poetry

TO THE BODY UNORDINARY

This poem was published in APJ 14.1: WALKING, guest edited by Jake Goetz. You can buy a copy here.

TO THE BODY UNORDINARY

the doctor cracks jokes,

doesn’t have that twist to his mouth

that i have come to expect

nor the mantle of arrogance

while mispronouncing my condition

doesn’t say “maybe you’re just

anxious”—i am anxious

largely due to doctors 

who neglect the maxim Do no harm

parading bigotry as physic

saying “maybe you’re overthinking

it” or maybe it’s my imagination

& i try to imagine something else, 

a body without agony, 

a body that walks & stands up

without falling over, a body

with energy & substance, lacking 

joint laxity, spasticity, fragility, 

unaltered by hormone therapy, 

untargeted by eugenics, with an 

unabbreviated life expectancy

—a body that will never know the joy

of soaring down the hill, a body

that is still, that doesn’t spin or sway 

from side to side or soak up colour

& light, a body with quiet hands

that doesn’t contort or fall out of joint:

a slow, bipedal, confident body,

possessing limited mobility, 

no lithium-ion propulsion,

unradicalised, oblivious

& ignorant of all the secret pathways

(side entrances, goods & services 

elevators, hydraulic stair lifts,

jacaranda flowers littering

the long way round)

—none of which i explain

to the doctor, who says “normal”

in contrast to my body & then

guiltily amends to “typical”

at which i laugh thinking

how boring to be normal, how dull

& colourless a life

how unimaginable

JOYRIDE, from Raging Grace

This poem was first published in Raging Grace: Australian Writers Speak Out on Disability, edited by Andy Jackson, Esther Ottaway and Kerri Shying, 2024.

JOYRIDE was written as the third piece of a criptych (crip triptych) of poems about wheelchair joy. The first two poems, not included here, were written by Kerri Shying (HEY THERE LEGS ELEVEN) and Gaele Sobotte (WHEELING THE STICKY DELICIOUS). You can buy a copy of Raging Grace here.

JOYRIDE

Listen I said I’m hell on wheels

burning up the bitumen

I’m that vroom vroom mthrfckr 

that Tilite street fighter 

that acid green that sleek freak

lean mean meme machine

I’m that speed demon born 2 ride

that deadly sin that crip pride

that battleground that unsound

that rebel yell I’m hellbound 

I’m underground I’m thunder

& lightning I’m frightening bipeds

w that BEEPBEEP that tyre shriek

that too fast too young

I’m well hung high-strung 

yeah I’m that scream queen

that in-between seize the means

that high risk heart disease

uncomfortable mortality 

that eugenic disposability

emergency ward striptease 

hospital glam night shift

that fall risk that plot twist

stuck in the hydraulic lift

the grift the grind that grand design 

see u on the picket line 

I’m circling I’m rapid cycling

I’m that manic panic that 

aerodynamic that didactic 

that dialectical materialism

that trans contagion that 

survival mechanism

that narrative prosthesis

I’m spasticus autisticus 

I’m the lunatic the mutant 

the monster the mad bitch 

the noncompliant bad crip 

the fetish fuck the tokenism

yeah I get around I lie down 

I’ll throw down I’ll sing out

WHEELS UP STREETRATS LET’S GO 

watch out we’re revving engines

we’re revolving we’re in revolt

hey I said I’m revolutionary 

age of devolution baby

I said solidarity not charity

I said rise up bash back

Comrades listen I said

this poem kills fascists

I said sing out ye disenfranchised

wheelchairs of the world unite

the manual the motorised 

the rollators the sweet rides

the homefires resistance 

the sticks & stones the inpatients

the impatience the invalids 

the involuntary high vis

the dole bludger proletariat 

the sick cunts the slam dunks

the red flag union hacks

the ticking clock cardiacs

the ethical dilemmas the

queer hypotheticals

inflammatory radicals

the persecuted masses

black armband insurrection

retribution reparations

Listen

I said the revolution’s coming

GOOD CRIPS GO TO HEAVEN BUT GET STUCK AT THE STAIRWAY

This poem was initially published as a digital zine for Red Dirt Poetry Festival in 2020. The first few pages are attached below. You can read the full zine here and image descriptions here.

GOOD CRIPS GO TO HEAVEN BUT GET STUCK AT THE STAIRWAY
after Quin Eli

Be bad, love. Take that bad attitude
and forge it into armour. Turn chains
into chainmail. Take the rage and rancour
and make it plated bronze, brace your joints
in bitterness. Blaze apotropaic iron
out of acrimony, glare back at staring eyes.
Rebel and revolt. Forget that carceral logic,
be grassroots, be light and fire. Let your disabled body
be fierce and furious, let your disabled mind
be ardent and wild. Wrap steel around your heart
and let your heart stay soft. The life you have
is a life worth living. Be proud, love.
Be loud and unashamed. Fold fear into a shield,
let all of it reflect away. Don’t look back,
don’t dwell in regret. Let yourself seek redemption
without the tragic backstory, without justification
or explanation, without “what’s wrong with you”
or “what happened”. Let it happen.
Bite the hand. Demand, don’t ask.
If they care, they’ll fight beside you. Piss on pity
and inspiration, reject involuntary martyrdom.
Be that transgender menace, that lavender threat.
Be damned, love. You’re there already.
The world is burning. Take hell
and make it yours, be hell on wheels.
Be monstrous, be the bad example,
the bad influence, the bad cripple.
Be noncompliant. Speak in your own language.
Live fast, live strong. Fight for liberation
not assimilation. Remember solidarity,
stay strange, keep weird and queer,
and always channel anger into action.
You are loved and not alone. There is more than this
and more to come. Be joyous, my love, be bad.

Good Crips Go to Heaven But Get Stuck at the Stairway after Quin Eli Robin M Eames Picture: a white genderqueer wheelchair user in a graffitied alleyway.
Text: Be bad, love. Take that bad attitude and forge it into armour. Turn chains into chainmail. Take the rage and rancour and make it plated bronze, brace your joints in bitterness. image: colourful graffiti on a wall including the text ‘transphobes with no teeth’; a close-up photo of a brass microscope
Blaze apotropaic iron out of acrimony, glare back at staring eyes. Rebel and revolt. [image: a hand passing through flame; an x-ray of Robin’s cervical spine in flexion and extension, where their lip piercing is visible]
Forget that carceral logic, be grassroots, be light and fire. [image: close-up of poppies; film photo of orange and yellow nemesia flowers]
Let your disabled body be fierce and furious, let your disabled mind be ardent and wild. [image: Robin wearing a colourful dress doing a wheelie in front of a graffiti-covered wall; a long exposure shot of a rainbow hoop, with colourful streams of light flaring out around a vague figure]
Wrap steel around your heart and let your heart stay soft. The life you have is a life worth living. [image: vibrantly coloured cardiac echoes of Robin’s wonky heart; eucalypts at dusk]

PRINCIPLES FOR VICTIMS AND OTHERS

This was written as part of Red Room Poetry’s collaborative project AUTHOR UNKNOWN.

You can read it on their website here, alongside its partner poem THE CEO MUST DO A THING, by the brilliant David Stavanger (cited here under the collaborative pseudonym Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips). PRINCIPLES FOR VICTIMS AND OTHERS is a found poem using excerpts of the the Queensland Mental Health Act 2016; David’s is a found poem using the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill 2022.

PRINCIPLES FOR VICTIMS AND OTHERS

The patient is unfit to appear / in this Act

in absence of person / the person becomes an involuntary patient

when the person is admitted.

A person is presumed / a person only if it’s appropriate

Because of the person’s illness

the person does not have capacity to consent.

The relevant patient is observed, while kept in seclusion.

Information about the person must be recognised:

the person as if a reference:

the person is a member of a particular racial group

the person has a particular economic or social status

the person has a particular sexual preference or sexual orientation

the person engages in sexual promiscuity

the person engages in immoral or indecent conduct

the person takes drugs or alcohol

the person has an intellectual disability

the person engages in antisocial behaviour or illegal behaviour

the person is or has been involved in family conflict

the person has previously been treated for a mental illness

A person may have a mental illness

A person may have / human worth and dignity as an individual

The authorised doctor examining the patient

may be at risk of harming others.

An assisting clinician’s functions are limited

A person is to be encouraged

a person is to be provided

a person is to be helped

a person’s / special needs must be recognised and taken into account

for example, destroying it or giving it away

Care of a person means a reference to care of the person

recovery of a person means development of a person

When the person is discharged

Nothing in this Act makes the State liable.

VOCALISATIONS and SONG OF THE BIPED

These two were published recently in Bramble, issue 2, a journal by and for disabled creatives. You can read the issue here.

Vocalisations was written during lockdown.

Song of the Biped was an experimental poem written in the voice of a nondisabled person. I recognise that adopting the voice of a community I don’t belong to is controversial, but I am fascinated by the unique worldview of abled people: their curiosity, their obliviousness, their rigid adherence to convention. Several nondisabled people offered unsolicited consultation for this poem.

VOCALISATIONS

in the dream of evening i am afraid
of the not yet everything / of happening
too much or not enough / i am lonely
covered over with every star concealed
by city smog to which i contribute
every heartbeat i shall never recover
i am trying not to be too obviously crazy
in the zoom call & in the streets populated
by cop cars & dogwalkers / warned by the
neighbourhood whatsapp / i learn birdsongs
thru the urban wail of sirens / love & war
& calls of alarm / contact & separation / flight / hunger
seeking justice or solace / i am trying to be
a version of myself i can live with
hoping to live past 30 / for the ordinary noise of life
restraining expectations in the hope of hope
for not yet i give myself to my community
to love / struggle / solidarity / to something
i give myself to birds
to each unlikely dawn

SONG OF THE BIPED

I have a cousin who’s     handicapped
you know, special needs ???
??? directionally challenged ??? living with     access ????
how’d you end up in that thing?
How much does it cost and was it
a car accident? Carbon fibre?
Did the government pay for it
out of my taxes?      Do you work?
doesn’t seem cost efficient
is it permanent     or temporary?
Are you permanent     or temporary?
I’d kill myself if I had to live like you
– that’s a compliment     of course
to your resilience.      I broke my leg once
so I know what it’s like. It must be so hard.
Is it hard to get up hills? I just think you’re     inspiring
just think you’re     so brave for continuing
to get up in the morning (I wouldn’t)
And how do you get that into a car?
How do you     have sex? How do you
get up in the morning? Well     I’ll pray for you
here     I’ll help push you oh it’s no trouble,
I like to be useful     It’s fine, I think it’s fine
I won’t ask permission. I’m helping
Mind if I lean my bag on your shoulder?
Oh it’s no trouble     Hey, where’s your carer?
Why are you out here by yourself?
That’s not right. It’s so nice to see you out,
of course     You’re so brave     Not like those
dole bludgers. Were you born like that? Hey
I just want to thank you for being here –
I’ve never contemplated     my mortality
the way I do when I look at you
      Really makes you think

LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING

I have a poem published in the most recent issue of Voiceworks, LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING.

Aphrodite is the oldest of the Olympian gods, and I thought about exploring a darker, more primordial reading of her. As the goddess of love and beauty, her marriage to disabled Hephaestus is often seen as a cosmic joke. I wanted to see that conflict resolved with a queer turn.

This will be my last poem in Voiceworks, since I turned 25 a few days after the submission deadline. I am deeply grateful to Voiceworks editor Adalya Nash Hussein for helping shape this poem into something I am sincerely proud of (and for being very patient while I rambled on at length about mythic context).

The issue includes a breathtaking illustration by Iona Julian-Walters accompanying my poem. You can pick up a copy here.

 

LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING

Here’s another version. Aphrodite is an old god,
older than most. She is born when Cronus cuts off
his father’s dick and flings it into the ocean. Around
the severed organ silver foam wells up, and in time
a girl takes shape in the crest of the wave, her body
pale and shining. When she emerges from the water
grass grows beneath her feet. Her outline wavers
a little in the blush of dawn, lit around with gold.
This is before she knows the form of her divinity.
She thinks she might be a goddess of the morning,
or of summer blossoms, or birdsong. But her teeth
are a little too sharp for that, the arch of her throat
too cruel. She lacks the batlike wings of her infernal
sisters, the jealous Furies, but there is something
in her eyes that resembles them. What she wants,
she takes. Her attention is first drawn to her husband
by the bright rubies winking in his earlobes, then by
the delicate treasures he crafts as courting-gifts:
grand chariots, jewelled chalices, fine-wrought chains.
His prosthesis is simple but lovely, a platinum frame
spun lightly around the scarred warp of his leg.
Hephaestus, like her, has an eye for beauty. Later
outside Troy the goddess hears a bloodcurdling cry
as brazen Ares comes blazing through the mortal
ranks, his eyes flashing with hellish flame, red with
gore, beautiful and terrible. She takes him to her bed
not long afterward. Stripped of his bloody raiment,
spilled out against her pillows, the god of strife is
strangely vulnerable. His hands are soft at his sides.
Aphrodite has no mercy in her: she rises over him,
bites and scratches, sinks her claws deep into his flesh.
Her husband finds them there like that. Ares glowing
under the light of the moon, Aphrodite pinning him
down. Hephaestus stops in the doorway, his shadow
stretching out over their bodies. His knuckles are white
around a golden net. His eyes are burning. Aphrodite
arches her back, tips her head back lazily to meet her
husband’s furious gaze; then she opens her arms to him
as Ares shudders beneath her. A moment of hesitation.
The golden mesh slips out of his hands. He strides forward.

THERE ARE ONLY 16 GENDERS

I have a very serious (read: prodigiously silly) gender poem out in Cordite‘s TRANSQUEER issue. You can read it here.

Do check out the rest of the issue if you have the chance – there are some beautiful poems in there, especially from the late and great Candy Royalle.

REQUIEM FOR MEDUSA

New poem out in Hermes, REQUIEM FOR MEDUSA, and a recording of me reading it. This poem was the judges’ choice winner in the “word” category of the USU Creative Awards. If you swing by Verge Gallery in the next week or so, you can pick up a free copy of the edition.

 

REQUIEM FOR MEDUSA

He does not look directly at you,
your murderer, fearful that one
unprotected glance at your body
will strike him down. When the
sword falls upon your long neck
his gaze is turned aside a little as
if from shyness, tinged perhaps
with disgust at the monstrosity
of your form, or shame, not for
himself but for the anathema of
your existence, looking only at
your reflection. You do not give
him the same discourtesy. Your
alien eyes, gold and slit-pupilled,
are fixed on him the entire time
you are dying. The shape of him
young, lithe, feet planted firmly,
all leather and bronze, one long
red line of blood interrupted by
splashes of your own blue-black
ichor. Mirrored shield held aloft
like Atlas burdened with the disc
of the heavens. He dims as your
vision falters, brilliance dulling,
blur of blood and light and dark,
the shadows deepening as your
own shade departs the cave, not
for the cold hell of Tartaros but
for the rivers of the dark-haired
god who accepts all equally and
whose kingship over everything
under the earth extends already
to you and your serpentine kin.
Behind you in the mortal realm
the husk of your corpse turns to
ash as he seizes your skull by its
hissing roots, affixing your head
to his burnished shield, his own
reflection fixed forever in your
nacreous pupils, the gilded killer
entombed, ill omen to future foe.