(c) j7, 2008

a lanky beat
of hellbent vain
keen tenth of a novel

i awaken a gloomy hothead,
fall asleep
a legendary lobotomy
and nag lovingly

in trim dignity
and with one last flourish
of tidy verbal massacre
i’ll die like this

snarky rich and poor
as smacking dirt
befitting a dynamic hag

but will have wanted
to be more, otherwise
what was the point?

(c) Seven, 20080804

There are still a handful of women, aged at least 104, who were once barred from taking part in a UK general election because of their gender. After Edwardian struggles, women had finally won the vote in 1918 - but not all of them. To ensure men remained the majority, the female qualifying age was set at 30, rather than 21. That patriarchal rigging was put right only with a further change enacted 80 years ago today, a moment when nearly 2 million of today’s grandmothers and great-aunts had already been born. To celebrate how far women have come in the decades since, a little gem of an exhibition featuring six female artists opens in a disused factory off Bow Road in London tonight. Yards from Sylvia Pankhurst’s suffragette shop and close to the scene of the match girls’ strike, the show is in the heart of Suffragette City, and that is its title. But the exhibits are not narrowly political: the great strength of the collection is its diversity. Sure, feminism may play a part in Tsering Frykman-Glen’s use of chintzy crockery to celebrate the old-lady aesthetic. But that is only one of several themes in her quirky yet poignant installation. The mad mythical worlds of Amie Turnbull’s psychedelia are in utter contrast to the English landscape tradition, to which co-exhibitor Hannah Brown provides a sculptural twist. Kate Terry’s installation weaves great veils of string across outsize frames, with an effect that is at once disorientating and dreamy. The way women use art is just as varied as the way they use their votes.

yesterday, jasmine whispered
into the air while
umbrellas collided and raindrops
made perfect concentric circles
along the stone walkways

i often notice these
magic little things
but when i was a teen
i discovered the hard way
that pearls are really
angel tears and
i don’t wear them anymore

it always seemed so unfair
that angels
should have a reason to cry

(c) Seven, 20080402

cut flowers in a bowl
your critical eye on them all
with constant derision
and a mocking kiss for me

in this room
i am nowhere to be seen
in this room
i am ready to be saved
in this room
these moments wear me naked

because neither one of us
are who you wish
we are

and neither one of us
are who you want
us to be

I am not her
and you are not
the person
you want others to believe

i am yours badly
but nothing’s real, Dr. Jekyll
and thick condescension
chokes the atmosphere

are you missing me?

you might
if you knew me

you might
if you knew you

you might
if there was really anyone
in this room

Seven (c) 20080323

was it ever thus, when fever kindles
bone-deep chill, then breaks sweat soaking
starless unrest, while that one damn song keeps
echoing, reechoing, chipping away

my steadfast before ricocheting off
slipskin, chipping away at its own caprice,
its own delirium akin to torment,

akin to lust, a frisson that should’ve
sufficed but for parallel lips half-parted,
but for love’s unspoken greys unflinching.

© johnnie_7 2008