You Can't Kill The Spirit. by Majikle

From under muddy plastic sheeting

tenting over a sapling tree

Jo Freemantle can see

anxious bailiffs and

their nuclear stiff ballistics’

cynical stare

Like a mountain

she will lay limp to stop them

still they will drag her bodily

shred the women’s peace camp

every single rain or shine day

for the twelve years she is there

‘Greenham common women’ cursed on telly

for leaving their babies at home

disgracing themselves tied to fences

fingers entwined being crazy

choiring antidotes to war

like vital thrushes

With silty firepit sisterkin

even now at 73

Jo changes everything

Indigo-Line Mudgoddess

a rainbow name to refuse

to be her father’s daughter

She says that houses don’t need wives

but the world needs women

to reveal Emperor nudity

old and strong like a mountain

she goes on and on

and on

REWILD

Reignite regeneration

Repopulate resistance

Restoring resilience

Replete real recovery

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

Reinvigorate

Reintegrate

Repair

                        Repeat

We Gave Birth to a Minotaur

So who will be our judge in hell?

When the wealth of Syrian women are

Over millennia, brutally forced into the sea

By insignificant men who pray for balls as big as bulls

And sell Europa’s cunt fruit for freedoms

They never could learn how to enjoy.

Even the honeyed growth that comes from rape

Can never still my rage

How can it be enough to carry a thread?

Through this labyrinthine

Descending slippery

Shell?

Fool

I was bullied as a child

Taunted with names as so many are

But I learned to bully back

Learned the sweet thrill

Of pinching soft nipples too hard

I grew with the power to wound

Attractive to the weak and the teary

I loved myself powerful and

It seemed I was loved in return

But some people still spurned me

Why those others attracted me

More than those who liked me

I could not fathom

A perverse wanting of what you’ve not got

Or perhaps in your heart you just know

The self-assured ran from my company

They could see how I always talked about me

How I never admitted to any flaw

How I could never let my hair down

And just naked be me.

Finally I was forced to explore

That the discerning knew more than I did

Knew what I was up to, the tricks

Saw through the gifts and cajolery

Were too wise for spider lies

So I let it go and with it went

All the glorious swag my blag had bought

I had to learn to simply be nice

To be fussy in choosing friends

To be only easily hurt

Now when people try to bully me

I bare my teeth, but I understand

Why they chose this niche

That the journey home is hard and long and often cold

But every fighting dog, one day gets old.

Squared

Things have changed since

Van Limburgstirumplein last saw us

Cycling around her

I sit to sip overpriced coffee

Hoping I can still see

Your cheeks puff

Up front on a giant homemade bike

Me with my

Over stuffed rucksack

Dangling from the back

Two foreign girls

Escaping our governments

Looking for life lasting love

And finding it

In each other’s

Secret world faces

Ellyott, my lover is

Several inches shorter than even me

But three times as strong

Astute jockey always pushing through

What else can a dyke woman do?

Over tram tracks

Careful never to get stuck

The number ten

To Javaplein

Which too has been

Reclaimed from the squatters

Renovated and rebranded

Reblended into Amsterdam green

These days’ dykes are not so strange

Everybody is somewhere

On the queer spectrum range

Integration is the new normal

As everyone assimilates our fists

And to be fair our old enemy capitalism

Never needed homophobia as an excuse

To kick anyone where it hurts most

We, like the Moroccans have been priced out

Way beyond the railway tracks

Unless we have money

When we are welcome

To spend in the sunset lit square

Nice bikes sitting upright tidy in their racks

Adorn the advertising pumping station

As if it has always been

Like this there

Not filled with junkies their gums burned bare

The Kemperstraat stands far too quiet

Without her graffiti minded sluts

Near the Avondwinkel in

Need of more than

A lick of paint

The number of bridges getting smaller

As the city council carts

All homeless looking damaged bikes away

The cries of freedom from restraint

Have all grown faint

But the pigeons circle

The square indifferently

Just the same

Pressed

The white rose

you gave me

the day I left you

in our gypsy wagon

is rusting at the petal tips.

Cells of mortal memories

Are always called to this.

You wanted our developing

To end when I pushed

You away

And now you want me

To return

Because I’ve got your back

But plucked it was

By your fair hand and

I’m not sure I understand

How our soft start

Accelerated already to this?

When Walking Over Muddy Fields

Start slow,

Keep your eyes on the baby steps low

Do not look too far ahead

instead, plod on

Know you will get there

Find stones and tree roots to press

your careful feet into

Follow the dogs for high ground, not pigs

they look for hollows to wallow in

Scan the sides for elevations

however small

And don’t take the bramble’s jokes

personally at all

When climbing up a muddy bank

follow the footprints you know

Steady as you

ninja go.

Hygge

These fabrics…our society...maybe cloaks…friends…enveloping…soft fond fringes… rich brocade ties…binding fast…snug between breasts…for when we tear…mindless into awful chill…bitter souls…deserted…if we cleave to one another…clutch and cling right tight…then perhaps…be scooped up…swaddled babes in fine yarns and balmy fragrance…braced…dandled…clothed decently together…for a secure landing.

Culture

To those of you who claim

We humans are harmful creatures

That should die or go away

I say

Put out more food for the birds

Lay some hedges

Give them room to play

Be the change you want to see

Grow some hay

Nature had a plan for us

Her thoughtful chimpanzee

We could get back to the garden

Together

You and her and me.

Song of the gulf of Boni (Bone)

Why do you not know what separates us

When you presume to name me

After your body parts?

To then exist unseen

As if transparency

Means no personality

When…For all your industry

Dirting on my shores

You’re stuck in the shallows

Where mine shape yours

Licking and rinsing you clean

Salty balm for your festering sores

Feeling what you should see

Bone solid is not the only way to be

Still…You bathe in my edges

Because you daren’t

Go all the way down to deepness

Where spiral gyres move and shift

Too much pressure for you

Skin child, rude chimpanzee

Clinging to crusts

When you could be

Symbiont grooming me

Instead …You brand with numbers

“Eighty miles long, thirty wide”

Avoiding the fact I’m the majority

I’m not even a me

We are a body

Planetary blood coursing

Adventure energy resourcing

We are water

Ceaseless sea

Bike Capital

With straight backs on long legs
bare and free, vrouwen ride this city
Juggling shopping, smartphones
A cup of coffee
one an ironing board
three kids eating ice cream
all pulling assorted dogs on leads
Filling the roadways with cycling scene
No hills but bridges to alter the pace
Proud of its universal welcome
Amsterdam is a smooth place

All of Love is Opportunity

I’m  lost   

in  this  thickening  

fog  of expectations  

fermenting  beyond  their  prime  

on  who  said  what  to  who  again  

and  why? 

as  though  

if  we  can  just  unpick

the   blame  thread  

we  can  each  hold  up  our own  head  

and  cry  righteous  tears  

about   our  un-dead  love  

still the only thing

we  both  know  

is  what  we  can’t  let  go  

because  once  it  was  the  only  show  

we  wanted  to  watch  

but  now  it  is  a  stale  rerun  

of  knots  that  have  been  undone

longer  than  either  of  us  wanted  to  believe 

because  all  love of is  opportunity

 Even  when the  sheets  are  clean  

never  to  get  dirty again  

and  all  this  linen  we  keep  trying  to wash  is

stained  indelibly  with  us  

but  even so  I  fear  

our  hearts  will  never  be  reopened  

after  all  this  vinegar  soaking

because unless  we  stop  provoking  

all  that  we  ever had  will  be  tossed  

like  leaves  plucked  off in  summer  

never  to  let  the  tree  recover  

so if  I  don’t  want  to  be  lovers  

that

doesn’t mean  

I  don’t  still  love us

Slut Shaming by Maj Ikle

Like rose petals on a mountain-top

She is delicately exposed

Wafting earthly erotic embers

Scenting our air with desire

Soft lips tremble yearning

Bare of the spittle

That flies frothy from

Your stiff metal gob

As if shame is your job

To cover her up lest she

Sets the whole world on fire

But how many names

Does one language require

To slander women

For glittering with sexual salt

Tell us mr policeman plod

Who died to make you my Daddy god?

 Summer tour 2016  dates confirmed so far....

 Saturday July 16th poetry for the dykes dyke (with surprise special guest!)
    http://www.lfest.co.uk/l-fest-2016-line-up/

Queer Spirit Wed 16th -21st August
https://www.queerspirit.net/festival

Camarthen festival one night stand july 9th in aid of Red Cross

photo by Dominic Williams

Children Again

Some grizzled man

Who once was four

Holds a tiny grandson hand

By a pebbled sunny shore

Teaching the thrill of throwing stones

Safe, exuberant, secure

While wind tears hair

From the back of waves

Trying to Canute the fall

Before ebbing away for more.

was twittered about x

https://twitter.com/writestuff41/status/697745332713689088

Aylan

I wrap his body

In the finest tabloid paper and

Tie quality strings

With tight little knots

What else can I do with

My celebrated son

But send him to your better world

Filled with food, shelter and toys

I whisper a last goodbye

As I place him on postal scale

Weighing him heavy against

The price of hope

But we both know

He’ll grow cold this Christmas

Under plastic needle trees

With their fake magic dreams

 

Flowering

-->

It was my older Sister

who inspired me

To say, fuck it

I’ll not wear a bra

Today. My mother never

Could have, for I

Was afraid

Of the way hers sway

My Great Aunts

Let their mouths stretch

As they laugh

About how lewdness is their

Art. Shaking their heads

Like cudded cows

With nothing better to do

Than fart.

But my Grandma

With her wiggle on the dance floor

A kid from

A street called

Rough. She was

The one who

Stirred me up

To really strut my stuff.

Riots in Reflection

Is our custodian of calm,

Time?

So elastic and plastic and thin.

Or is it purely a technique for keeping track

When we want something looking back?

Perhaps she’s a gentle nurse,

Tucking souvenir tickets into our pockets.

Tender times spent waiting with children,

Unwilling to urge them into any rat race

Or when I pulled you from beneath a truncheon

moments before it split open your girlish face

The day you wanted something from me but I gave you only words

Wasn’t it you who said it is time we grew up? With

Time a lighthouse blaring warnings of imminent rocky ruin.

Tumbling through hourglass figures to settle on the underside of our hips.

Scorching moist elastin into a salty dry skin that cannot be rubbed young.

Time never stretching languid again

nor preening in the heat wave of unlimited opportunity.

She’s truncating, cooling and separating,

Breaking us like flotsam floating away still.

My nemesis moving fast forward

Intent on her kill.

Queening

I bet the queen wishes

She was someone else

Entirely, a postie or a

Poet or even

A genuine retiree

So many things

She’ll never feel

Like what it’s like to be unknown

Or beaten up

Or sent back home

I wonder if she dreams

Of saying goodbye

To that waving work

Then just going down the boozer

And acting like a total jerk

But why do I seem to need

Celebrities and the VIP’d

Them up on pedestals

Me sucking my thumb

Waiting for mum?