Hallelujah for 50ft Women

by Raving Beauties

  He always declaims fruitless praise

  Of all the girls in his male gaze.

  He’s at it all day long, by God,

  Omitting the best bit, silly sod:

  He praises the hair, gown of fine love,

  And all the girl’s bits up above,

  Even lower down he praises merrily

  The eyes which glance so sexily;

  Daring more, he extols the lovely shape

  Of the soft breasts which leave him all agape,

  And the beauty’s arms, bright drape,

  Even her perfect hands do not escape.

  Then with his finest magic

  Before night falls, it’s tragic,

  He pays homage to God’s might,

  An empty eulogy: it’s not quite right:

  For he’s left the girl’s middle unpraised,

  That place where children are upraised,

  The warm bright quim he does not sing,

  That tender, plump, pulsating broken ring,

  That’s the place I love, the place I bless,

  The hidden quim below the dress.

  You female body, you’re strong and fair,

  A faultless, fleshy court plumed with hair.

  I proclaim that the quim is fine,

  Circle of broad-edged lips divine,

  It’s a valley, longer than a spoon or hand,

  A cwm to hold a penis strong and grand;

  A vagina there by the swelling bum,

  Two lines of red to song must come.

  And the churchmen all, the radiant saints,

  When they get the chance, have no restraints,

  They never fail their chance to steal,

  By Saint Beuno, to give it a good feel.

  So I hope you feel well and truly told off,

  All you proud male poets, you dare not scoff,

  Let songs to the quim grow and thrive

  Find their due reward and survive.

  For it is silky soft, the sultan of an ode,

  A little seam, a curtain on a hole bestowed,

  Neat flaps in a place of meeting,

  The sour grove, circle of greeting,

  Superb forest, faultless gift to squeeze,

  Fur for a fine pair of balls, tender frieze,

  A girl’s thick glade, it is full of love,

  Lovely bush, blessed be it by God above.

  GWERFUL MECHAIN (1462-1500)

  translated from the Welsh by Katie Gramich

  Cunt Artist Boyfriend

  He told her, keep it neat and tidy.

  She thinks, same as the kitchen,

  same as the kitchen sink.

  She asked how he’d like her done;

  a Brazilian, a Hollywood… he said

  just keep it neat and tidy.

  She combines Brazilian and basic bikini,

  it’s a shame then that she leaves wet sponges

  damply lining the kitchen sink.

  He wishes she would wring them out

  or not stack used pots to stink like drains,

  but leave it neat and tidy, nightly.

  It is hard to negotiate hands on flesh

  and hard not to complain when cleanliness

  comes to grief in the kitchen sink.

  Day in and out the chores remain,

  monthly hair waxes and wanes.

  He congratulates her, you’ve kept it tidy

  all but the kitchen sink.

  REBECCA SMITH

  the trials and tribulations of a well-endowed woman

  my breasts offend my father

  even more than my opinions;

  it’s the size that’s insolent – bursting

  out of t-shirts, spilling

  out of kameezes that hang

  demurely on any other girl.

  the most mundane actions inspire a filial

  mistrust that extends well beyond your

  garden-variety middle-class moral suspicion:

  going out for coffee with a friend, being on the phone;

  in our lounge, leaning back

  dupatta-less on the couch becomes

  an act of sexual rebellion.

  my sisters get hugs;

  I, at best, get awkward back-pats.

  felt up by a darzi at 10, groped by a driver at 11,

  and too many times to count since; intrusive

  hands years of poor posture couldn’t deflect.

  I envy other women their ability to wear

  their sexuality like a mask, to take

  off and put on as they please

  and, not least, I envy them

  their delicates that actually

  look delicate; mine, all hefty

  cotton and industrial-strength

  underwire, look just like armour.

  fortunately, though, the man I love

  loves warriors.

  HIRA A.

  Across the street

  Naailah feeds her newborn son,

  at the front of her pink house, sitting

  on a wicker chair with yellow cushions

  surrounded by purple daisies.

  She sings like a brown honeybird

  chirping on a beehive. African men

  wander by, smile at mother and child,

  a few stop to greet the mama mayo.

  How she would laugh, if I said

  a breast was a private part. She’d feel

  my forehead, advise against chewing

  datura leaves, walking in the midday sun.

  Flying home, holding my son close,

  I try to feel her presence, hear her laugh

  as I hide myself under a smothering blanket,

  shamed by a white man in a grey suit.

  EVELINE PYE

  Kinky Hair Blues

  Gwine find a beauty shop

  Cause I ain’t a belle.

  Gwine find a beauty shop

  Cause I ain’t a lovely belle.

  The boys pass me by,

  They say I’s not so swell.

  See oder young gals

  So slick and smart.

  See dose oder young gals

  So slick and smart.

  I jes gwine die on de shelf

  If I don’t mek a start.

  I hate dat ironed hair

  And dat bleaching skin.

  Hate dat ironed hair

  And dat bleaching skin.

  But I’ll be all alone

  If I don’t fall in.

  Lord ’tis you did gie me

  All dis kinky hair.

  ’Tis you did gie me

  All dis kinky hair,

  And I don’t envy gals

  What got dose locks so fair.

  I like me black face

  And me kinky hair.

  I like me black face

  And me kinky hair.

  But nobody loves dem,

  I jes don’t tink it’s fair.

  Now I’s gwine press me hair

  And bleach me skin.

  I’s gwine press me hair

  And bleach me skin.

  What won’t a gal do

  Some kind a man to win.

  UNA MARSON

  Hollywood Biltmore Hotel

  After the guys had got their awards

  we understood each other’s need

  to sag back in our seats

  and breathe out.

  The matching of ties, tuxedos,

  cufflinks, shoes, belts, haircuts

  and moustachios

  had all been worth it –

  for there they were, up on the stage

  holding their crystal balls.

  A woman beside me leaned in to whisper:

  I just want to say how natural you look.

  ELAINE BECKETT

  Women’s Blood

  Burn the soiled ones in the boiler,

  my mother told me, showing me how to hook

  the loops of gauze-covered wadding pads

  onto an elastic belt,
remembering

  how my grandmother had given her

  strips of rag she’d had to wash out

  every month for herself: the grandmother

  who had her chair by the boiler,

  who I loved but was plotting to murder

  before she murdered my mother, or my mother –

  shaking, sobbing, hurling plates and cups,

  screaming she wished she’d never been born,

  screeching ‘Devil!’ and ‘Witch!’ –

  murdered her. I piled up the pads

  until the smell satisfied me

  it was the smell of a corpse.

  ‘How could you do such a thing?’

  my mother asked, finding them

  at the bottom of the wardrobe

  where the year before she’d found

  a cache of navy-blue knickers

  stained with the black jelly clots

  I thought were my wickedness

  oozing out of me.

  VICKI FEAVER

  Cherry Blossoms

  Barefoot, I walk to the hen house,

  lift the door – reach

  into a sanctuary of straw,

  find the egg warm

  in the cup of my hand.

  The new hen still cuckling,

  I drop the egg into a pot of water,

  butter toast, measure time.

  Everything stops as I eat,

  my stale thoughts and musty breath,

  and I remember

  Ellie Byrne and me

  looking up through cherry blossoms

  at stars and the young night,

  our warm round bellies,

  before the eggs

  began to fall.

  LANI O’HANLON

  Stained

  We’re bare-legged and hard-mouthed

  our lips slicked hawberry red.

  We bleed, stuff wads of cotton inside,

  miss swimming because we are ‘on’.

  We aren’t unnerved

  when a tampon blooms

  in a murky puddle. We let boys

  pull us in nodding white cars.

  We know how you’re made,

  how the chalky marks on sheets

  get there. You despise us,

  yell ‘Dirty! Dirty!’ and run.

  You’re not fast.

  We pin you down

  in briars, stain you,

  tell you everything.

  HANNAH BROCKBANK

  Petals

  Better to be fashioned by the weather,

  Scouted by insects and

  Laced with web,

  Than a tamed blossom

  Away from wild friends,

  A rootless beauty

  Garnishing glass.

  DONNA BECK

  Blood

  Indian girls started their periods

  earlier, according to my mother.

  (I thought that’s what she said.)

  And she mentioned Neema

  who, visiting years before,

  one solemn afternoon,

  had sat by the rockery

  and named her doll after me.

  A graceful, ladylike girl, but

  suffering early that unimaginable

  drip onto something like a dressing,

  known by its initials, worn

  mysteriously between the legs.

  Was I more Indian or more English?

  I blurred, as I would forever

  when my blood seeped regularly

  into the outer world.

  I’d even run with that strangeness,

  awkward in the egg-and-spoon race,

  or guard it in the struggle to pass

  an orange hugged under the chin,

  hands secured behind my back.

  MONIZA ALVI

  Down There

  The vagina was known, though I couldn’t find mine.

  In class it was all black lines and cross sections –

  below the uterus with its monster arms of fallopian tubes

  yah boo-ing back at our 12 year old selves.

  It meant periods and sex. Babies if you weren’t good.

  But that other thing – the thing I thought I’d found –

  wasn’t there, not even in marks on the girls’ lavvy wall.

  A tiny bud folded in wet silk – I’d fingered it now

  and then in the doll-dark of my slippery bed.

  It had no name. Perhaps did not exist.

  In ’70, in case, we went on the pill. Spotty boys,

  wearing cheesecloth and hair on its way to long,

  made jokes about tunnels, lighthouses, Cadbury’s Flake.

  But in his room, among the Rizlas and progressive rock,

  we just rubbed and fumbled in the dark.

  And then, the sweet surprise – like jumping,

  trusting myself to air, riding currents off a cliff edge.

  I didn’t know, and it wasn’t like sneezing, and it was sex,

  but not that sex, lifting me off to a different place.

  The thing was a she, and later, strangely Greek or Latinate.

  SALLY GOLDSMITH

  Horses Sally or Ivy Blue

  So come on Lady – how do you like it?

  What are the women saying?

  How do I do it just right?

  Well – keep the pressure on

  but not too too much –

  like something’s squatting between there.

  Like something’s nosing past the folds of a –

  well, a lady’s dress –

  a really big heavy rich one,

  you know, heavy as hell

  and rich as a rose.

  Do you get me? Or nudging past silk.

  And what about the tongue? O sweet one

  that’s the easy part.

  Couple it up with little sucks –

  and not too much attack –

  like you’re chasing a lone pea

  inside a – jug of – milk – with your tongue!

  Do you want me to stick a finger in?

  Is that what you want?

  If that’s what you really fancy

  then two or three are dandy.

  And just like the mouth.

  Just like you’re kissing me on the mouth.

  Someone might like it seven inches in

  and another light as a pin.

  But nothing too paddle-like,

  or like some great woofer

  sucking marrow out a bone.

  Come on. Get to work you son-of-a-whore.

  CHERYL FOLLON

  Fanny Farts

  To the dear American, fanny fart might

  mean a bottom burp. But this ain’t what I mean.

  Keister ain’t the place I intend to pour praise.

  It’s more the quim quake.

  Pressure builds as squelchiness seals escape. Plunge

  lavish length in, burial deep inside, slide

  back and forth, the vacuum effect to cause post

  coital cunt cough.

  During lunging, pockets of air get stuck till

  he withdraws and gurgling noises trumpet,

  like the Eastern custom to belch a full meal,

  forced by a tight fit.

  Girls’ regard for girth can applaud with muff guff.

  Gorging gusset sounding the pussy parp stress.

  Thunderclap the wonderful width; the whole hole’s

  rippling fanfare.

  Bodies all have ways to express excess wind.

  Whoopee cushion winkles are loud and clear, mere

  suction function ain’t to be blushing beetroot;

  welcome the size prize.

  SUE SPIERS

  Jardi d’Eros, Barcelona

  At the exhibition of erotic art

  I see more than I expected –

  take penises, for instance –

  how, en masse,

  they lose most of their appeal,

  their potency
/>   and that veiled threat

  even the best of them offer

  and how instead

  they become innocent,

  mild and sweet

  as mushrooms in a field

  or like pallid sea-anemones

  swaying gently to and fro

  whereas female pudenda,

  usually so docile,

  so inviting

  with their pretty ways

  and sleek little curls –

  they take courage in a crowd,

  gang up and, if pushed,

  turn nasty, snapping

  at men who peer too closely,

  making them tremble.

  ANGELA KIRBY

  For the Punters

  You don’t see them, only hear their clatter, mutter, snigger,

  then the whoop when you come on, the urge and whistle

  to get on with it, go all the way. And I go slowly

  all the way each night, right there into the glare

  of the spot, the glamour-light that turns dust into glitter.

  One night I’d like to stop it there, rewind the routine music

  and begin again from naked – strip my skin off, peel it down

  my shoulders, arms and chest, past waist and hips, unravel it

  down either leg, step out, then screw it up and fling it.

  Then I’d ease off my flesh and be a bone woman,

  they’d see me phosphorescent in the stagelight, dancing

  like a puppet jerked on strings, and in the dumbstruck quiet