A few poorly lit photos and a couple of poems.

From my recent haul of clothes from various friends, Value Villages.

Sorry for the fuzzy pics. I was so into playing Mrs. Dressup that I  forgot to light myself better. photoshop can only do so much.

the next batch will be more carefully planned, hopefully.

The poems are older pieces, that are on the Trans theme (I have a lot of Trans poems, actually.) My first book being called "Like Bukowski In Drag" (you can buy it here: My poetry books)

 I wore this to work today, though it was very mild and I was zipped up in leopard most of the afternoon. Summer, yet? please!

Here's the first poem about the "gender thing" (as I've spent most of my life calling this particular issue of mine.)... First one that I ever finished anyway. written in endless little notebooks in 1991 era Main Street area cafes, greasy spoons. and endlessly edited since then.

What follows, Tiresias?

all feathers and smiling   i enter

and i ask: "what breath of being

                           throws

                           you inside me now

JosephJoeyJoeJosie ?"

bonesfollow your eyesfingers

under skin

over flesh over soul

my soul

and you/me

           cannot

answer me\you

              do we /i

want to know

what has followed follows?

flustered by context\continuity

i merge

       submerge

in city/country here\now then/there

boy\girl woman\man yin\yang all/nothing

desperate\happy young/old dead\alive

                                    me

what follows                          me

i cannot decide

for myself/anyone

                 called

                       JosephJoeyJoeJosieJoe

"Tiresias am i marked as   

     you?"

man/woman\man   

              prophet of the blind

                              spot

ms begotten/mr begotten

                        funny or

                                knot?

hubris\humour

i am blind

           but now you see?

"Tiresias am i me/you him\her/her ?"

as lucid and appropriate as a eunuch's dream

i flounder with power   voices   not mine

not yours not

             JosephJoeyJoeJosie with

in my varied bones 

             we dance into empty dresses

we dance into empty messes

                           violentandrepetitive 

more cynical

than cyclical

than any other aspiration\inspiration ever come

to me

      any of me

                ere now

and as delusory as an angel's desire/advice

"Should i stoke myself with fervent

                                   androgynic

word\worlds of nether\neither being and or further

                         and fever andandandadnand

i'm

   flying\grounded

                   above/below

                               one\another

"if only there were/weren't just one 

                                     conundrum?"

but there are

             knot.

"it...is only confusion haze

                           days and days of

hazed pain discovery\fear!"

                            ...of

the understanding of the real mr/ms understood the 

hatred/love

of my selves

            all my selves : JosephJoeyJoeJosie

"Tiresias can you hear me? 

                          Tiresias can you see what

                                               follows

JosephJoeyJoeJosie?"

This is the red dress I got at Value village the other day. Belt, or no belt? Different belt? Either way, I love this dress.  also in red I got this awesome long sweater. It has a hood! goes well with anything, and will help me warm in my basement apartment and other damp places in Vancouver (aka everywhere in Vancouver)

I'll end with another poem, one that I started in Japan, and have been tweaking since. I think it's in it's final state, but I'm of the mind that like Walt whitman, I plan to keep writing and rewriting my poems, my whole life... (if they need rewriting, and they often do.)

my salvation is pink 

fear gone absolutely amok 

my supposed transparent calm:

so hard and pure

naked inclination

a confession to briefly 

thrusting

furious sexy thoughts 

at an actual woman

: but wait, aren’t you gay?

  aren’t you a crossdressing 

  sexchange wannabe?

destiny says yes i am, but 

alone in a crowd 

this child of Tiresias is drowning 

in the Tsunamis of women

that swim past everyday

erasing gay embraces

and the purple vanity 

i am so fatalistic about

deserving desiring because 

of my years nay decades of 

lying about being a straight transvestite

broken quills are scattered amongst the 

truth of my old poems 

odes to women i really did love

wherein i saw 

my own god who was so obviously 

a goddess

a banquet of circles 

knees and snowy secrets 

promises born tenderly from

my dread

my worry 

that horrifically these women i craved

were only mirrors of my own soul 

and 

therefore delicate aches i drowned in whiskey 

and 

darkbluehomosexualencounters 

and tomorrow’s 

denial of my lavender 

exile from women that 

has become green 

and is vain is glorious damnation 

i pretend while awkwardly 

dancing in the slivers of moonlight 

that 

i both envy as someone 

who is technically 

unhappy 

   being  less than a woman

and 

desire as someone 

who is decidedly 

happy 

being less than a man

Poems and photos © Josie Boyce 2012