Writing this in August, as the summer leans back in its last golden days, we at the Poetry Pharmacy want to finish off Pride season by celebrating some of our most beloved queer poets, and sharing some pieces that sit close to the heart. We offer this short-and-sweet showcase of love and pride for anyone and everyone in the LGBTQ+ community, and our wonderful allies.
We hope you enjoy, and happy belated Pride!
Legacy
Steph Morris
Early days, and I found we were sitting out
on the street in the sun with a coffee,
holding hands, my love in pyjamas still,
alongside marigolds in pots,
and I found myself introducing him to the fellow
next door. On escalators I stand on the step
below, so we can kiss. We can’t not.
They all look anyway.
We cuddled all down the East London Line once.
At New Cross, as we climbed the steep side street,
holding hands, this woman shouted, you two
are lovely, One year on, and the fellow
next door had a boyfriend too – still does,
and down the street there’s been knock-on love.
Short Back and Sides
JP Seabright
Glory to the cordless hair trimmer,
the wet shave cutthroat razor and the duster brush.
Praise be the clippers, the scissors,
and the number one all over.
All hail the bleach blonde dye, the majestic fade.
Colour me glorious, colour me curious, colour me queer.
Salutations to the snip snip buzz of the barber shop,
the low murmur of lives shared, weather dismissed,
politics discussed.
Or is it weather discussed and politics dismissed?
Less of where are you going on your holidays?
More of where are you going to pull tonight?
Endless gratitude for getting the look just right
for the coming adventure, to dance and dazzle
in the disco lights.
Yeah I know the place, my boyfriend works behind the
Bar.
No social pretence for our ‘pretended family
relationships’.
We can bare it all here in the barber’s chair.
Joy upon joy upon relief and release upon joy
at finding someone who understands.
The holy therapeutic hair wash, the brush down, the
placing
of your life, your look, your history and identity
into another’s careful hands.
from Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread,
crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart,
the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the
shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the
barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to
the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around
of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple
boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along
the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of
me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Pride
Kae Tempest
Pride by degrees. It’s relative
I’ve carried my shame
like a drunk friend dragged
through the days of my life.
Damn dysphoria.
On a scale of Can’t-Bear-It to Pride
I’m more proud than I was
but less proud than I’d like
of the beautiful thing
that we make when we make it.
Uncover a vast earth
inside a drawn breath,
sudden Eden.
But if our pride is hard
to get hold of. As fickle
as wind and so tight round
your shoulders
you have to dig deep to keep
motion, I love you. For
all your complexity.
All your sore edges.
All your torn corners.
All the long nights when you
poured forth, split the dull granite
to raw quartz. Sure as the
morning but floored by the
same old ache that came
crawling. No judgement. Just
movement. Keep walking
towards it. You’re doing
it right. I’m all for you.
Above poems taken from Poetry Prescription: Becoming edited by our own Deb Alma and available from us here
And take a look at T Shot #9: Ode to My Sharps Container by KB Brookins!
Recommended Reading
For more LGBTQ+ poetry, we suggest Arachne Press' beautiful anthology Joy/Us, poems of Queer Joy, put together for the community by the community, and filled with queer love, joy, and belonging.
'An eclectic collection of poetry that illuminates and celebrates, who,
how, why and where we are now.'
Trudy Howson, LGBT Poet Laureate
written by Ifor Lawson