Parting Beads

Every few years the sash windows need removing to repaint and repair. I always think how lovely and Elizabethan ‘parting beads’ sound and wish to write about them. 

I gave my love two parting beads

To stick between her sashes,

She looked so sadly up at me,

And tears were on her lashes,

These aren’t the sort of beads I meant,

She cried and stamped, began to vent,

Her anger was no hurt lament,

I wanted pearls for earrings,

Not these two silly stick like things,

I wished for beauty, ornament,

And all you have to give are these,

And offer them on bended knees,

As if you truly thought you’d please,

Be off! And take your parting beads,

For you care naught for woman’s needs.

You carpenters are all the same,

I would not stoop to take the name,

Of one whose thoughts on join’ry ran,

I’m far above your sort of love,

You unimaginative man. 

Two Triangles

There are two triangles in shot,

Both holding up the music, in their way

One, the insistent metronome, whose lot

Is to be inconsistently ignored as I play,

Stumbling and noodling Bach,

Fumbling gently in the dark,

Adolescently, with nothing new to say

Yet imagining the while

I am speaking great profundity, with style.

It keeps the right time, wound tight, all day,

But does not chime in sweetly, (falsely?) 

Like the slightly fast clock, 

Winding down the weight of years away.

The other, just a stick, a prop,

Pushing back against the weight of music on the stand,

As dependable as the other, a steady hand,

Both restrain the music, never let it drop,

Yet drop by drop it runs, rain and tears flowing,

Down the slope, hypotenuse

Of hope, length equal to the sum of the square

Of the whole pythagorean scale, showing

All the minor hues, or ancient Greek blues,

Remaining, retaining, lingering, restraining care,

Setting measures, parameters for despair, 

Are yet long ago departed into thin air. 

Some Cambridge PhD Subjects (did you say theses?) made into a poem.

- Traditional Cultural Norms, Technology and Gender Relations in Ghana

- The Political Economy of Female Circumcision

- Unsexed beings: constructing gender, humanness, and agency through the use of the word “unsex” in Late Modern British society and writing

- In Her Own Words: A Study of Women’s Voices in Contemporary White Supremacy and Far-Right Online Hate

- Legal Mobilization by Black Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer (LBQ) Womxn in Kenya and South Africa

- Exploring gendered embodiment in transgender and gender-diverse adolescents at the intersection of exercise and eating behaviours, social inclusion, and mental health:  Towards a desire-centred approach in paediatric gender-affirming healthcare and research

- Codes of Life, Codes of Death: Tracing the (Im)possibility of Trans Lives in Algorithmic Assemblages

- Queer Cultural Memory in Literature, Film and Television since 1999

- The Sexually Sociological: Gay Masculinity, Intimacy and the (Un)queer State

The political economy of female circumcision,

Is not a subject to dismiss in ignorant derision,

You may ask what ‘female’ means for it’s absolutely clear

That gender is constructed, and have no fear,

I make no claim that females are unsexed,

When their cunts are deconstructed,

No question asked, no question vexed, 

Their humanness and agency are not deducted

Along with nerves and clitoris, the mere idea!

These are atomised units within the economic sphere.

There must be no debate,

No far right or online hate,

For contemporary white supremacy

Would only advocate

For the right of girls to masturbate,

Is that necessary in a non democracy?

Black lesbians, bisexuals and humans who are queer

Can mobilize in Kenya, where womxn are held dear.

Let’s not get into diverse gendered adolescents,

I’m only into mutilated prepubescents.

What care I for anorexia,

Or social inclusion,

I suffer from dyslexia,

But don’t be under the illusion,

That restricts my arrogant capacity

For producing absolutely necessary

Verbal diarrhoea. 

Harpsichord Versus Piano as Prayer.

Can God be praised, extolled, adored

Via the jangling of a harpsichord?

Of course He can, He is the Lord,

Of music which can’t be ignored,

Joyful, Hebrew, self assured.

I think he’s probably made bored

By piano playing badly flawed,

With touchy feelings sad and deeply poured

Excreted via pores and pawed,

By someone wet and overawed

And narcissistic, self absorbed.