- 3 lessons you can learn from polyamorous relationships - 25 October, 2022
- Why Roe v. Wade isn’t just a women’s issue, but a humanity issue - 7 September, 2022
- Interview: Caleb Everett: ‘you know she keeps a diary – and it all goes in’ - 22 December, 2020
To mark National Poetry Day 2014, Vada wants to serenade you with our poetry!
THE KISS by Adam Lowe
We kiss in front of your monument,
our lips pressed like this, the ovals
of mouths bunched into fists.
We hold tight with soft arms,
and tango in rows, our bodies
all faces and hooked elbows.
We kiss outside parliament
to show you we’re here. We kiss
in the street. We kiss without fear.
TOUGH LOOK by Adam Lowe
Well then, that’s how you’ll move:
with purpose; leonine strides.
You’ll thatch your skin thicker
with a patchwork of diva, all Liza,
Whitney, Marilyn. You’ll scare
men who fall out of Wetherspoons,
invoke platitudes from girls streaked
the colour of shoe polish. You’ll
be you: a little braver, a little bigger
—but it will always sting inside.
AFTERLIFE @ AFTERSHOCK by Adam Lowe
Pass the dry-ice strobe-stare of the
three-headed bouncer there, pass
the hellhound with six black shoulders.
Descend with me into a bruise-lit underworld.
Anna Phylactic, our Queen Ishtar, rules
with eye-patch, hoop-skirt, wig.
Cyclopean giver of asphodel foams
at his grinning mouth, collects payment from
all to lift them, high spirits, to heaven;
and the DJ, hand cutting tunes like
a scythe, ferries us to the shore of the next
blue dawn. Bass rumbles, the displeasure
of life against ecstasy; then the drop comes
and we’re wing-swept to rapture as one.
BUZZING AFFY by Adam Lowe
A translation of Sappho’s ‘A Hymn to Aphrodite’
I
Sister, on your precious throne of metal bling,
funking daughter of jagged skies and lightning,
domme* of odes, listen close now, come on. Sister,
I’m woman calling.
Listen how you listen, catch my morning buzz,
my voice carried over wire and horizon,
just come, as you came before. Sister, leave your
strobe-light happening.
II
Your arrival is the tide-ripple of doves,
ecstasy’s muscle-rhythm through the club.
You lift high over skies, glow stick bright, throw down
heavens to hip-wind.
The haters still come. And you – my avatar,
cover girl, superstar – wait while I sulk! Quick,
blow kisses when you text back. Spit me a rap, girl,
I need your reply.
III
You will say: Who has dissed you this time, sister?
Who stole your dark-kissed heart? Can you take it back?
They’ll soon give all that you gave, then give you more.
They always return.
Tell me who to petition, who to burn out,
who to placard – you promised me this, sister.
Come now. Keep your vow. This world could soon be ours.
Be my damn lover.
VADA THAT by Adam Lowe
Aunt nell the patter flash et gardy loo!
Bijou, she trolls, bold, on lallies
slick as stripes down the Dilly.
She minces past the brandy latch
to vada dolly dish for trade, silly
with oomph and taste to park.
She’ll reef you on her vagaries—
should you be so lucky. She plans
to gam a steamer and tip the brandy,
but give her starters and she’ll be happy
to give up for the harva. Mais oui,
she’s got your number, duckie.
She’ll cruise an omi with fabulosa bod,
regard the scotches, the thews, the rod—
charpering a khazi for the trick.
Slick, she bamboozles the ogles
of old Lilly Law. She swishes
through town, ‘alf meshigener, and blows
lamors through the oxy at all
the passing trade. She’ll sass a drink
of aqua da vida, wallop with vera in claw.
Nellyarda her voche’s chant till the nochy
with panache becomes journo, till
the sparkle laus the munge out of guard.
But sharda she’s got nada, she aches
for an affaire, and dreams of pogey
through years of nix. The game nanti works
—not for her. She prefers a head
or back slum to the meat rack. Fact is,
she’ll end up in the charpering carsey
of Jennifer Justice. What is this
queer ken she’s in? Give her an auntie
or a mama. The bones isn’t needed just yet.
Though she’s a bimbo bit of hard,
she’s royal and tart. And girl, you know
vadaing her eek is always bona.
OF WORDS by Sean Weaver
Words are my calling,
They are the equivalent of all that I am,
And all that I was.
A master artist paints in color,
And I speak the art of beauty in words.
The spoken word that revels in the language of the tongue,
And the written word that revels in the mastery of lines.
“He” was my beginning,
“I” is my present.
The blank space between lines and pages is my future.
My creation is in words,
Words are my creation.
Like a blank page that waits for the first drop of ink to dry,
I speak,
Of Words that have not yet been spoken,
Of Words that that have not yet been written,
Of Words that give birth
To truth and beauty unknown.
I speak
Of words
Photo: Anna Phylactic and Cheddar Gawjus pucker up for Young Enigma‘s A Royal Wedding. Photo: Drew Wilby.
