Autumn's music and writing, especially her creation of the 'Opheliac' figure - the tragic drowned girl - and her portrayal of the beautiful tragedy of a young girl's death - what Emilie dubs 'the art of suicide'. Emilie mocks these traditional literary/artistic portrayals of women with her wonderful sarcasm and wit, but she also relates to the tragedy 'behind' the tragedy - the true emotion behind the desperate actions of the drowned girls.

I hope to replicate that in this poem: the dismissal of culture's misguided portrayal of the artistry of suicide (especially concerning pure, 'virginial' women - hence the references to Ophelia and 'The Lady of Shalott' - the first lines are based on some of the original Tennyson poem: 'And moving through a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear.') but also relate to the real tragedy behind the theatricality.

In the poem, the narrator is haunted by the image of the drowned woman - or 'mermaiden' - who takes the form of the triple goddess as maiden, mother and crone, and recognises how these culturally-constructed aspects of femininity lie at the core of her own heart, too. The mermaiden is both ghost and reflection - the diametric opposite to life and its embodiment.

Yes, it's paradoxical again - what isn't? - but this time with a feminist theme. :)

Forsythia

2010-04-13T20:12:00.003+01:00

Baby born in amber, sun-
set ready on the horizon pinned in yellow
with the stars gorged below: bad sign, good
lie – it’s all the same. She doesn’t mind;
holds her hands to the skies to test for rain
and all those lost words that flow fluvial
through the bright vein of constellations;
hesitations of sound and light. Her head’s
veiled in night, but her heart’s planted firmly
in the earth – it breaks white water, roots
through rock. Finger on the pulse,
she holds the haunted whorl of a seashell
to her ear, and without fear,
treads earth’s threadbare carousel laced in dulce,
spitting dreams at the seams. Forsythia –
how her puckered mouths scream. Half-choked,
riddled with ghosts, she leaves nothing
but a trace of rabbit feet
pressed in dust. But she’ll survive.
She peels back rust and pulls
the socketed stars from the sky, milking
chaste tears from angel-eyes, and unravelling
faith to reveal the blunt, worm-sucked bones beneath –
dragon’s teeth and the lean face
of an earthenware god,
picked clean.

* * *

It is what it says on the tin really; a poem about forsythia...
Inspired by the song 'Forsythia' by the band Veruca Salt, and the flowers themselves, obviously. There's quite a lot of references to both the lyrics and features of the flowers in the poem, so if you really want to 'get it', I recommend reading the wikipedia page on the plant.
A relatively quick write for me (a couple of hours max. - I usually take days on each piece!). I seem to be able to find the words I want more readily these days...

Lazarus' Lover

2010-04-11T18:57:00.003+01:00

Here you are again, at my door:
clawed back from the fall with the same
old call: ‘tell you all, I shall tell you
all’. Well guess what? That’s the last straw.
It’s hard to be amazed
when there’s no audience to enthral
and you’re trailing frayed
paper guts ‘cross the floor. But no
more! Each time you come back back
back to me, your heart bleeds blacker
than blue, but there’s no remorse
for what you put me through. This time,
‘sorry’ just won’t cut it; you can cry
yourself dry for all I care: ‘cause
each time you pop out of thin air, I swear
I’d stick a knife through you before
I’d take you back. Well you can chew
on cut glass all you want
whilst my heart break-
fasts on all the halfboiled sunrises
I’ve spent waiting for you
to stick yourself back together. Sure, there’s glue
on your hands, but blood too - mine from
each time I believed your stories.
Back from the dead? Screw you! I know
how you lie, and how we’ve been tied
by fiction fractious as us – but
no longer. From each bruise
you left in my chest I’ve grown stronger,
and this time, dear lover,
I’m through.

* * *

OK, so this is my entry for the Writers' Workshop workshop on Poetic Monologues. The workshop criteria was quite challenging, and a little out of my comfort zone, so I read up on writing poetic monologues, and one of the examples was Plath's 'Lady Lazarus'. So a lot of the inspiration for this came from that, and from Plath's poem 'Daddy'.

The bit of speech quoted from Lazarus is taken from T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. The actual quote is:
"I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"

And the 'form' of the poem (if I should call it that) was inspired by a series of poems written by Carol Ann Duffy that are monologues written from the point of view of the wives of various literary / mythological people, such as 'Mrs Aesop' and 'Mrs Midas', which I saw her perform live recently at the Warwick Words festival (she was amazing!).She has in fact written one called 'Mrs Lazarus', which I didn’t know of until after I wrote this, so mine bears little resemblance.

Oh, and of course, if you don’t know about Lazarus, here's a handy link to the Wikipedia page that should explain all...

The 'Lazarus' she's talking to in the poem is not meant to be the actual Lazarus, by the way, just someone who keeps disappearing and coming back. Call it 'Lazarus Syndrome', if you will. (:

In The Mother Tongue

2010-04-09T16:40:00.004+01:00

And now,
after winter’s spite left
the sun rung white,
it begins:

the stirring of survival
under sleep, where the waters
meet and fold into gold-
lipped petals; the buds of blossoms,
strung illusive as dovetails; the
malachite movement skyward –
the earth-sung pulse
of spring.

And I, too,
am crowned cornflower
blue when I speak
in the mother tongue,
grasping the wish-
bone split into seeds that
feathered plumes untie -
so that each breath, godlike,
unfurls worlds into honeyed airthat melt into the cloud-cloven sky.

* * *

I've been waiting for days for the inspiration for this to strike me, and it finally did!
My entry for devLIT's contest themed New Beginnings.
Wish me luck!

Oh, and some excellent news! You know my visual poem Vox Vitalis? Well, I placed third in the competition I entered it into, and got an honourable mention! Yay!

The Crows

2010-04-05T17:08:00.011+01:00

It’s February, and a dismal forecast when you and I
meet under an ashen sky for the last time. Our breath
makes clouds which suck our voices out of the air,
and you’re wary - conversation is a little too close
for comfort. You’d rather cut
the cords between us and feed my good intentions
to the crows - those black angels sewn
across the skyline and below
where they line the fence, your last defence. Or
is that mine? – the horizon melts into my spine,
shot through with stones and bits of bones
that the birds pick at, but I won’t let
your cold words break
me. You can hiss and lie or kick
and cry all you want, I won’t retaliate – just
weight my words and tip this balance
against you. You spit venom into vapour, but
you won’t atone – you don’t even realise
that this bird’s already flown,
in a flurry of feathers
to crown the end.

The presence of the crows
grows - their wings beat airborne heart-
beats; the fence bleeds black. A fitting
backdrop for what you’re due:
and drop
you
do

.

As for the crows and I,
we’ll take form from formaldehyde
and let our wings kiss the sky. For
the crows know I won’t hide
from the inquisition of their eyes - a weapon
I cannot defuse; an invitation
I cannot refuse – a look
with all the intensity
of love.

* * *

One of the groups I'm in on dA set a monthly challenge called Let Music Be Your Muse, which is really exactly what it sounds - write a piece inspired by music. And this is my entry.

Seeing as my poems are usually inspired by at least one song, I tried to do something a little different and exclusively base it on the idea of one song; that being 'Crows' by QueenAdreena - although, as the album it's from, Djin, is a concept album, I must admit I did take inspiration from other songs on it too.

Any constructive criticism is welcome, and wish me luck in the challenge!

Paracusia: Symptom of Sick Seas

2010-03-31T16:15:00.006+01:00

Hello?
Who’s there?
//
Hell-
O
.

Dusk, a pocketful
of dust – the old rhyme
of time re-re-repeats itself
once more. I watch
the corners of the sky
fold into night, peeling
black as I sit
slack across the broken jaw
of the day. My mind’s
wearing thin, fraying
at the edges, catching
voices
in its tendrils –
atmospheric//
//interference.

.

O my people, I
hear your cries – I
spit your lies
and scratch your truths
into ether. Your
unheard words weather
the storms of sick
seas to reach
my ears. You play
on fears; my hopes, my
tears – your whispers
whittle at flayed
nerves. Is this
what I deserve –
the torment of
seething sighs and fleeting
tones bleating
beneath the bones?

I
am blessed
with the unrest
of an empty
chest. At seven,
I sang in circles of salt
and sold my soul
to the sea.

It was out of that blue
that you grew - you
knew what you could do
to a girl with a hole
in her heart, marked
as prey, with all
the right symptoms: the
crystal fractures, the split-
ends, the fresh-cut kether
of broken teeth or hair. You
tore my peace
to pieces, ate my
prayers like
air.

O my people:
my breathless voices, my
hollow hauntings,
spilt blood
of none:
I am un-
done

.

Now our burnout eyes
will watch embers rise
and /split/ the husk
of the
sun –

* * *

Paracusia - otherwise known as auditory hallucinations // hearing voices.

Although it used to be believed that only the mentally ill heard voices (it is a common symptom of schizophrenia), recent research has shown that as many as one in twenty-five people regularly hears voices.

Mine just like to have fun with language...

Once again, blogger hates my formatting, so please go and view the poem in its proper format here. It's not that different, but it makes a difference to me!

((Inspired by T.S. Eliot ))

Birthday!

2010-03-29T16:53:00.004+01:00

It's my birthday - YAY!!!

So I spent my last day of childhood making faerie wings; a fitting use of my time, methinks. I'm having an Emilie Autumn-esque faerie-themed midnight tea party later this week. I can't understand why more teenagers don't celebrate their birthdays in this way...
I'm probably just way ahead of the trend, or something. As usual.

And I'm sure every eighteen year old should receive Disney dvds for their birthday too. I swear Robin Hood is one of the most underrated Disney films ever!

Oh, and more features! Hooray!

Beneath the Bell Jar

2010-03-21T20:04:00.007Z

Today I found a message in a bottle,
its words smooth, rounded pebbles
beneath the tongue, verbal apostles
torn from our tangled tree-
root syntax by the sea.
It read:

{We have found sounds that bridge oceans,
we have borne mornings out of sunsets,
we have grown bones of icarus wings,
yet we cannot see
beyond the glass: for
we know why the caged bird dreams of
charred ribs and sawdust -
(we just try not to think
about it).

Caught up
in the jarring poetics of smart machines, paper
bags and iron ore, we ignore
the dreamdust, the cinereal. If we woke
and tried to stretch our knotted limbs, our cries
would catch on gnarled branches, sepia skies
and spiders’ webs, and we’d realise
that all the world’s a cage,
and our sagely words
are nothing more than flightless birds.}

Here, the message fades –
the letters coil
into spilt oil
and singed soot
has blackened the foot
of the page. I look out to sea
and see silver limbs skim
the surface, before
they sink and begin to claw
at the ocean floor.
The gilded veins of metal monsters snake
across the water, reflected
by our burntout sun.

And I am held by my own
chained pebble poetry under that sore
sky, for I can hear beyond
the clamour of my bloodbeat to
the space between the shoulder-blades that speaks
volumes without sound.
It says:

{Our mouths move,
but our only song is silence. Even our breath
is bound by blackened bones and
clipped wings.
We are broken things.}

- and over everything is
a glass bell.

* * *

There are two sides to every story. Sometimes were are so caught up in staring at the bars of our gilded cages, we don't see what's on the otherside. It's the old battle of material / visceral vs. the spiritual, I guess, just set on a post-structuralist stage.

This took literally ages to write. It emerged out of many, many ideas (all my poems start off as a collection of random phrases / images I like the sound of), half of which are not actually in this poem. In fact, this is the secondary idea for the poem I originally started to write, which is now at the stage of fragmented thoughts. It was a bit too cluttered before, and nonsensical, so I hope that the message is now clearer.

Digging Deep

2010-03-15T20:25:00.007Z

i.
Sunrise.
Though muffled by the clouds
of sound crackling
over my head, I feel it:
a sort of light, seeping
through the soil. Hazed
rays like roots,
roots of light b r e a k i n g
through, entwining
my toes with
earth.

My breath makes mists
of momentary suspension,
caught in the net of air.

ii.
And every moment is like waking
to skies of fly-
specked grey and
eyes
opening – (breaking
from my dreams
that are badreams
of circles
closing
around my chest,
snapping sinews and
scattering ash –

I always
turn out to be
hollowhearted).

My bones permeate sight
unflinchingly. Matchstick limbs
akimbo, saluting my
(stifled)
free-
fall.

iii.
I reach back
into darkness, endlessly -
my mind racing, trailing,
scouring
the star-eaten sky
for secrets, traces
of the truth that peel
away
as time transcends itself.

It rains,
but the water’s rotten, full
of moth-eaten holes, hazy
with the sound of
/dis-connection.

iv.
There is a weight fixed
between my heartbones –
the wait is silence.
How is the air so thick,
so full,
of emptiness?
Time is incomplete,
I am un-
finished.

I’m digging deep,
but all words
and meaning
are slipping
away
and

only the light
is listening:

* * *

Consider this a sister piece to Flipside - Beneath the Sky, a much older poem of mine. Inspired by Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' (epic book, insane film - go read/watch it now!) and the song 'Digging Deep' by Jakalope.

By the way, Blogger will not let me use the correct formatting for this. To see the poem written as it should be (well, almost), please see it on my dA page.

Mothership

2010-03-07T11:25:00.004Z

If flesh is grass,
then we are glass –
grown curved into the crux
of love, washed smooth
by the spine of time. We are
where our image met -
my face, yours,
f r a g m e n t e d by pores
of light and the shells
that collected in our eyepits, our
outstretched palms. Born
of the sea, and whitewashed ceilings
that bore over you, punctured
with eyes like
stars: we have
a bond that stretches beyond
even death -

when the water will seal
over your mouth, and my breath
will make mosaics
against the sky.

* * *

Ever since I heard this song by the Screaming Females, I wanted to write something called 'Mothership'.And I finally managed it!
This was started in creative-writing club. In pairs, we were given a picture and were told to write something inspired by it. Phoeb and I were given a picture of a weird pottery and shell mosaic-thing, and this is what it inspired. Surreal musings on motherhood. Hmm...

This Week’s Highlights in Misogyny News

2010-03-05T20:14:00.007Z

Thank you so much to this hilarious episode of 'The White Hot Top Five' for inspiring this post.

This week there seems to have een a worrying influx of sexism stories in the media. Here are just a few of the most ridiculous ones.

So, the Winter Olympics are over for this year. Vancouver put on a great show, and the sport was exciting – I watched just about everything from ski cross to figure skating to ice hockey to the half pipe. But one sport I didn't get to see this Olympics was the women's ski jumping. And why'’s that? Well, even though men's ski jumping has been an Olympic sport since the winter Olympics began in 1924, women's ski jumping is still not an Olympic sport. And it's not that women don’t have an interest in it: it is a woman (Lindsay Van), in fact, who holds the world record for the event. Ski jumping events in which women can compete are held all over the world – there was one at the same venue used in the Olympics just a few weeks before the event – but for some (unknown – Olympic officials have offered no logic for this) reason, it is not an Olympic sport.
Not that it's all that great for the women who can compete in sports. As I was saying in a conversation with J, sexism is rife in sports, with the women’s events often seen as a less important 'version' of the main, men's event. As a report in Sports Illustrated says:

"Sexism isn't confined to any sport or country. It's a universal language, spoken not so much with words as with action, or the lack of it. Female hockey players from many of the European countries competing in the Olympics, for instance, have seen their national federations' lopsided spending on the men's programs as a loud and clear message that they are considered mere afterthoughts. In Russia, where hockey is the national pastime, the women couldn't begin practicing until three weeks before the Games because of budget constraints."

Something’s got to change. To see more on this story, check out this article over at Feministing.com.

OK, so if you can’t watch the sport without being confronted with blatant sexism, what can you watch? How about a film? Robert Pattinson has been all over the media this week promoting his new film ‘Remember Me’. But what got the most attention was an interview with him in ‘Details’ magazine, in which he said:

"I really hate vaginas. I’m allergic to vagina."

And this interview was accompanied by him surrounded by pictures of pornified naked women. Seriously.
But seriously, Pattinson just proves a major misogynistic phenomenon that feminists from Germaine Greer to Jessica Valenti have been going on about since (it seems) time began: that men hate women’s biology. In Full Frontal Feminism, Valenti points out that the worst thing you can call someone is a woman: cunt, bitch, pussy, slut, etc. A man is not naturally any of these things – the word has to be altered to fit: thus 'whore' becomes 'manwhore' – masculine adjusted lexis from a supposedly feminine norm.
So Pattinson, you are not 'allergic' to vagina, as you so charmingly put it. You are just an extremely misogynistic man. If you actually hated vaginas, you wouldn’t be straight. But then, gay / asexual guys don’t make sex-gods that 87% of women want to marry. Ugh.

So there's nothing to watch that’s not saturated with sexism. Why not listen to some music? But - le gasp! - it’s a trap! Music’s just as fucked up as the rest of pop culture. And a prime example of this is my favouritest person ever, Ke$ha. Words fail to describe what I feel about this latest pop music mistake. Could there be a worse role model for women in the music industry? I think not.
Witness Exhibit A:

"I have very empowering lyrics for women."

HAHAHAHA... this is some kind of joke, right? Oh no, wait, there’s more? Do carry on...

"I kind of take how guys talk to women all over this industry and throw it back at them."

OK, so you take your inspiration from charming lyrics like 'you were supposed to love me, now bleed bitch bleed', 'I'ma own that pussy' and 'make sure it's not your bloody week, you slut'. And that’s empowering to whom, exactly?

"I'm literally just talking to a man the way any rapper talks about women in
every rap song on the radio."

Oh I see. That makes total sense!
Wtf, Ke$ha, did no one ever tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right? Sexist comments like that, whoever they are addressed to, are not empowering to anyone. They’re just sick and demeaning. Not to mention that your use of this 'tactic' fails anyway because it’s completely misguided.
Let’s take a look at Exhibit B, shall we? These are some of the lyrics to your latest single, 'Blah Blah Blah':

'Boy come on give me rock stuff
Come put a little love in my glove box'

You know, I’m all for women gaining sexual empowerment. And people like Lady Gaga are actually making a point in their lyrically sexual songs (I’m thinking 'Bad Romance' where some pimp-ring guy gets fried by Gaga’s flamethrower bra). But lyrics like that don’t work if you’re singing them whilst posing provocatively, flicking your hair and smiling seductively at this random guy that hanging creepily over you – the same guy who you claim to be a complete douchebag. You see, Ke$ha, you’ve got this strong and sexual woman thing all wrong. It’s OK to be sexually forward towards a guy you actually like, but that doesn’t mean you should throw yourself at any random creep that wants to sleep with you. Instead of empowering women, your lyrics actually portray women who choose to promote and condone demeaning, misogynistic attitudes. Way to go!

Phew, what a week!
And that's just the latest addition to centuries of sexism.

Good News & Updates

2010-03-02T16:55:00.010Z

Just some random news and updates.

You know that poem I wrote recently for another workshop, Monologue(s)? Well, for the second time in a row, I've been featured by the host in their summary of the workshop. The workshop was quite tough, but I received a lot of constructive feedback, for which I am very grateful.

And I've been featured again over at dA. This time in the lovely Lune Bleu's featured artists of the month. This is such a wonderful surprise, and I am honoured to make the list.

As far as general life and prospective updates are going, I'm pretty busy at the moment. Got far too many things planned for the next few weeks - on top of the disastrous mess that is my history coursework - so updates are likely to be few and far between. That said, there is another poem in the works - I just need to find the words and time to finish it off.

Oh, and Happy Women's History Month!

* * *

edit: Holyhell, I just got given a DLD (a feature by Daily Literature Deviations) and was made their Pick of the Day! I can't even describe how much win this entails! Squee! ♥

A Letter to my Younger Self:

2010-02-25T20:41:00.006Z

One day
you’ll discover the world
is littered with moons. Try
not to step on
all the broken
glass.

x

* * *

Seen quite a few of these floating round dA - there's a competition based around the concept. This isn't an entry for that, just a short sketch inspired by the idea.

It's interesting to think about: what you would say to your past selves if you had the chance...

Eating Disorders

2010-02-22T20:53:00.003Z

The beautiful 'My Silent Undoing' by QueenAdreena

In a world where girls see over 400 advertisements a day telling them how they should look, and 40% of 8-14 year olds are dieting, it isn’t hard to see that eating disorders are a major problem. Eating disorders are estimated to affect 5 to 10 million females and 1 million males in the United States alone, binge eating disorder being the most common, affecting 3.5% of women and 2% of men, followed by bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Anorexia is the most deadly, with the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder: the suicide rate is apparently up to 60 times greater than that of the general population.

In an advanced capitalist world, many more people are at risk of the causes of eating disorders such as stress, media-prompted peer pressure and (often media-prompted) low self-esteem than ever before. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulemia in particular are spreading due to the cultural emphasis on thinness which is (especially) pervasive in western society. There is an unrealistic stereotype of what constitutes beauty and the ideal body type portrayed by the media, fashion and entertainment industries. As Dr Bryan Lask said, this 'cultural pressure on women to be thin is an important predisposing factor for the development of eating disorders.'

This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. And this year, NEDA is calling for everyone to do just one thing: to help raise awareness and provide accurate information about eating disorders. I hope with this blog I've done something towards achieving this goal.

Wasteland

2010-02-20T17:46:00.003Z

They told me how winter
strung the skyline with garlands of
stars and staccato limbs, and how
the night air bit chapped lips. And
they told me

how these lips
sung as spring spun
sweet silence in a three
four tempo, lullabying the days
that crept like chloroform across their eyes. And how

summer sighed, and
collected their sleepdust where
the air ran low beneath the
rushes, the grasses, scratching
whispers into the sunlight, feathered
with dreams. And

they told me how autumn
was absent – still
broken from the fall. But no

body thought to tell me how
nature is shelved and flawed;
how time lags; and how

the seasons can be thrown away
in plastic bags.

* * *

Written for my school's poetry competition of which the theme was 'the seasons'.

I drafted and redrafted this so many times, and it has come a long way since the first draft. The subject matter has changed loads during this time, from the death of a loved one to climate change. I really, really wanted to get away from the massively over-used 'spring is like this, summer is like this...' structure that is a trap all too easily fallen into when writing about the seasons. Same with crappy metaphors with the weather echoing the seasons of someone's life.

So here is something that does not quite escape the trap, but does not fall straight into it.

Some days I love it, others I hate it. Definitely not competition-winning standard, but then I would never really choose to write a poem on the seasons, so it was enough of a task to write anything at all. Not sure if I'll submit it or not. I guess we'll have to see if I can muster up some more traditional poetry shizz before the deadline...

Vox Vitalis

2010-02-16T17:21:00.006Z

my body is
made of paper; my
mind’s an open book. look -
my skin’s a palimpsest
of secrets, of
voices
etched in vellum - your words,
mine,
imprinted in tissued flesh. each phrase spells
‘m a g i c’,
conjuring me into being: like origami, i am
folded into form. see –
my mouth
is an inkwell that
spills
at the seams; my blood’s a
flood of sighs. the world
inscribes my paper bones with its whispers
(its flickers)
of life.
and thus,
i
am.

i am myth,
fact
and fiction. i am
the truth and
every lie.

i am a neverending story:
a paper bird who
trails a tail
of cursive words.

* * *

This is my entry for DLD's Anniversary Contest of which the theme was paper. This is actually a visual piece, but the file was too large to be posted here, so PLEASE go and see the 'real' version, in all its glory, here.

I learned to make origami cranes for it and everything, so I will be very upset if you don't... :)

And I have a question for everyone. Recently, I joined a new writers' group on dA that allows you to submit any lit. in your gallery to group where it will receive more critical reception. Which of my pieces (you can see them all in my dA gallery - you can also laugh at all my old drawings whilst your there!) do you think I should submit first / if at all? I would greatly appreciate your feedback!

Satellite

2010-02-10T18:23:00.004Z

i keep my hands outstretched
so that when i sense the night
bend towards me i might
catch a dream between my fingertips.

* * *

Something very short and simple I wrote a very long time ago now.

Just felt the need to update because I'm in a major poetry-mood at the moment. I've got several things in the pipeline at the moment - some competition stuff and some *le gasp* visual stuff - but they've still got to be finished and polished up, so they'll be a bit of a delay before they're up here, unfortunately.

But stay tuned for more poetry from the pen of Terra!

Monologue(s)

2010-02-07T21:08:00.011Z

Curtains draw: it’s 4 o’ clock and
the stage echoes with the sound of hearts beating
in tandem.

Listen –

I can hear you breathe
again; your breath seething
beneath my skin. Your
whispers fill the night with alkaline
and I am
heavy; heavy and
falling.
Your words weigh me,
and crack my sulphur lips
like kisses.

(beat)

I never asked for this.

There’s a movement,
a balance shifting,
and the darkness begins to lift
like a veil.
//
The Other stirs and
speaks:

And I,

I never answered: you
never let me – just kept me
locked up here, lodged somewhere inside
( ( your ribcage ) ), feeding me
on blood and bones,
acidic sticks and stones,
whilst I
am left fighting for air,
flighting heartwards.

But now it’s 4 o’clock and
your electric eyes cry moonshine, and
my heart beeps noisy beats
in tandem
with your own.

(beat beat - pause)

Listen –
can you hear it?

//
The stage opens up, and there is
a fleeting possibility of awake
before the day breaks.

We step into the spotlight and
our fingers lock together.
We are the key.
It fits!

Together we are
(halfhalf) and
- O -
everyone knows that
these two halves make
a hole.

* * *

Extract from Emilie Autumn's 'The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls':

'There is something that goes on in the minds of many manic depressives when entering into either a manic or a depressive state ... that nobody claims to understand, but that many bipolars in the far corners of the world can attest to, and that is the consistent waking up at four o'clock in the morning. And when I say four o'clock, I mean four o'clock on the fucking dot. ... And the thing is, you don't just wake up. You wake up with your mind racing, music churning over and over inside your head, the internal noise, words, pictures, absolutely unbearable...'

* * *

Can you believe this took far longer to format (and reformat, and reformat) than it did to write? I hate you, Blogger.

Another poems about the same fucking thing. You must be getting sick of these by now.

I know I am.

Written for a workshop on Speaking in Tongues that I'm hoping on entering. Please comment / critique it, especially keeping the idea of 'voices' in mind.

* * *

CREDITS!!

• Emilie Autumn (how I love thou!) - her book, 'The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' (which is incredible) and the song '4 o'clock' (one of my personal favourites!)

• 'my heart beeps noisy beats' is a subversion of 'my heart bleeps noisy beeps' - a song by Räuberhöhle (which you can download for free here)

• The phrase 'heartwards' was invented by absyntheminded, who suggested I use it for the random poem I wrote in creative writing the other day. I hope she doesn't mind if I commandeer it for this poem too (because it's beautiful)

Grrrl Power: Emilie Autumn

2010-01-31T11:43:00.002Z

On Friday 29th January, I had the pleasure of seeing Ms Emilie Autumn and her wonderful Bloody Crumpets performing live in Wolverhampton. And, needless to say, it was absolutely amazing! The unique composite of circus burlesque theatricals, comic sketches and ground-shaking music is a truly awesome experience, and was totally worth waiting outside in the freezing cold for several hours for!

But Emilie is not just an amazing performer, artist and musician. She is a great role model.

For those of you that don't know, the 'story' of Emilie Autumn is based around 'The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' - a Victorian psychiatric hospital in which the manic depressive Emilie and her crazy Crumpets reside. Although these girls are clearly completely insane (in the best possible way), it is also made clear that the institution is crazier, and crueller than any of the murderous, morally delinquent inmates. The girls are trapped by a society that is unable to countenance 'outsiders' - people who are different - so enforces their imprisonment.

But at the same time, these women are not victims. The madness that Emilie and the Crumpets suffer - The Blessed Contessa's a cannibal, Aprella likes to shoot her lovers, the Naughty Veronica is sexually revaneous and morally deliquent, and Captain Maggot is just completely delusional - are simply signs of their strength of character. These women revel in their individuality, however 'wrong' society may deem it, and rebel against the system. Although trapped inside the Asylum, they flounce all the rules and have a rave whilst doing it.

And although these characters are clearly all theatrical caricatures of insanity, there is a great message behind it. That you should be yourself and indulge yourself in your individuality no matter what - and that is true strength of character. And in a society that teaches women that to rebel you should openly drink and and reassert your (predominantly submissive) sexuality - I'm thinking of people like 'Ke$ha' and the godawful 'Tik Tok' ('Cuz it sells to be a slut...)- this is a powerful message. (For one, I am confused why people think the behaviour that Ke$ha and her contemporaries promote is rebellion when our culture actually expects and encourages it from young women).

I will leave you with one final thought. When performing the incredible 'Dead is the New Alive', Emilie asked (or rather, screamed) "Are you ready to fight like girls?!" By this, she did not mean some pathetic catfight or bitchslapping-fest: she meant proper, full-on violence. Obviously, she was not provoking a fight in the audience, but what she said had a point. Girls can be just as strong and powerful and guys if they want to - and don't let themselves be brought down by the system. 'Craziness' and individuality is to be embraced, not something to be ashamed of, and locked away. Emilie's rallying call to 'FIGHT!' is not a cry for violence, but a plea for resistance against a society that would like us all to be kept quitely under control.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any footage from our gig, but this is from a gig earlier in 'The Key' tour - and this includes the fabulous Maggot, who was sadly missing from our show. Enjoy!

Fare Thee Well, Sarah!

2010-01-27T18:28:00.001Z

Today, I read that Sarah Haskins, the wonderous writer and face of 'Target Women' is leaving Infomania.

Being one of my ultimate idols, and one of the most hilarious voices on the internet, this is some very sad news. 'Target Women' has been at the forefront of feminist comedy for some time now, with Haskins at its helm, and I can't help thinking that it won't be quite the same without her (although I am so glad that it's continuing!).

Fortunately, for Haskins-Fans, Sarah isn't disappearing from the worlds of comedy and feminism altogether! Sarah is currently working on two big comedy screenplays, 'Book Smart' and 'Lunch Lady', and has recently produced a short film, 'DILF' that should be online soon. Can't wait!

In the meantime, we'll just have to keep up with Sarah's exploits via her Twitter page...

It's War - Guerrilla Style

2010-01-12T20:17:00.009Z

...war on my two greatest enemies, misogyny and apathy, that is!

This year is the 25th anniversary of the feminist group the Guerrilla Girls. Being a fan of popular culture, feminism, and general subversiveness, I can’t help but love the mask-donning Girls. So I thought I’d share the feminist love by spreading the word about these wonderful people and what they do.

The Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous ‘radical’ feminists who got together in New York in 1985, unhappy with the state of the art world. They wear gorilla masks in public (because they’re badass, OK?) and take the names of dead female artists as pseudonyms. Through the medium of posters, books, billboards, appearances and general jungle drag craziness, the Girls expose discrimination and corruption in the worlds of art and popular culture. Their work combines texts, facts and snappy graphics that present strong feminist viewpoints in a humorous manner, making it fun and accessible, but no less hard-hitting.

Their first work was putting up posters on the streets of New York criticizing the gender and racial imbalance of artists represented in galleries and museums. They’ve completed many such campaigns over the years, including the one above, whilst also expanding their activism to examine Hollywood and the film industry, gender stereotyping, corruption in the art word and general popular culture. One of my favourite books of theirs, Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: the Guerrilla Girls’ illustrated guide to female stereotypes, tackles the proliferation of derogatory and restrictive female stereotypes. The final paragraph of the introduction provides one of the best soundbite definitions of just one of the Guerilla Girls’ aims:

‘By empowering women to create their own stereotypes and to reject the ones our culture tries to squeeze us into, the Guerrilla Girls want to do our share toward saving the world from sexists and misogynists everywhere, and have fun along the way.’

But what I think is one of the Guerrilla Girls’ most important objectives is to rehabilitate ‘the f word’ (feminism!) so that people who support the main tenets of the cause – equal opportunity, an end to gender based discrimination, general human rights for women, etc – but are currently afraid or dismissive of the label, will accept the term, and even be proud to call the themselves feminists.

This, I feel (from much experience), is one of the main problems feminism faces today: fear of ‘the f word’ and people’s general apathy. Many times I’ve heard people say ‘I’m not a feminist, but...’ from people who support feminist principles but either don’t make the connection between their egalitarian ideas and feminism, or are just too afraid of the many ‘unattractive’ (and false) stereotypes surrounding feminists. And most of the time, these people voice concern over these issues, but fail to do anything to about them. Apathy, apathy, apathy.

So my message for today: DO something – something for what you believe in. It doesn’t have to be a big thing: maybe just spreading the word, sharing your beliefs, like I’ve done with this post. Or you could sign a petition or join a group promoting your cause (I’d recommend joining the End Sexism on Facebook group that my friend J and I set up!). Or just find out a bit more about it - read a book, browse the internet – cheesy as it sounds, education really is empowerment. You can even do something just by being yourself: by expressing your individuality and refusing to conform to stereotypes. Remember: you're not a bimbo, a bitch, or a ballbreaker unless you let yourself think you are.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and kick some oppressive patriarchal ass!

News

2010-01-03T20:36:00.008Z

So the holidays are almost over now, and it's only a few days until I have to get back on that treadmill and start the hard slog of coursework and pre-exam revision (although it feels as if I never really stopped!).
Unfortunately, that most probably means that my posts will slow over the next few weeks, although I will try and keep this as updated as possible. I've got a lot of reading to do, so hopefully some interesting musings will come out of that - along with some useful coursework info, one hopes! I have already planned some posts, but whether they'll actually ever materialise is another matter. I'm hoping the words will find me...

But now on to some good news. Remember that poem 'You're' I posted on here a couple of weeks ago? Well, I submitted it to that workshop, and it has now been featured by the hosts as one of their favourites from the workshop! (I'm angel-in-pieces, in case you didn't know). It really is a great honour for me to be selected out of over forty amazing entries (really - do check out some of the others. Elmara's 'Instructions to the First Maestro in Space' is a personal favourite), not to mention highly surprising. So I wanted to say a massive thank you for your encouragement and comments and everything.

Unfortunately for you, that probably means there will be more creative stuff to come...

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T11:13:00.004Z

Just a quick post to say:

*Happy New Year, everyone!*

I hope 2010 brings much joy, love, and change for the better!

A few resolutions

Get a better work/play balance
Focus more on my writing, and learn to persevere with things
Learn to relax (haha, c'est impossiblé!)
Be happy (and that's an imperative!) - have even more lulz than in 2009!

Paper Planes

2009-12-24T12:19:00.009Z

Sometimes it feels as if the world is
turning in on itself, and that I too
am curling up, folding away, and

learning how to fly.
For we were all born
from the insides of stars,

spouting words and colourforms
and every shade of moth-backed night imaginable.
Even me and my stitches.

And to stardust we’ll return.

Maybe I’ll fade through this filtered sunlight,
back to me at five,
discovering the world underwater:

the sun split and scattered across the surface;
the mouths puckered, full of streams; the skin
that flickered and wavered like a mirage

that was not your own. Floating:
that feeling of weightless freedom.
And maybe -

dustclouds opening across my eyes -
I'll be able to come up for air
once more.

* * *

Another poem. I keep getting random urges to write poetry at the moment, so I'm trying to use this opportunity to work at it. This went through a lot of transformations before it got to this state. I didn't really have much idea where I was going with this one!

Less Plath this time: I hope that means there's more of 'me' in this one.

As always, comments and critique are more than welcome.

And of course: Happy Holidays everyone!!

Sound of(f) 2009

2009-12-21T17:43:00.010Z

Finally, the whole 'Christmas Number One crisis' is over. And although I’m glad that Rage Against The Machine pipped X-Factor contestant Joe McElderry to the number one spot (being anti-Cowell, exploitation profits and musical manufacture as I am), in general, that facebook campaign really annoyed me. I mean, the idea of a load of people saying ‘fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’ to Simon Cowell and the establishment is pretty awesome, and I totally back that. But when its tainted with the irony that people have said basically just turned round and said ‘fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me – but I will do what YOU tell me’ to someone else has really taken any sense of success out of the campaign for me. The whole situation smacks of fail. Is this really what our heavily watered-down sense of revolution has come to: self-deluding hypocrisy?
I also found it interesting to read this article at Current.com which says:

‘Both acts are on Sony. Music News reports that the two singles gave the record label a 65.6% share of single market. Indie labels had 2.0% between them.’

A great ‘win’ for real music then? I think not.
Personally, I am an advocate of everyone finding their own music taste, and buying what they want to hear, no matter what others tell them. And if pop music is your thing, then fine, go and buy that. But if not, then don’t fret and don’t feel obliged to conform! There are plenty of great alternative bands out there. Don’t believe it? Here is a selection of some of my favourite bands from 2009.

* * *

Angelspit
I was really excited when I heard that 2009 would yield the release of a new Angelspit album – one of my favourite bands of all time – especially when I ordered a beautiful signed copy! ‘Hideous and Perfect’ is, as always, a wonderful work of musical and visual artistry. The songs’ lyrics and music show the band’s clear creative development, and ‘Hideous and Perfect’ is very much crafted as a self-contained album. Check out the awesome video for ‘Fuck the Revolution’.

Daisy Dares You
OK, I admit, Daisy Dares You is not exactly alternative. In fact, Daisy is apparently set to be a big mainstream success in 2010 according to various newspapers – she’s even longlisted for the BBC’s Sound of 2010. But anyway, I shall be pleased to be able to say ‘I knew about her before she was cool!’ and mean it! Her self-titled track ‘Daisy Dares You’ is pretty catchy dance-pop, and I can definitely see her music catching on. One to watch, for sure.

Fever Fever
Fever Fever are a cool three-piece punk band hailing from Norwich that mix primal rock fury with occasional girl rap and a clear riot grrrl influence. They are a relatively new band, with only a couple of songs released on their debut record and several compilation albums, but their songs have plenty of biting character and are all worth a listen. ‘Numbers’ is my personal favourite.

I:Scintilla
Another of my all-time favourite bands, industrial-powerhouse I:Scintilla, have made some great new music this year. Although I was slightly gutted to hear that the release of their album has been delayed till 2010, the release of their EP ‘Prey on You’ this November cheered me up a lot. I adore the songs on this EP, especially ‘Hollowed’, and it’s made me even more excited for the release of ‘Dying and Falling’ next January. Yay!

Räuberhöhle
2009 also saw another fantastic release from my favourite lo-fi retroclash German band, Räuberhöhle. ‘Deep in the Forest’ is their debut full-length album, crammed with sugar-powered riot grrrl goodness. They’re all great songs to dance around to, my favourite being ‘Angry Dancy’ which officially does what it says on the tin!

Screaming Females
Another punk rock three piece, Screaming Females hail from New Brunswick. Now this is a band with some skillz. Marissa is a truly amazing vocalist and guitarist, and the threesome are perfectly matched to make great tunes. ‘Buried in the Nude’ is a truly amazing song. Go download ‘Bell’ for free from their Last.fm page now!

The Brownies
The Brownies describe themselves as a post-punk, happy hardcore five-piece from Norwich. Clearly influenced by riot grrrl bands like Bratmobile and Bikini Kill, but also taking wider musical inspiration from metalcore, indie and punk, The Brownies have their own unique sound. Ourknife Yourback is a shockingly good album, full of amazing songs. If there is anything that you listen to from this list, let it be The Brownies!

Violet Violet
A riot grrrl indie punk band, Violet Violet describe their music as ‘gossip rock’: ‘edgy, full-on bitching, harmoniously delivered by a feisty trio of sardonic sirens’. Their songs have plenty of kick and energy, and always make a good listen. 2009 has seen the release of another awesome album from the threesome: ‘This City is Full of Beasts’. ‘Love This Band’ has been in my head for days..

You're

2009-12-19T19:13:00.014Z

You’re secret,
iridescent like tears;
an intricate spiders’ web
laced tight:
a smile, spliced.
Fair like the weather.

You’re my intravenous jigsaw,
with labyrinthine eyes
sewn shut.
My ball-jointed umbra,
strung sideways
and screaming.

You’re oscillating,
cinereal
you’re fractured glass -
a moon-skulled reflection;
bare and hollow,
black-backed like the undersides of stars.

You’re mute,
blurred at the edges -
a bird with feather flutings
and broken wings
falling
headfirst into sun-split daydreams.

You’re-
You’re –

not alone,
spit sister.

* * *

What is this - poetry!? Yes, this is my fail attempt at a poem...

Lots of recycled images in this one. I'm a little rusty, I'm afraid... This was inspired by Plath's poem (it's always the case!) of the same name, and was written for a writers' group workshop on second person poetry. I'm not sure if I will actually end up submitting this one or not, though: I'd like to see what you think.

From A Jigsaw-Grrrl To You...

2009-12-17T21:39:00.007Z

In honour of my friend J finally being able to put Le Tigre's 'This Island' album on her iPod (after months of waiting!) and of me finally completing my Bikini Kill discography last week, here's a tribute to the awesome Kathleen Hanna that I saw recently, and thought I ought to share, just to spread the K-Ha love, if nothing else!

Ever since I listened to Bikini Kill's iconic song 'Rebel Girl', I have been obsessed with the riot grrrl movement. It's girl-positive mix of raw post-punk and feminism are both truly inspirational elements to me, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say riot grrrl has helped define who I am today. Thanks to Kathleen Hanna and the many other awesome grrrls like her, feminism lives on!

Keep the girl-style revolution alive!

Blue and White - Istigkeit

2009-12-04T20:05:00.007Z

Here I am now, submerged in blue: a wall of colour and nothing else. Here, time is defunct, because now and here is nowhere, and I am little more than abstract thoughts. There’s a kind of purity about it, a wholeness; smooth white peace like a softmint, with the sting in the mouth too. There’s a sound like the hush of clouds seething between the bones and a floating sensation, like falling asleep underwater.
Beneath the heavens, where opaline skies bite down on treetops, I lie open. I am free. Out of the veil of myopia everything seems crystalline and bright; pure as tears.
I have come here to empty myself; to erase emotion and relieve the weight of exhaustion from my limbs. The endless expanse of blue drains me, washes over my eyelids, and I am infinitely small yet part of everything, and full of so many fractured voices and half-formed words, I find it hard to breathe.
I am learning peace. Locked in my own pearl carapace, I sleep, dreaming achromatic dreams of bird cages, piano keys and sulphuric clouds dragging the lake. And I am rolled flat beneath the waves; a cut-paper ghost, the mouth shutting on nothing over and over. Ice laces the knots of my spine, and I can feel my lungs flooding with silence.
And this is what it is to be whole. Istigkeit: the essence of life, pressed like a flower.
I am beneath it all, beyond it all, as I lie still; watching the clouds passing, passing, over my head.

* * *

Just something short a wrote in creative writing club recently. The theme was colours, so I, naturally, chose blue and white.
Although it wasn't originally inspired by the song, I felt that it fit - and, as I love Babes in Toyland and this is an amazing song, I thought I ought to share it. Even though that meant spending an evening making a video as there wasn't one on the internet (shameful!)...
Enjoy!

Follow Your Heart - to Princess Syndrome

2009-11-19T18:52:00.021Z

You are a pretty, pretty princess! But which one? Disney will tell you! All major credit cards are accepted.

When you are little, the Disney Princesses seem like the perfect role models. What little girl doesn’t want to be beautiful and utterly lovely when she grows up? These are women that have whole stories based around their dreams and desires – they are main characters in the films that have become ‘traditional’, essential viewing for young girls across the world. Yet there are so many things that are simply wrong about their characters, and they have caused much controversy amongst feminists and media critics.

Much of the controversy stems from the oppressive female stereotype these princesses proliferate to young girls: that superficial beauty is everything, and that their ultimate goal in life should be marriage to a handsome prince.

Of course, the cultural fascination with princesses has been around for ages: many of the Disney films are based on traditional fairy tales and Brothers Grimm tales. But it is Disney’s watered-down, consumerist twist on these tales that makes the contemporary Princess Syndrome so dangerous. As Angela Ndalianis, associate professor of cinema studies at Melbourne Uni has said:

‘Not only are the films fostering the little-princess aesthetic, but they also breed cross-merchandising that’s earning a bundle for entertainment companies who have rights to princess tales. From a historical perspective, the little girl/princess parallel has been there for centuries – but the merchandising associated with conglomeration has amplified its effect; now our little girls can be like their favourite princesses.’

And it’s not just Disney that’s jumped on the princess-bandwagon. Hundreds of other toy-brands, television shows, films etc. have princess themed plots/merchandise. Disney’s Princess range alone covers books, stationary, play castles and toy make-up kits; Barbie has an extensive Princess range too (and several puke-tastically terrible films!), and even supposedly more ‘contemporary’ dolls like Bratz have clear princess-influences in their tiara-bedecked formal dress range. Young girls can of course also buy entire princess costumes, complete with gown, tiara and jewels, so that they can be just like their role models! Even from such a young age, girls are being submerged in the ‘I consume, therefore I am’ culture as they are shown that part of the princess experience is materialistic: ‘getting’ pretty clothes, jewellery, make-up etc.

The princess syndrome prevails in the more up-to-date teen movies of today. The age.com princess syndrome article lists Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, The Prince and Me, Princess Diaries, A Cinderella Story and Ella Enchanted. Even a supposedly more ‘open minded’ film like Mean Girls, in which the main protagonist Cady overcomes the reign of the superficial Plastics and realises her own inner happiness as ‘herself’, the princess image is proliferated. The ‘Queen Bee’ of the story, Regina (subtle!), is shown to have a glamorous lifestyle (the word ‘PRINCESS’ is actually emblazoned across her bedroom - again with the subtlety!) and although this is shown to be not as enviable as it would at first appear by revealing its superficiality, the film is still all about getting prince charming.

But what alternative role models do young girls have? These movies mostly have a female lead. At least these films give the message that, in a world where only 1 in 4 movie roles is female (the same % as the number of female leads) little girls can still be the main character, and events in their lives can revolve around their needs and wants.

And Disney isn’t completely sexist, to be fair. More recent characters like Mulan, Pocahontas and even Belle are far more progressive than their predecessors (completely limp bimbos like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc.). They are by no means perfect – each of these films still results in the princess winning the ‘handsome prince’ – but at least the characters have some spirit. Mulan even tackles some equality issues, as the idea of women being inferior to men is shown to be defunct by the country-saving cross-dressing heroine – who, although at first is ridiculed and disgraced when it is revealed she is a woman, eventually wins the respect and honour of her entire country. This, I feel, is a more respectable role model for young girls.

But does Disney think so? It would appear not. Girls are not encouraged to look or act like these princesses – the only girls’ fancy dress outfits sold by Disney are for the traditional princesses - Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (plus Belle, though only in glittery ball gown version) – and for fairies, like Tinkerbell. The amount of merchandise available for the more respectable princesses is extremely limited compared to that for the others. Now this may also have something to do with the racial aspect of the characters – Disney is a notoriously racist enterprise – but I think it’s also linked to the gender stereotype Disney perpetuates, which these few characters do not fit exactly into.

But from Snow White (1937) to Mulan (1998), Disney has come a long way, and the gender stereotype has faded slightly – but not enough. Come on, Disney, end the corporate FAIL and start showing young girls that they can follow their hearts to something other than becoming consumerist royalty.

* * *

See this article shown on feministing.com for further views on the Disney Princesses.

And... Happy Transgender Awareness Week! :D

Terra's Winter Playlist

2009-11-14T11:17:00.011Z

Here's something to distract me from the apocalyptic disaster that is my personal statement...

The season is changing. My breath makes little crystallised clouds in the air every morning, my radiator is on full-blast, and everywhere you go there are huge piles of leaves just begging to be jumped in. So, to celebrate the season, here is a collection of songs that remind me of winter to get you in the wintery mood - before things start getting Christmas-y.

* * *

Weekend – The Birthday Massacre
For me, this is the definitive winter song. You may remember this one from my top ten tunes post, in which I said that this was ‘a song that reminds me of autumn leaves, shiny wrapping paper and the colour purple’, and that it never fails to make me smile. This remains true. This is an adorable and meaningful song; one of TBM’s best.

Scin – I:Scintilla
I really have no idea why this reminds me of winter, but it is another great industrial sound. For me the best thing about this song (other than the awesome tune, guitars and synths!), is its message. Here’s the chorus:

Detach from crippling divisions
Feel outside your skin
Find empowerment and illumination
Taken entirely from within

Love.it.

Girl on the Floor – Ayria
This is very much a ‘final-song-on-the-album’ song; you can tell as soon as you hear it. But it’s good. I especially like the eerie piano ending. The lyrics relay quite a depressing story, for Ayria, but it’s one that I can relate to, and I guess that’s why I like it. Plus, it contains some good advice:

All you get from this moment
Is all you gave to your past

So make the most of the time you’ve got, and never compromise the future. Maybe the world leaders who are still unable to make a decision on climate change should listen to this song...

House of Ill Trepidation – Jakalope
OK, so the beginning of this song is annoying. Muted-crowded-room sound is not really the most tuneful intro. But one and a half minutes later, when the beat kicks in, this becomes a great tune. And since industrial seems to be the sound of winter, there is really no better way of getting in the wintery mood than this song. Katie B’s voice is eerily beautiful, and I love the harmonies.

Symphony of the Living Dead [Part ii] – Zombie Girl
Part ii is infinitely better than part i, may I just say. Another great industrial song: my favourite instrumental by Zombie Girl. Though this is really more suited to Hallowe’en than winter, as the title suggests, there is a ‘colder’ edge to this that makes you think of blood in the snow, and mysterious handprints on fogged glass... I like the creaky-floorboards effect at the end! Spooky...

Apathetic – Lunachicks
‘Apathetic’, believe it or not, is in the thesaurus under cold. I shared that fact with the Creative Writing Club that I’m currently leading the other day. They were suitably, er, apathetic, to hear it...
Finally, something non-industrial! The whole ‘Binge and Purge’ album reminds me of winter, for some unknown winter. This is the opening track, and it’s awesome: because it tells you some of the key situations in life in which it’s ok to be apathetic. The Lunachicks are always cool, witty, and suitably gross (it is riot grrrl/gross-out punk, after all!), and this is certainly not exception to the rule – plus it has a Squid-section (Squid is one of the most awesome people ever, as is Theo Kogan). A great song and a great album!

Everything’s Brown – Jack Off Jill
This is a killer – an eerie, skeletal-trees kind of song. The discordant chord progression on the guitar is amazing, and Jessicka’s screaming is so emotion-packed. It’s the kind of song that forces you do listen to it, however preoccupied you are, and make you think ‘wow’. Not really sure why it’s really wintery, but it’s one of my recent finds, so it made the list anyway.

After Dark – Le Tigre
And last, but not least, there’s this little feminist dance-punk gem. Everyone knows that Kathleen Hanna is epic win, and so is Le Tigre. It was a toss-up between this and ‘TKO’ for the last spot on the playlist – this song won on catchiness. I guarantee it will having you singing along! This is lo-fi retroclash at its best.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed the playlist! Like last time, I’ve made a playlist on my last.fm page for your listening convenience.

Happy winter!

What the...

2009-11-09T20:49:00.006Z

I am a firm believer in embracing your feminine side, feminine meaning what it is that makes you a woman, whatever that may be (not the whole culturally-constructed idea of ‘feminine’ which, let’s face it, basically equals the colour pink). I also identify strongly with myself as a feminist. I see nothing in these two statements that contradicts.

And that’s why when I read articles like this, they make me so, so angry.

There are so many things wrong with this article, I have no idea where to start. Perhaps with the title - ‘Are you a Feminist or a ‘Feminine-ist’?’ – because obviously you can’t be both! Being a feminist and wanting to be in any way pro-feminine would just be ridiculous and obscene: everyone knows that all feminist are ‘tough, overworked and unattractive’; ‘a woman who’s unattractive in both looks and spirits’! Contrast this to feminine-ists, who embrace their ‘feminine sexy and loving side[s]’, the epitome of which is, in this article, ‘a beautiful, leggy, sexy woman’. All of these terms are ones on which a woman is graded from a heterosexual patriarchal point of view, and are thus demeaning. But being the epitome of physical attractiveness is what it’s all about, right – oh, and being ‘powerful’ (she adds, hastily) – so this one-dimensional stereotype is what all womankind should aspire to be.

Karen Salmansohn states that her goal is:

To inspire women to embrace their fullest potential selves – feminine, sexy, warm, loving – everything the word ‘feminine’ stands for, alongside strong qualities like powerful and successful.

There are several things wrong with this, and her whole argument:

1. Where do characteristics like ‘intelligent’, ‘creative’ and ‘happy’ come into the feminine norm? Nowhere is the answer: they’re not ‘feminine’ characteristics. And neither are ‘strong qualities like powerful and successful’. ‘Feminine’ and ‘strong’ don’t really mix, and they are definitely not the same thing; you just get one plus the other.

2. Salmansohn notes how so many women today are ‘not being their fullest, best feminine selves’ because they’re ‘rushing around trying to do it all ... being tougher than they’d like to be as well as more exhausted, strident and irritable, thereby feeling unattractive inside and out.’ Being exhausted and emotionally depleted is all the fault of the woman, of course, neglecting her inner femininity. Salmansohn fails to address the real reason for this: that women in a men’s world must constantly over-perform in order to combat the effects of discrimination, especially in employment.

3. Salmansohn claims that she feels her most powerful when she takes the time to tap into ‘feminine-ism’ – i.e. when ‘indulging in a meditative and self-nurturing manicure, a facial or a hot bubble bath’. Salmansohn has obviously not been watching any Target Women lately! These ‘indulgences’ are exactly the kind of thing that patriarchal companies target women with. Nobody is 'powerful' when having a bubble bath, however much you might enjoy it. And by listing these things off as typical ‘feminine’ pastimes, Salmansohn simply falls into the trap of succumbing to the culturally-constructed ‘feminine’ norm.

4. Then, there’s Salmansohn’s annoying overuse of the word ‘sexy’, meaning ‘attractive to the average heterosexual male’. Feeling sexy in this sense is not empowering, as she claims. It is feeling happy in yourself, as yourself, that is empowering. And though this may include feeling confident about your sex appeal, you cannot conflate the two ideas.

5. Men can be and are feminists, and any man who is put off from calling himself a supporter of women’s equality because ‘it might sound like he was admitting to supporting a group of controlling, bitchy women’ is not someone who believes in female empowerment at all, really, is he? No, he’s just ignorant, close-minded and sexist to boot. But that’s OK, in Salmansohn’s point of view, because it’s generally agreed that men don’t really go in for that kind of thing. But something that’s ‘pro-sexiness, pro-sweetness [and] pro-balance’ (excuse me while I puke) like ‘feminine-ism’ – well, a man can be proud to support something like that!

And why is this? Because it’s cool for a man to be in touch with both his feminine and masculine sides (though he is, of course, predominantly masculine if he is straight). But hang on – when can we get in touch with our masculine sides? Oh, that’s when we embrace our ‘strong qualities’, like powerfulness? But then aren’t we meant to feel our most powerful when indulging ourselves in feminine activities like facials? I’m confused, which is unsurprising, as Salmansohn’s argument makes no sense at all with its narrow-minded categorisation of the masculine and the feminine.

6. And finally, please, please do not try to personify and thus stereotype your country. It’s just wrong. Especially if you’re going to be sexist about it too. America, the ‘real guy’s guy’ (in other words, ‘the very masculine man’) is described as loud and active. India, on the other hand (a country that is in reality torn by its desire to Westernise and achieve Western ideals of perfection – which for woman generally means pale and submissive), is described as embracing its feminine qualities. And it is passive, passive, passive.

Being a feminine woman should not be about self-indulgence in facials, being ‘sexy’ or god-forbid being passive. It should be about being yourself, whoever that may be. So if you’re going to preach to women to embrace feminine-ism, don’t just tell them to subscribe to the culturally constructed feminine norm. Because that’s not empowering; not at all.

For a better-written take on the stupidity that is feminine-ism, see this article on The Frisky.

Plath, Rihanna and Domestic Violence

2009-11-07T11:38:00.012Z

Recently in English class, we have each been asked to lead a discussion on a poem of Syliva Plath's. I was given the poem 'The Jailor' - a poem in which Plath depicts a male/female relationship, with the man as a dominating 'jailor' figure, and the woman his abused prisoner. Despite his constant physical and emotional violence towards her, the persona of the poem realises they are dependent on one another, and that she cannot escape.

So, with this poem, I have based my discussion points around patriarchal domination/rebellion, the formulation of identity/mental instability, and ambivalence/victimisation.

Here, the most interesting theme for me is that of the persona's ambivalence: why, despite suffering so much, does she feel drawn to the abusive jailor figure? She has been 'drugged and raped', burnt with cigarettes, and reduced by forced starvation to a feeble, feverish state by this man - whom the reader assumes to be her partner. Plath spends the entire poem setting up the character of this persona as 'the victim': that is her identity. She is literally crushed, killed over and over by her relationship: 'hung, starved, burned, hooked.'

So why does she remain with the jailor, allowing herself to be his 'indeterminate criminal'?

There are two possible answers for this.

Firstly, she is a character entirely defined by her victimisation: part of which even she admits is, if not self-inflicted, self-cast - hence the movie-set like setting of the poem ('the same placard of blue fog is wheeled into position / with the same trees and headstones) and the fact that it is her 'red and blue zeppelin' that drops her 'from a terrible altitude'. She is defined solely by her relationship with the jailor. And in turn, he is defined by her. He can only be the jailor with a prisoner; thus he relies on her equally for his identity. 'What would he do, do, do without me.' is the final line of the poem, phrased not as a question, but as a statement, through which she directly reasserts her importance to him (and thus her power over him).

Secondly, there is the fact that, as far as the persona of 'The Jailor' is concerned, the codependence on which her relationship is founded equates with love.

So where does this link in with Rihanna? Well, when my Lit. group were discussing 'The Rabbit Catcher' (a poem with a very similar message to 'The Jailor'), several people were annoyed at Plath. They claimed she was self-obsessed, self-indulgent and pathetic: if her relationship was really as bad as she claimed, she should have just ended it. "She should just get over herself." someone said.

I think this point of view totally underestimates the ambivalence that people in a position such as the persona of 'The Jailor' are subjected to. They are genuinely torn.

And this is something that Rihanna discusses in her latest interview on her relationship with Chris Brown. She expresses the suffering of her ambivalence with painful honesty, which just goes to show the courage it has taken her to get out of that relationship and to now talk about it in front of millions.

So I think it is important to look at Plath's 'domestic' poetry in context: whether or not it is exactly based on her own relationship with Hughes is largely irrelevant. 'The Jailor' is a poem with a message about a woman who is in an abusive relationship. And the emotions she expresses are true to life, and are incredibly painful and difficult to overcome. It is not something that you can just 'get over'. As Rihanna said:

I am strong. This happened to me. I didn't cause this. I didn't do it. But it's happened to me, and it can happen to anybody.

Not everyone in the same position is as strong as Rihanna, who was able to face up to the situation and get herself out of it. The feeling of entrapment is not something we can underestimate. 1 in 4 women will be subjected to domestic abuse in their lifetime. This is a problem that we should be united to end, not something to ignore or underestimate.

No one is able to speak for all womankind, or for all abuse victims, or for all of any 'group' of people: everyone is individual. But every voice is relevant. And this is why we cannot ignore the words of someone like Plath, however self-obsessed and 'pathetic' she may appear, whether her poems are based on fact or are simply fiction. Her voice has a relevancy today, and her poems make a point that we shouldn't ignore.

The Ghost Factory

2009-10-26T17:49:00.017Z

i.
Sunrise, and I’m watching Time falling past my window like morning rain. Past my memory, past my outstretched fingers, past the anatomies of stars laced across the window pane is a street, deserted. The scene is grey and flickering, grained like an old movie, and there’s a silence spread thick, coated on the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. I’m waiting, and the world holds its breath.

Gradually, the colour begins to drain away, and the sky washes to violet, sepia, ash; crinkled like elephant skin. Around me the silence starts to hum and blur, like a television, disconnected. I am a jumble of abstract words. I am oscillating, iridescent, a daguerreotype of imperfections ever shifting in the light. I am losing touch.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I am falling. Everything fades, and I feel myself slip under
.........................................................................................................into the dawn.

ii.
It’s dark, and I’m hiding between preternatural boundaries, fragmented in prison-bar existence. Silver penumbras dance at the edges of the pale light refracted off the glass that lines the walls. I graft a film of skin across the windowframe to shut out the sun, and watch the shadows seep across the floor.

Here, I am constant, locked tight in my own bone-white carapace. Cinereal, I hover, trailing fingertip tracks across the glass – old jam jars, milk bottles, miniature medicine vials – and marvel at the grime that has accumulated. Dust particles float through the air like tiny fairies, twinkling like ash. I hold my breath and stand back to admire the ghost factory, glinting ominously in the gloom.

This is the sanctuary of my intravenous demons; my litter of moons - for sheltered in the shadows of this filmic labyrinthine mind, I am growing ghosts in glass jars. Spectral faces fog the crystal walls of their containers like the glitter sores left by breath in cold weather. Each wraith is small and malformed-ugly like an imp (as if something of their faces had been lost in translation), with delicate ivory skulls like egg shells. Tiny limbs float free in dislocated fluidity, and skewed mouths gape a jarring language of pith and amnesiac dreams.

I come to the end of the line where the most recent addition to my factory shivers and tremors inside its tiny glass prison. It’s fresh enough to be more viscous than the cloud-like forms of its counterparts, being still bedaubed in a thick, deep red, but the contorted expression of anguish is distinct. I tap the glass, intrigued. The ghost clatters and chokes guttural, embryonic words, whilst its red skirts swish and swirl around its miniature form. It’s almost pitiful.

One day, my ghosts will learn that here they are safe, as if in utero, and will be able to sleep, curled-up, foetus-like. Then, maybe, I will get some peace.

But now the little ghost’s affliction is painfully wretched. It’s distressing its siblings, too. I can’t bear it much longer. Its screech is a child’s, pathetic and pure. Panicking, I grasp the jar, and hold it to my chest.

I scream.

There’s a sharp pain in my abdomen, acute and knife-edged, as if my gut has been ripped open. I double over, back arched – the glass falls to the floor, shatters. The room begins to shake – I’m convulsing, reeling – the glass clatters like teeth, as one-by-one my ghosts smash to the floor. The noise hits me like a wave; a choking primal screech of asphyxiation as the factory is obliterated. Smoke-forms unfurl and swarm around me, a multitude of aborted faces and burgeoning screams. I’m drowning; being swept beneath the waves and feeling air and colour and time rush past me as I am dragged down, down. I’m heavy, full of so much sound, so many ghosts, and so much water in my lungs I could burst, and the light’s fading, the sky’s caving in and I’m so, so tired...

I lie on the floor; empty, holding my waist and trembling. Staring in the face of oblivion.

iii.
I am back in my room again, now flooded with the light of the pale winter sun, which has risen high, smooth and white like an egg. There are stains on the sheets; mottled crimson, maudlin.

And outside, it’s raining.

* * *

Why do these things never turn out quite how I want them to?

This took way longer than it should have done to write, and it still infuriates me. I think my brain may have short circuited.

I'm Here

2009-10-16T19:47:00.011+01:00

* * *

'Hir' - a transcript:

Melissa sits in the back of the classroom afraid to speak up.
She pulls akwardly at her extra loose khaki cargo pants,
She doesn't want the boys to notice her.

James finds himself at the back of a classroom,
His baseball cap casts a shadow on his pimple stained forehead,
A wide shirt hangs from his broad shoulders,
But no one ever noticed him.

"Melissa"
The teacher asks,
And she says nothing because she is not here,
And Melissa has never been here,
Because Melissa is just some abstract jumble of syllables that doesn't fit her position.
She is not what she seems,
She doesn't want to have to explain to her mother for the 232nd time
Why she doesn't want to wear a dress to prom,
Doesn't paint her face it's cause her whole body is painted on.

"Melissa, Melissa"

James doesn't want to have to explain where he came from,
'Cause with the exception of Melissa he has been deemed an abstract reality by everyone.
All he wishes for is to get to wear a tuxedo to prom.

And Melissa has been tucking in breasts that will be growing for three years now,
Been using duct tape to press them down and mould them more into pecs.
She just wishes that people would understand
That at birth her genatils didn't know which way to grow,
Mad at God who couldn't relay a message directly to her hormones
That they should produce more testosterone.
The only person who understands her is James,
And they have been playmates since the age of four,
Around the time girls notice boys and boys notice girls...
See James' family wanted daughters instead of sons,
And Melissa was always like that male beetle that everyone called a ladybug.

"Melissa, Melissa where is she?"

Sometimes she wishes she could rip the skin of her back,
Every moment of everyday feels trapped in the flesh of a stranger,
Melissa.
As she stands to her feet wanting to say:
"I'm here, I've been here since I was born,
So quit asking me if I'm a him or a her,
'Cause when you combine the two pronouns you get H-I-R -
Hir -
And God combined the two genders and put me in this body transgendered,
I'm here so quit talking about me like I'm not here."

James falls back into Melissa's skin,
And the two comfort each other in a syncapated heartbeats,
Waiting for the day when Melissa can finally scrub off this made up genetic make up;
When the teacher asks for James and he can say
"I'm here."

* * *

I think this requires a little explanation...

I first saw this video when it was featured on feministing.com the other day, and it really struck a chord with me. I thought it was both a great performance and an emotive exploration of what it's like to be transgender.
This is not something I feel in a position to be able to comment on - I myself am not trangender, and I don't know anyone who is - but still I felt I was able to relate to 'Melissa', the transexual in the poem. This is because I can definitely relate to the feeling of being torn between conflicting identites.
I also think that Melissa and I relate to the issue in similar ways. Melissa knows that she would prefer to be 'James' ('all he wishes for is to get to wear a tuxedo to prom') but she is stuck with 'her whole body ... painted on' both because people don't understand her situation, and will not accept her as transgender, but also because, to some extent, she is in love with her own ambivalence. She does not want to be known as 'he', but as 'hir', a combination of the two identities.

And that is, I feel, where I stand with my own multiple personalities (though they are not quite as definitely defined as 'James' and 'Melissa'): I take some kind of sadistic pleasure out of my own ambivalence, and revel in my confusion, however painful it is. It's like walking into a dark forest, knowing that you'll never find your way back, but carrying on walking anyway because you want to find whatever's in there - you're convinced there's something there - however hard the journey may be. Every step taken is over hot coals, but still I press onwards, into the depths of myself.
Maybe one day I'll be ready to accept myself for who I am, however many identities that may be, and be able to define myself as 'here'. Until then, I guess I'll just have to keep searching...

O

2009-10-03T20:13:00.007+01:00

Today, I feel empty; as if someone has taken an ice-cream scoop and extracted all my inners. It feels as if there is a hole, somewhere in my chest, which is made heavy with the weight of the nothingness that crouches in there. It’s a monster that attaches itself to every fibre of your being; seeping into every pore of your body, so that each thought and motion you attempt is like releasing a lead balloon.

I wonder if emptiness is an affliction or a state of mind. It is certainly something that crawls inside, lodges within the gaps amid your bones and sleeps between your lungs, but it is also all encompassing; all consuming. You get lost in it; you drown in it, but all the time it is within. It seems paradoxical; impossible almost, but it is a nothingness with several dimensions and no shape.

It is not just emotionally consuming: it is also time consuming. It remains with me for anything between several hours, days or even weeks at a time, and all the while existence seems pointless. I do not feel like doing anything, I cannot think straight, and everything around me just seems to wash over me, erasing me. Each time the emptiness sweeps over me, I lose myself a little bit more. It’s so frustrating when, at my age, you are desperately trying to define yourself, make life-changing decisions, and just be you, you find that for every step you take closer to your ‘identity’, you’re taking twenty steps back.

Or maybe this is me, faceless, doomed to be forever lost in emptiness, and a sea of fabricated facades that I’ve constructed myself to get me through life. Each one different, likeable, and well-meaning; but disappointingly lacklustre and one-dimensional. I hate them, but I depend on them, my multiple personalities, to hide behind, for safety. Even if they are only a collection of hollow puppets, at least I am the one pulling the strings.

I would like a nervous breakdown, to collapse, to finally lose control. I am sick of being the one who’s always so composed, so collected, so empty. I put so much pressure on myself to retain this visage of immovable perfection – what I think others want to see – that I am left defenceless to emptiness. I am imprisoned in the carefully constructed house of cards that is myself. I long to let go.
For even in madness, there’s freedom.

Freedom from myself.

* * *

Sometimes I just want to scream and scream and scream.

I'm not sure if this is fact or fiction.

Spun

2009-09-15T18:34:00.008+01:00

i.
Living is nice when you’re spun like a kite…

Somewhere beyond the dawn, where opaline skies bite down on the tops of autumn forests, we are flying. Strapped to diamond wings, we spiral round and around, cutting our twin silhouettes into the blue. Down below, amidst the kaleidoscope of burning branches, someone must be pulling the strings, but this does not concern us. Up here, temporarily, the air gushing into our lungs and hitting the base of our spines tastes of freedom. Arms outstretched, eyes wide, our bone crosses kiss the clouds.

Holding hands, our smiles are seamless: we are locked in harmony. Up here, for once, tears are meaningless, and we can bear to look down at our distant world unveiled; ablaze: blurred and flushed by our bleary-eyed minds borne from mornings spent sleeping in and praying for release. The colours are swimming together and nothing makes sense, but we know this and somehow this makes everything alright. The breeze rippling our cut-paper wings and tickling our skin seeps through our pores and steals into our blood like a narcotic.

Carefree, lightheaded, we fly free ~
~ And I melt into you.

ii.
Life is real when you’re dreaming…

Hello, sister. I know you’ve been waiting for this, a vis-à-vis that seems as if it’s fallen out of a dream sequence, so I’ll waste no time on introductions. I think we both know who I am.

I live inside. Sometimes you can feel me stirring, lodged between your birdcage ribs and your knotted spine; a murmur on your heart. I’m the creature within that you sometimes sense waking, stretching out, breathing-in your blood. That’s when I’m not up here, of course; airborne. I’m like a ghost, you see; a lucid poltergeist in the form of a child. This whole skin and bone thing - my hand in yours - it’s just a trick of the mind.

Magic? Don’t be silly, such things don’t exist. Bringing you up here was hardly difficult, especially after you came so close to cutting yourself lose. After all, broken dolls float to the top of the bowl, and learning to fly is easy when you’re used to drowning. You weren’t putting up much of a fight – what with your turgid nightmares and your tepid screams, I almost felt sorry for you.

Believe me, I want to help you. And as I am she and you are me, helping myself means I’m helping you, right? I’m your sweet avenger, righting your wrongs by helping myself to the pieces of you that fell out of place long ago.

Sister, I strung you up to save you.

It’s not my fault that the strings are starting to fray.

iii.
Life’s a dream when you’re reeling…

And now I see you for what you really are: rapscallion smile sewn jagged across my likeness, coalstone eyes sunk into the shell of my soul. Your masquerade is obscene and you know it: built up out of all those broken pieces of me, no wonder you’re rotten to the core. I was never able to escape my shadow, and now I know why. You were clinging on, tooth and nail, the whole time.

Oh sister, my hollow-hearted double, you never taught me to fly - only to hang, limp, like a marionette with tangled strings. Sister, you helped me thread my own noose, and built me my own cross to bear. But sister (nails digging in tight, drawing blood), you’re forgetting that if I am you and you are me, then we are one together. We’re spun, spit sisters interlaced by mutual blood and memories. And some webs are stronger than string.

- With a snap we fall into the sunset
still spinning…

* * *

Another prose-poem, this time inspired by (and containing lyrics from) the song 'Spun' by Babes in Toyland. I'm not too thrilled with how this turned out (especially part iii), so this may undergo further editing post-upload. And of course, any suggestions/constructive-criticisms are more than welcome!

Things To Come...

2009-09-07T20:34:00.004+01:00

First: an apology. Sorry there hasn’t been anything put up here recently! Since going back to school, I’ve kind of gone back to the drawing board on blogging and stuff – so all those past post-plans I’m afraid have gone out the window. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything for a substantial period of time, so writing about books or poems or abstract concepts is really beyond me at the moment! It's awful how quickly school drains me!

However, I have started work on something that hopefully should be up here in a couple of days – when I have time to finish it off! And, much to my delight, my new ‘Hideous and Perfect’ Angelspit CD arrived today (beautiful and signed – and amazing!), so after I have gotten over the sheer happiness of owning it, expect something on that too!

Anyway, hopefully I will soon get used to the rhythm of school again, and find time to write more things for here – otherwise it’ll soon get depressingly dead, which I really don’t want to happen. But even then updates won’t be as frequent as they were during holiday time, I’m afraid…

'I Shop, Therefore I Am' - Welcome to Generation Misogyny

2009-09-01T14:11:00.013+01:00

Art by Barbara Kruger

Recently I read my good friend J’s article on Gender and its Complications, and it got me thinking about gender and how much ‘what you look like’ is indicative of it.

Everyone is aware of what feminine stereotypes exist. Germaine Greer personifies ‘The Stereotype’ wonderfully in ‘The Female Eunuch’. The Feminine Woman is, essentially, the girl in the magazine or on the TV smiling with pearly white teeth, decked out in the latest fashions, trying to sell you the latest type of lip gloss so-and-so designer has created. She is thin, beautiful, and infinitely happy because she has bought this particular product, and it has solved all her problems. Never more will she have to worry about a bad hair day, her nail-polish becoming chipped or unwanted body odour – life is perfect thanks to this product! And there she stands, an immovable idol, not a hair out of place, no unsightly flab, not a blemish in sight.

Greer describes her thus:

‘Her glossy lips and matt complexion, her unfocused eyes and flawless fingers, her extraordinary hair all floating and shining, curling and gleaming, reveal the inhuman triumph of cosmetics, lighting, focusing and printing, cropping and composition.’

This is what you must look like to be the feminine ideal. You must hide behind a painted smile, wear what’s ‘in fashion’, and look, smell, feel and even taste like unruffled perfection. This is what little girls spend years dreaming, wishing to look like – ‘inhuman’. Like Barbie, with perfect plastic proportions (this means big boobs and a tiny waist), flawless symmetrical features and an expression of permanent ecstasy (this is where that DIY Botox that J mentioned would come in handy!), girls want to become dolls:

‘For she [The Stereotype] is a doll: weeping, pouting or smiling, running or reclining, she is a doll. She is an idol, formed of the concatenation of lines and masses, signifying the lineaments of satisfied impotence.’

Impotence? But hang on – isn’t this picture-perfect face what’s meant to be defining womanhood? For surely that is what ‘feminine’ should mean; what defines us as women, our femaleness? Surely The Stereotype should portray our sex properly, including our lusts, our restless imagination and our brilliant intelligence? Is that what we are – weak, powerless, lacking in sexual desire? Or is this what ‘they’ want us to be?

We must think of how the modern concept of ‘femininity’ is defined.

In the Victorian era, the Feminine Woman would be meek and mild, with delicate features and health. She would have no ideas of her own, be totally subservient to her husband, and was devoted to the care of her children. No self-respecting middle-class woman would wear makeup, because this show of vanity was considered to be a sign of a prostitute. This ‘angel in the house’, as she was later to become known, was basically the personification of men’s desire for the perfect subservient wife. ‘Feminine’ came to mean the opposite of ‘masculine’ because women must accommodate to men’s needs and not desire to be like him in any way – for that is not her place. As Virginia Woolf says in ‘A Room of One’s Own’:

For man wants to see something attractive when he looks in this looking-glass, doesn’t he? Something weak, delicate and beautiful that reaffirms his superiority over it. Because he can only be superior if something is inferior to him – and that is women’s role.

‘Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing
the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.’

So men and our patriarchal culture define what ‘feminine’ is, as they define what ‘masculine’ is. These two ‘labels’ (as they do not, in reality, stand for ‘femaleness’ or ‘maleness’ at all) have become the ideals that both sexes respectively aim for. And who doesn’t want to fit into the ‘popular’ concept of the ‘ideal’, to be accepted, to be loved? For these wishes are human nature – we are, after all, dependent on love.

But luckily, society has made becoming the feminine ideal attainable for all womankind. You can now spend, spend, spend and become just like her! Because if you buy all the right products, dress yourself in the latest fashions and hide your face behind a load of slap, you too can be happy. With an eternal pearl-white smile, you too can be the Feminine Stereotype!

You shop, therefore you are, darling!

‘Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to
body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.’
Mary Wollstonecraft, ‘A Vindication of the Right of Women’, 1792

And what effect is this having on our society? Surely by now, in this affluent age, we should all be happy? Teenage girls are afflicted with eating disorders, anxiety and depression because they don’t fit into the popular definition of ‘perfect’ – but everyone’s happy, right?

Recently, I came across a series of photographs by dA artist, Maryana. Her whole Statistic Series is great, and you should definitely check out her gallery, but a couple of facts from two of the pictures really stuck-out for me. Firstly:

And secondly:

Girls see over 400 advertisements per day telling them how they should look

I don’t think you need me to tell you that these two facts are linked.

50% of girls between the ages of 8 and 14 are dieting

I don’t want the Feminine Stereotype to equate to Girl Poison any more. I want femininity to be what I make it. What it means to be female is different for every girl and woman out there, dependent on their class, race, personality, etc. and no one should be told how to be themselves. Being feminine should be about embracing your womanhood, warts and all, and loving yourself for who you are - not lusting after the plastic-fantastic face of some photoshopped doll in a magazine. Let’s take back our own identities, and be who we really want to be.

Because we think, therefore we are.

* * *

For more on this, see this article from Feministing.com with a short film on ‘Generation Misogyny, which puts my point across far more eloquently than my article!

Cursed Handmaids And Cursive Eves

2009-08-29T11:28:00.009+01:00

The amazing industrial band I:Scintilla. Can't wait for new album 'Dying and Falling'!

You can find the lyrics to 'Cursive Eve' here.

As I already discussed in my previous article on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, Gilead, the land in which the novel is set, is a dystopian world founded on extremist Puritan Christian principles – a patriarchal misogynistic society. But how does something so twisted and evil emerge out of the words of a Bible that supposedly teaches us the righteousness of equity, to love our neighbours and to live peaceful lives?

Let’s rephrase that: the words of a Bible that supposedly preaches goodwill to all men, the importance of brotherhood and to love our Father.

The song ‘Cursive Eve’ by I:Scintilla is one interpretation of Christianity which highlights how such a sexist, unjust society as Gilead could have been conceived. In the words of Briony, the lead singer, ‘the song is about the oppressive Christian views of women, and the rigid roles and moulds many women feel they are forced into, from birth to adulthood’. She also comments that ‘these outlooks seem to have a profound consequence on a woman’s self-esteem, mental stability, creativity and sexuality’ – all consequences that are shown in a devastating light in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ through the experiences of Offred and her fellow handmaids.

So, how does religion have such profound consequences on women from birth till adulthood? Well, at birth, as well as the significant pre-determination of various aspects of your life dependent on your gender, who you become is also dependent on your parents, and the society you grow up in. If you grow up in a society founded on religious beliefs, this will impact your identity. In ‘Cursive Eve’, this factor is not presented as simply a passive factor of your surroundings, but as something that confines and suppresses individuality: ‘you were born wrapped in the pages / the words bind your mind and body’. However, this is not something that all children are subjected to. I:Scintilla say that despite the ‘false comfort of thin paper’ every child is wrapped in, they are distinguished and differentiated by gender. And if you’re female, this means that ‘you’re claimed as unclean property’, and ‘classified as a nameless mass’.

The next verse introduces the idea of ‘they’ – ‘they’ representing those whose views are presented in the Bible, and those who enforce ‘the Word’. In ‘Cursive Eve’, ‘they’ are always the active group, whilst ‘you’ (women) are passive (here I:Scintilla’s use of second-person address has an ‘othering’ effect that isolates the addressee, reciprocating the effect of misogynistic Christian beliefs on women). ‘They say you need guilt to be good’ shows how the Bible dictates how women need to suffer guiltiness (regardless of individuality) to be considered ‘good’. Why? ‘They say in you lives an Eve’. Eden lost – Eve’s fault. Eve fell first, dragging Adam down with her.

Timothy 2:13-14 – ‘For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression’.

Thus womankind is forever seconded in the eyes of Christianity, subjected to patriarchal control, and made to feel guilty, whilst ‘your brothers all remain blameless’. This male interpretation of ‘the Word’ turns Biblical belief into the ‘heart of snares and nets’ to incarcerate and restrain women, whilst the hands of believers become restrictive ‘bands’.

The beginning of the third verse reads like a sermon:

‘They say “in you lives an Eve” and
“Thy desire rules over thee”
“Thou shall not let witches live”’

The line ‘thy desire rules over thee’ is, in fact, a subverted version of a passage from Genesis (3:16). The actual line is ‘thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee’ – even more patriarchal and demeaning of women than I:Scintilla’s version! I:Scintilla highlight Eve, witches, and later, ‘male angels’ – all Christian icons; all very paternal and misogynistic in nature. ‘Witches’ were any woman in some way alienated from society and thus labelled ‘evil’. They were feared by people in many Christian societies around the world, and any suspect was subject to a witch trial – inevitably ending in the murder of the woman in question, regardless of actual guilt. After all, a woman needs guilt to be good, so if she doesn’t die a witch, she should be glad to die an innocent, right? Again, I:Scintilla reiterate how constricted women are by such beliefs: ‘the fiction binds your mind and body’. It is significant that this is almost a direct repeat from an earlier phrase, the only difference being that ‘the words’ has now been changed to ‘the fiction’ – showing how really ‘the Word’ is fictitious in nature.

The ideas of the salvation the religion supposedly offers and the actual bondage in its place are directly juxtaposed in the lyrics of the chorus, where Biblical devotion is even likened to BDSM:

‘Kneel - here you’re not scared to die
Beg - those dogs will lick and drink you dry
Kneel - eat the pretty cursive lie
Beg - and you will not be scared to die’

Kneeling and begging are both submissive positions, used when pleading for something. The idea of kneeling here is contrasted to kneeling during prayers, and begging is likened to the behaviour of a dog trying to appease its master. But this time the dogs are superior to women: the lyric ‘those dogs will lick and drink you dry’ not only highlights the low position women have been assigned by the Bible, but how they are (ab)used, subjected to the whim of the patriarchy. The ‘pretty cursive lie’ that women are forced to eat is, obviously, the words of the Bible; the word ‘cursive’ highlighting the handwritten (and therefore man-made and fictitious) nature of the Bible, and the flow of how these words are continually interpreted and reinterpreted and misinterpreted to further repress and demean women. Women are also presented with a threat: only if they accept and ‘eat’ these lies, will they ‘not be scared to die’ – i.e. only by conforming to the restricted lives the Bibles states they can live, can they reach heaven.

And so women are forced into the ‘rigid roles and moulds’ that Biblical teachings have created for them. They are totally overwhelmed by ‘the Word’, turned into possessions of the Church. The lyric ‘give you away to male angels’ shows this possession (women can be given, and can thus be ‘held’), but it is also shown to be a possession that is unwanted. Women are given away to ‘male angels’ (another patriarchal symbol: men are powerful, heavenly beings) for reformation, to combat their evil whilst ‘the leaders’ (the mysterious ‘they’) ‘all remain shameless’, despite the unjust, sexist treatment they are perpetrating. To allow this reformation, women are told they must ‘wash away rain’s ancient marking’ – in other words, erase the Eve-mould which they are cast in from the dawn of time (impossible, as it is not a role they have ascribed to themselves), and ‘beg [themselves] for forgiveness’ – also impossible; how can one forgive themselves for something they have never done? Thus reformation is inconceivable, and women must remain ‘evil’ and unclean forever – but of course, this is their fault – after all, they were given guidance on how to go about their spiritual rejuvenation.

The final section of the song contains further subverted passages from Genesis: ‘must thy sorrow multiply / thy conception in sorrow’ is a play on the words of the same passage in Genesis as referenced earlier: ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children’. I:Scintilla shows how these words of God before the Fall can be reinterpreted to shift the cause of this sorrow from God (in the Bible, God is the active personage ‘I will...’) to women themselves (‘thy sorrow multiply’, ‘thy conception in sorrow’ – the sorrow belongs solely to women instead of being borne upon them by someone else). This shows how interpretations of the Bible can really subvert the meaning of the text, and how interpretations can be used to condemn and oppress women. They can easily be told ‘thou shall live in the silence / with all subjection’ (a subversion of ‘let the wom[e]n learn in silence with all subjection’ – Timothy 2:11, which is also used by a Commander at the opening of a Pravaganza in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’), and will remain voiceless victims, controlled and repressed by the will of ‘the Word’. The passage from Timothy continues ‘notwithstanding, she shall be saved by childbearing’ – just one of the ‘rigid roles’ prescribed for women by Christian doctrine, and the principle upon which Gilead is based.

And what of man – the leaders, the male angels? I:Scintilla present him far from the fallen-heroic image of Adam in Genesis, who was tricked by Eve into evilness. Although they admit that ‘he may hear false answers’, and be influenced by ‘evil’ outside himself, I:Scintilla point out that ‘he lets the voices in’ – it is his choice what to believe. Thus they claim that Adam was equally to blame for the Fall, and that men are no more sacred than women.

The last couple of lines of ‘Cursive Eve’ I perceive as a question, posed to women: ‘must thy sorrow follow / visions in his head?’. Must women’s oppression and misery be caused by men’s fictions - men’s religions? It is not a question for women to take upon themselves, but one to make them think: is this what I want to be told to believe; do I want to have such ‘sorrow’ forced upon me? It is an offer of escape.

* * *

Of course, ‘Cursive Eve’ is just one interpretation of the effects of Christianity – and everyone is entitled to their own view. My point is, the Bible, as with any literature, is there to be interpreted, and so it has been – by Christians and non-Christians alike. As with any form of organised religion, different factions of Christianity have emerged, all believing slightly different things under the huge banner of ‘Christianity’. This is nothing to object to – but it allows extremist groups to emerge. Those groups of people who twist and subvert the words of their ‘god’, or ‘prophet’, or whoever, until they bear little resemblance to the words out of which they were borne. This is what happened in Gilead, where the extremists took over the country and used their power to enforce their beliefs on everyone else, persecuting and executing those of opposing religions. They twisted the words of the Bible to enforce their misogynistic beliefs on an entire population (almost everything Aunt Lydia says is a clear example of this), and to perpetrate evil, all in the name of God. All from the Word of God.

From the Word, anything is possible.

Caution: You Are Now Entering Toyland

2009-08-27T11:32:00.010+01:00

Please beware of kick-ass screams, killer kinderwhore dresses and excessive mookiness!

...In other words, please check out my article featured on Mookychick at the moment, on the awesome Kat Bjelland.
If she's cool enough to be an inspirational icon for the riot grrrl movement, and the driving force behind the amazing Babes In Toyland, she's cool enough to be an inspiration to anyone!

Violence, Innocence and Sorrow in Lobelia's Lament

2009-08-23T12:01:00.011+01:00

Twentieth century American poet Louise Bogan is often quoted as saying 'innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement; the arts cannot exist without them’. This was a principle she strongly believed in, and is reflected in her poetry. Many of Bogan’s poems have some autobiographical content, whether the situation recorded was based entirely on her past or simply contained reflections of emotions she has experienced, and the poem ‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ is certainly no exception to this.

The source of ‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ was in what one biographer called ‘the weeping spells of Bogan’s old age’ (Bogan suffered from depression, and hospitalised herself a couple of times during her life) when she was apparently visited by the ghost of her childhood. Bogan herself described the poem as ‘a dual self … in mirror images’. Hence the first stanza:

I was once a part
Of your blood and bone.
Now no longer –
I’m alone, I’m alone.

The phrase ‘was once’ obviously indicates that this bond between the narrator and the addressee of the poem, that went to the extent of sharing ‘blood and bone’, occurred in the past. The dash at the end of the third line indicates structurally the divide between the two; the placement of this hyphen after the words ‘now no longer’ emphasises the fact that this split is the current state of affairs. However, the repetition in the forth line, ‘I’m alone, I’m alone’, reinforces the ideas of duality and echoes (repetitions of past sounds and images), and suggests that some kind of link between the two personas of the poem remains.

This remaining bond is also reflected in the form of the poem. The title clearly indicates that this poem is written in the style of a song, and thus has a simple rhythm and constant rhyme scheme. This creates a ‘harmonious’ effect within the poem – not only ‘harmonious’ musically, so that the words could be fitted to music as a literal song – but also ‘harmonious’ thematically, as the form reflects the bond between the narrator, Little Lobelia, and Bogan, the addressee. This is further emphasised by Bogan’s choice of rhyme scheme: only lines 2 and 4 of each stanza rhyme. This subtly reasserts the idea that there is a bond between the pair (through harmony on even numbered lines), whilst contrasting it with the ‘discord’ of lines 1 and 3 of each stanza, which hint that the bond is fragmented, and over a great distance (in this case, temporal, not spatial).

However, the relationship between Little Lobelia and Bogan is more complex than it first appears, and it is not simply a ‘temporal shift’ that has enabled them to meet face to face. Lobelia’s childish, innocent narrative voice, constructed of short, simple words and almost factual statements (there are many positive, active verbs used in the poem: for example, ‘I know’, ‘I can’, ‘you look’ etc.) and her use of rhyme and simple repetition are contrasted with harsh images and emotions that her words evoke. For instance, her use of the phrase ‘part / of your blood and bone’ creates a more stark and sinister image than if she had instead said ‘part of you’, and there are several references to emotional torment, such as the fear in the words ‘I can’t get back’, and the constant references to crying.

In fact, something almost sinister emerges in their relationship in the third stanza:

Not lost, but abandoned,
Left behind;
This is my hand
Upon your mind.

Here, two issues are raised. First, Bogan’s childhood ghost feels that she was ‘abandoned’ – ‘left behind’ in the past. This makes it sound as if Bogan’s ‘growing up’ was a deliberate act - a case of sacrificing innocence, as far as Lobelia is concerned. This, to some extent, was true for Bogan, who was forced to abandon her youthful romanticism at an early age after the failure of her first marriage when she was aged just nineteen, and face harsh reality. Secondly, there is a hint of bitterness in Little Lobelia’s voice at this sacrifice – a bitterness that almost reaches a desire for revenge in the following lines.

There is something distinctly disturbing in the lines ‘This is my hand / Upon your mind’. Not only does it suggest Little Lobelia has a controlling influence over Bogan – perhaps referring to prevailing ‘childish’ (intense, wild, uncontrollable) emotional urges through her mental illness – but also that Bogan is so vulnerable, even a seemingly harmless ghost child can reach inside her and (potentially) damage what gives her the very essence of ‘selfhood’. It is this threat of jeopardised identity that makes the ghost of Little Lobelia so disturbing.

So, what evidence of Lobelia’s power over Bogan is there in the poem? It would appear at first glance that Lobelia is the one that is powerless, vulnerable and victimised: she has been ‘abandoned’, ‘can barely speak’, and repeatedly weeps. To see the effect of Lobelia on her addressee, we must go back to the original quote I gave from Bogan: 'innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement; the arts cannot exist without them’. For the creation of this poem, both of these things – innocence of heart and violence of feeling – are found within the poet, but within different her personas in the poem. The ‘innocence of heart’ is clearly an aspect of the childish Little Lobelia, whilst this in itself is the provocation of the required ‘violence of feeling’ from Bogan, resulting in the transcription of emotions and illusions in the form of the poem itself. Lobelia’s power over Bogan is her control over Bogan’s artistic progress, and thus, ultimately, her life.

But why is such ‘violence of feeling’ evoked in the addressee by Lobelia’s innocence? This is due to part of their complex relationship: Bogan’s retrospective view of her childhood in light of her later life. Bogan looks upon her childhood ghost, her reflection in the looking glass being ‘the face / [her] likeness has’, and shares Lobelia’s view that Lobelia represents Bogan’s sacrificed innocence. Seeing the mere ghost of her innocence after years of emotional torture both through failed romances and tragic mental illness would obviously have a profound effect on Bogan.

Yet it is not only innocence lost that Bogan recognises in Little Lobelia, but also what they both retain and share: sorrow. The relationship between the pair, though strained by time and experience, is strengthened by their joint sorrow. As Lobelia states; ‘these are my tears / upon your cheek’. Bogan, as poet, represents this in the last two lines of the poem:

Else I weep, weep
Else I cry, cry.

The meaning of both these lines is exactly the same: both depict someone crying. The repetition of each word echoes the duality of the situation; the ‘mirror image’ effect that Bogan described. But the use of two different words that are synonymous, instead of simply using the same word, shows that although the emotion behind their tears is the same – sorrow – it is for different reasons, under different circumstances. Even though they might both be weeping for innocence lost, both mourn this loss in relation to themselves.

‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ is clearly a very emotional and personal poem for Bogan. So why transcribe something so intense in the confined form of a short poem, to later be published for anyone to read? Well, as suggested by other poems by Bogan (I’m specifically thinking of ‘Medusa’, but I’m sure there are others) where speaker and ‘shadow’ (another self both frightening and recognisable) meet eye-to-eye, Bogan considered such encounters crucial to her poetic imagery, and to her perception of the poet-muse relationship. Bogan believed that only by directly facing ‘the beast within’ can the poet come to terms with their own hidden powers: hence Bogan reveals that she would not have had the capacity to write such emotionally-driven poems as ‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ without the ‘violence of feeling’ provided by the dark inner-sorrows of muses like innocent Little Lobelia – the ghost of her younger self.

Greetings From Beyond the Embrace of Catatonic Nightmares

2009-08-20T20:01:00.009+01:00

The gates to the palace of Versailles

Dear Internets,

So, as you can probably guess from the mere existence of this blog post, I have returned from France! It was really hot and sunny - not that I have anything to show for it, of course my tan has disappeared in the two days I've been home (typical!), although my feet are still a curious shade of purple after being slightly roasted. I visited several interesting places including the Zoo de la Palmyre where I got to feed giraffes, the town of La Rochelle, Disneyland, where I was accosted by thousands of wasps and walked too many miles and, of course, the amazing palace of Versailles. Well, the gardens at least. Typically we chose to go on the one day of the week that the actual palace is closed. Just my luck.

I've now been back long enough to get my head back together again (a messy process) after a couple of weeks when I was actually able to relax for a while (haven't done that in ages, it's not a word that normally features in my vocabulary at all!) and get over the drama of results - which, fortunately, were fine. But what with all the excitement and dangerously-rare relaxing I haven't really had time to write any more articles for a while. What I have been reading is mostly British women's history and feminist theory for my history coursework - and hopefully something will come out of that for here at a later date (I'm currently reading Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' which is very interesting, so expect something on that at some point), but nothing really suitable to write a short article on.

Hopefully I'll soon get back in the swing of writing, though, and I'll be able to update properly again. I've got several ideas for articles to write, including posts on Emilie Autumn lyrics and J.D. Salinger shorts stories (yay!), but until then, you may have to be patient between posts, I'm afraid!

Yours truly, Terra x

Intermission

2009-07-31T10:24:00.005+01:00

Parlez vous français? Bien, je peux parler un peu. Je ne peux pas en mesure á parler français bien - qui est probablement évident! Mais je dois rappelle des phrases parce que je vais a France aujourd'hui pour mes vacances. Je vais visiter des plages, la ville de La Rochelle et la maison très célèbre et magnifique de Louis XIV: La Château de Versailles!

Malheureusement, cela signifie je ne vais pas capable d'écrire un autre blog pour des semaines – parce que je ne vais pas avoir un ordinateur! C’est très triste, mais vrai…

Je vais vous manquez beaucoup!

Et je retourner en des semaines!

- and sincere apologies for my awful French – but I did manage to enlist the help of my lanaguages-savvy sister, so it isn’t as bad as it could have been!

Escapism vs. Escape in ‘The Glass Menagerie’ - Continued

2009-07-27T18:33:00.009+01:00

Part Two: Escape
Right from Tom’s opening monologue, the audience discovers how escape has shaped the lives of the Wingfields. Tom’s father was ‘a telephone man who fell in love with long distances’, who escaped the lives of the Wingfield family with a letter that simply stated “Hello – Goodbye!”. His ‘larger-than-life-sized photograph over the mantel’ serves as a constant reminder to the family (especially to Tom) that escape can be achieved (it is often lit up at crucial moments of the play to emphasise its symbolic nature), but also as a mocking reminder that the characters remain trapped.

Just as ‘art’ (an image of the father) acts as a symbol of escape, so does music. Laura constantly relies on the music of the Victrola for an escape from any awkward situation she finds herself in: i.e. any time she feels she is being forced to face reality. For example, when Amanda insists that Laura answer the door to ‘the gentleman caller’, Laura avoids this duty by going to play the Victrola to ease her anxiety. Music often has the effect of transporting the listener to ‘another world’, one that is less stressful and wrought with troubles as reality, and so acts as an escape to another place, even whilst the listener remains static. However, despite this escapist quality, the listener can only escape momentarily with music – Laura does eventually have to answer the door – and it is therefore, as many of the other forms of escape in this play, it is only a futile method of temporary escape that is metaphysical rather than spatial.

The events of the play throughout are also governed by the theme of escape. One reason for this is Amanda’s control over the domestic setting, with her desires for her children to have successful futures controlling the family. Amanda wishes to ensure her children escape from their current depressing existence; Tom through his job providing for the family, Laura through being married off to a nice ‘gentleman caller’. However, ironically, her obsession with this ends up actually repressing the whole family’s capacity for escape two-fold. It entraps Amanda in her neurotic state (‘her life is paranoia’), and entraps the children in her mother’s ambitions for them, which neither of them can ever fulfil.

Despite her ambitions’ overall failings, Amanda’s will does ensure that a ‘gentleman caller’ does materialise to meet Laura. His arrival is so critical and anticipated by the family as his role could be to free the entire family from their enslavement in their unwanted roles. However, after raising their hopes, Jim too further entraps the family, sending a devastated Laura deeper into regression in her fantasy world, dashing Amanda’s hopes of her children’s success, and denying Tom his chance to escape his warehouse job whilst ensuring the family’s safety – so that eventually, ‘to escape from a trap he has to act without pity’.

One of the main symbols of escape in the play is, of course, the fire escape. It is literally the escape from the domestic setting, but its true function also hints at the escape from danger and damage – which it really is. It is the place where wishes of brighter futures are made on the moon; the place where Laura stumbles whenever she tries to, showing her dependency on her own little world, and the place Tom constantly seeks to, and eventually does, escape.

Tom is the character most desperate for escape from his depressing existence. Sick of futile escapism through visits to the movies, and living through the escapades of Hollywood stars (which he uses as ‘compensation’), he seeks adventure of his own. He is particularly inspired by a magic show he witnesses, seeing the magicians trick of escaping from a coffin bolted down without removing a nail as similar to the trick he must perform to escape from the home.

‘But the wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick. We nailed him into a coffin and he got out of the coffin without removing one nail. There is a trick that would come in handy for me - get me out of this two-by-four situation.’

Tom’s job at the warehouse pays the rent and bills – he has been forced to provide for his mother and sister since his father left. He cannot escape the ‘coffin’ of his home without removing a nail, until there is someone to take his place (i.e. a husband for Laura) – which never happens.

But Tom is so desperate to escape that he eventually does so – removing several nails in the process. He abandons his mother and sister without anyone to provide for them, leaving them symbolically in the dark after using the money supposed to pay the electricity bills to fund his application to the Merchant Marines. So he escapes and gets to travel the world – but he can never escape entirely. He’s constantly haunted by the sad memory of his lonely sister, and everywhere he goes, however far away, the memory of her stays with him.

‘Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger—anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura’

And it is this that adds the element of tragedy to the domestic drama – not one of the characters escapes their depressing, mundane existence unscathed. ‘The Glass Menagerie’ highlights how the world - and all our lives - contains suffering, and it’s a fact we have to face: ‘life's not easy, it calls for - Spartan endurance!’ Life is about commitment; to both other people and yourself, and responsibility has to be taken (which both Laura and Tom are very reluctant to do), and duties have to be done. As Amanda states, even time itself is an inescapable sentence:

‘the future becomes the present, the present becomes the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!’

Escapism vs. Escape in ‘The Glass Menagerie’

2009-07-26T17:25:00.007+01:00

Escape and escapism are major themes in Tennessee Williams’ play, ‘The Glass Menagerie’. The themes span the entire play, control the lives of the characters, and are manifested throughout through Williams’ use of symbols, setting and structure.
I’m going to upload this article in two parts because it kind of turned into an epic rambling on the themes, so I’ll separate it nicely into ‘Escapism’ and ‘Escape’ for you all.

* * *

Part One: Escapism
Escapism is a very real aspect of the Wingfield family. Each member has its own methods and reasons for their desire to slip through the meshes of reality into the realms of fantasy (though these reasons generally boil down to dislike of their depressing, mundane existences). This wish to dismiss the painful reality of their lives through the use of fantasy or memory is manifested in such ways because of the futility and impossibility of a clean break from the family, and of real escape. The family members are inextricably bound to one another by their joint need for escape and for fulfilment. This makes escapism extremely important in keeping their world in one piece.
Amanda’s escapism is very much rooted in her memories of the past. She is described as ‘a little woman of great vitality clinging frantically to another time and place’: somewhere where she was happy. Amanda’s memories of Blue Mountain, her home when she was young girl, is her where of trying to bring some of the spirit of the good ol’ days, when she was young and popular and loved and sought after, into her current, boring, life. She buys jonquils, a flower she was obsessed with in her youth, to try and bring this spark of happiness and vivacity back into her life.

But this flower of youth is now faded and ineffectual when faced with Laura’s relative failure at attracting gentlemen callers compared to Amanda’s tale of 17 gentlemen callers in one day back at Blue Mountain. Laura crippling shyness prevents Amanda from living through her daughter’s youth and beauty as she would like to. Her only other method of escapism in the present is through her membership of the prestigious D.A.R (Daughters of the American Revolution – a women’s society for descendants of the patriots of the Revolutionary War). Her membership is a way of holding on to her faded glory – hence she wears her best outfit (all cheap or imitation) and presents her sugary Southern charm to other D.A.R members. But even this escapism proves relatively ineffectual: she is shunned by other members that she speaks to on the phone; one woman even hangs up on her. All Amanda wants is love and acceptance, something she had in abundance in her youth, but now seems scarce to her. Her futile escapism strives for these, even if it means searching for it in places that are really out of reach for her.

Tom uses escapism because he longs for adventure. He goes to the movies every night to escape the drab life he leads as a warehouse worker (a profession he detests when he truly wishes to be a poet and travel the world), living with his overbearing mother and dependent sister. These over-frequent trips to the movies he feels are ‘compensation for lives that passed like [his], without any change or adventure’. He is accused by his mother, who relies on him to ‘make sacrifices’ and generally face reality on behalf of the family via his work at the warehouse, of retreating into fantasy: ‘you live in a dream: you manufacture illusions’. But, far more so than the other characters, Tom actually focuses on making his escapism a reality through attempts at practical escape. In the end he does follow in the footsteps of his father and successfully escapes the family – though how effectively this is achieved is debatable...

However, the third Wingfield really takes the biscuit when it comes to escapism, for Laura is the ultimate fantasist. Almost everything Laura does or says in the play is for some kind of escape or escapism. She is described as a girl who has ‘failed to establish contact with reality’, who lives ‘in a world of her own – a world of glass ornaments’. Her ‘glass menagerie’, as Amanda calls it, is Laura’s main means of escapism in the play: it is a world into which she becomes absorbed, and focuses all her energies on. The glass menagerie is Laura’s escape from the harshness of reality. Her disability and lack of confidence has led to an intense shyness. So she chooses to isolate herself in a world of glass, and dotes over the tiny ornaments to avoid interaction with others. It is no surprise that this key symbol of escapism gives the play its title.

Laura’s glass menagerie is a collection of tiny glass animal figurines. She feels a far stronger connection with these creatures than any human, even ascribing the glass figures personalities. She, in many ways, feels herself one of her own glass collection, and Tom notes her increasing regression into this world of fantasy: ‘she is like a piece of her own glass collection, too exquisitely fragile’. The glass animal that she particularly identifies with as her favourite is a glass unicorn, a creature that shares her singularity and fragility. But the horn of this unicorn is broken off when it falls from a table knocked by Jim and Laura whilst dancing. Laura’s comment to reassure Jim after this is that ‘glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are’. This is also true of Laura, who after Jim’s rejection of her, on account of his engagement, retreats further back into her fantasies, and also of the nature of her escapism – it is truly a fragile world that is almost destroyed by the interference of Jim, the ‘emissary from a world of reality’. But there is a difference between the unicorn and Laura. The unicorn becomes just like the other glass horses, and transfers from the world of fantasy to reality. This could symbolise Laura’s refutation of her escapism, but instead she gives the broken unicorn to Jim as ‘a souvenir’, thus separating the assimilated unicorn from herself and retaining her singularity. The glass unicorn leaves the Wingfield home with Jim on his departure, whilst Laura remains trapped in her world of escapism.

Tulips

2009-07-24T14:28:00.027+01:00

i.
The day after death, the flowers appeared.
A line of them; three crimson tulips standing proud and serene in the corner of my room, each surrounded by a little frayed halo of darkness where the carpet had been split. Fragile sapling tongues bejewelled with crowns dipped in blood.
Nobody watched me before: now I am watched. There is something conspiratorial about their existence, as if they have been sent to observe me, and whisper secrets behind my back. They stare like the blank eyed statues of angels you find in graveyards; immutable, wholly absorbed in their vigil. I don’t like to take my eyes off them for long in case they move.
The nurses don’t seem to notice my visitors: they bustle in, take my temperature, check my pulse, feel my forehead. To them I am a procedure, one of many that must be completed over the course of the day. No point in asking questions, prompting friendship – they know I woke up mute, and that my voice is just one of my missing parts. When the ritual is completed, they leave without so much as a glance at the tulips, their skirts rustling like autumn leaves.
The tulips are too much, their colour too sudden – they hurt my eyes. Against the white hospital walls they’re like blood drops on snow – sacrilege. I tried to hide, shoved my head beneath the sheets and pressed myself flat against the mattress, but it just reminded me how deflated I now was; how empty. Like a cut-paper doll, ridiculous, pressed between the eyes of the tulips and the eyes of the nurses.

And I have no face – I have wanted to efface myself.
But it is frightening, living as a shadow.

ii.
At night, they scream.
Every night they seal themselves, close up their buds, and wail wordlessly into the darkness. It frightens me, this inner crying. It’s as if the voices aren’t theirs but are coming from within, inside the petals, closed like fists.
Mother once told me that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants.

Oh God, what have I done?
I bury my head beneath the pillow, try to block my ears, but it’s no use. I’m screaming inside too.

iii.
Before they came, the air was calm. Breathing was a rhythm, in out, in-out, inout like the clockwork mechanics of a machine. No sentiment; no fuss. But the tulips filled it up with noise. Now my breath snags and catches in my throat, my tongue feels dry and swollen. I’m breaking down, I know it.
I stretch out, supine, on the bed, feeling my bones sink down into the mattress like roots into earth. I would like to stay here forever, a permanent part of the furniture, immovable and silent. I could haunt the ward; wrap myself in white sheets like a corpse. Scare the doctors to death. Here they’re so used to doling it out, like medicine; it would be nice to turn the tables for once.
Or I could just lie – lay, passive tense now, remember, now it’s all out of my hands - here and melt into the sheets. Let my blood seep into the floorboards.
Perhaps that’s why the tulips glint like rubies.

iv.
I keep my eyes fixed on them. I know they’re up to something; playing some game with my mind, working their twisted magic on me. Their whisperings have turned into sinister spells, a chanting that undulates like the beat of my heart. My second pulse – two again, I should be happy – but choking; my throat’s constricted and I’m retching, retching. Retching air because I’m already empty, oh God, so empty, nothing else left. From fruitful to barren. The blossoms died and withered inside me, and now they’re sprouting out my throat: I’m screaming flowers – crimson like blood.
I saw red, couldn’t take it any longer. Leapt out of bed and pitched a jug of water over their heads, watched it seep into the carpet, turning it black. I thought it would drown out their awful voices, strangle my awful new tongue.
Murder, cold and blue.
Like you, baby.
My baby.

The tulips rotted, shrivelled, their petal heads collapsing in on themselves, their screams caving in. I fell to the floor, pushed my knees to my forehead, clutching my sides, crying hollow words. Shrivelling too.

* * *

A short fiction prose-poem inspired by the poem of the same name by Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' - both texts I'll be studying next year.

Terradoll's Top Ten Tunes And Why You Should Listen To Them

2009-07-22T17:44:00.014+01:00

I was wondering how long it would be until the conventional 'top ten' lists started to appear on my blog... A disappointingly short time, by the look of it! But anyway...

Music is very important to me, as both a means of escapism and as inspiration for my ideas – both creative and socio-cultural. My favourite music has an impact on how I think, act and write, and has effectively helped make me who I am. I cannot go a half a day without listening to something on my iPod, and have to buy new CDs practically weekly to stop myself getting withdrawal symptoms. Basically, I listen to music a lot.
I was having a listen through loads of my old and favourite music today – a break from the extreme riot grrrl punk rock phase I’ve been having recently – and thought I should compile a list of my favourite songs ever to put my music taste into perspective (when you keep having genre-phases, it’s sometimes hard to remember all those songs that you love). So here is a list of ten (you have no idea how long it took to whittle it down to that lovely round number!) of my favourite songs ever, in no particular order, and why you should listen to them sometime too.
And I apologise in advance for inflicting my strange, eclectic music taste on you!

* * *

Angelspit - Lust Worthy
Any of Angelspit’s songs are seriously worth a listen to, but this is definitely my favourite – although, to be honest, I am unsure why. It differs from many of Angelspit’s other tracks in that it has an unusually slow beat and very dark sound, but retaining an awesome tune and attitude-laced clever lyrics. Plus it contains perhaps my favourite Angelspit lyrics ever: ‘I hate, therefore I ain’t / I am nothing but my own disease’.

Emilie Autumn – Opheliac
The first song I ever heard by Emilie, so of course it has its own little place in my heart. The mixture of the opening harpsichord melody, Emilie’s characteristic Victorian-industrial awesomeness, the Shakespeare quotes and Emilie’s crazy-Ophelia voice in the chorus undoubtedly make ‘Opheliac’ one of her best songs. If you only listen to one song from this list, make it this one!

I:Scintilla – Ultravioletfly
Like ‘Lust Worthy’ from ‘Blood Death Ivory’, ‘Ultravioletfly’ is another stand-out track from an album, in this case I:Scintilla’s ‘Optics’. Why do I like this track? To put it simply: everything about this track is unbelievably awesome. I:Scintilla are one of my favourite lyricists, and ‘Ultravioletfly’ contains some of the best lyrics on the album, not to mention awesome guitar, synths, melody and rhythmic effects. The best of an album full of great songs.

The Birthday Massacre – Blue
The Birthday Massacre is another band with great lyrics and great music – and they have always been a major inspiration to me. And this, my top-played track on iTunes, is no exception. For a while every single thing I wrote was somehow inspired by this song (obsessive, much?), including my GCSE coursework piece, and the themes of duplicity, split personalities and internal conflicts remain some of my main literary preoccupations today all because of this song. It’s Chibi’s voice that really makes this song so special, contrasting with and complimenting the dark chugging guitars and the retroclash electro-bleeps so well. And I have always longed to be able to replicate her growl!

Lunachicks – Binge & Purge
The first song I ever heard by the Lunachicks, and I have loved them ever since. ‘Binge and Purge’, the title song of the album, is a perfect example of the Lunachicks’ mix of fun post-punk rock and comic lyrics (with added puke noises!) with a serious message that became the Lunachicks’ trademark style. Definitely one to jump around and sing along to!

Bikini Kill – Feels Blind
As well as their well-known feminist-centred catchy punk rock songs that have become the ‘anthems’ of the riot grrrl movement, like ‘Rebel Girl’ and ‘Double Dare Ya’, Bikini Kill also wrote some great slower, more emotional songs. ‘Feels Blind’ is one of these, with a narrator who stands ‘in the doorway of [her] demise’ and who is doomed to only feel blind forever. Of course it would not be Bikini Kill without some kind of feminist message, as it talks about the debilitation of women and the limitation of their lives in a patriarchal society. Powerful stuff with a really great melody.

Emilie Autumn – Let The Record Show
Another epic Emilie song! I can’t really think of a specific reason of why I like this song so much, I think its awesomeness must just owe to the delicious darkness of the lyrics and music, the biting Victorian-industrial edge and Emilie’s coolness and originality. She is one talented woman.

Lunachicks – Superstrong
‘Take this! Take that! But no one is ever going to take my fucking rights back!’ An awesome song about women’s rights concerning freedom from sexual harassment (both visual and physical) by men. Theo’s gruff, masculine voice in this and the humour and attitude of the lyrics make it one of the best tracks off ‘Binge and Purge’. It’s just more proof that the Lunachicks = awesome.

The Birthday Massacre – Weekend
To be honest, there were several contenders from TBM’s ‘Walking With Stranger’s album for this spot in the list, including ‘Goodnight’ and the title track, but ‘Weekend’ cinched it, being my most-listened-to out of the three. A song that reminds me of autumn leaves, shiny wrapping paper and the colour purple, ‘Weekend’ never fails to make me smile.

Evanescence – Whisper
Truthfully, I haven’t listened to any Evanescence in ages, but when I was an angsty tween I listened to little else. There are so many songs of theirs I absolutely adored when I was in that phase, but Whisper remained my one favourite – the song that introduced me to their music. And the guitar riffs and Amy Lee’s voice mean this song remains a great listen to this day. I have to thank Evanescence for introducing me to all the music I listen to now (albeit in a very roundabout way), so in some ways this is the most important song on the list, because without this, none of the others would be there!

* * *

And because I know that you’ll be dying to listen to all these tracks now, after I’ve sold them to you so well, I’ve made a playlist of all these songs on my last.fm page, which can be found here.
Enjoy!

Thursdays Are Rainy

2009-07-18T20:48:00.015+01:00

Originally written for the Waterstone's 'What's Your Story?' competition. Needless to say, I seriously got the wrong idea of the criteria with this weird poem thing (I'm still not sure what it is).

I'm also not quite sure what the inspiration for this was. I wrote it after my first GCSE exam, and yes, it was a Thursday, and it was raining! But otherwise, it's a mystery. Poetry's never been my strong point, so I guess I was just experimenting with words...

You can see the non-compressed, non-pixelized version here.