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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

Comments

  1. Wow. (the second poem) don't know what else to say at the moment. I will be re-reading that many times.

    Um, ... red dress, with out the belt. Great dress, amazing knees, envious.

    I had to look up who Tiresias was. Wonderful poetry. It's giving me a tiny glimpse into your experience.

    ReplyDelete

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