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Francie Lynch  Feb 2019
Androgyny
Francie Lynch Feb 2019
S/He/It
SHeIt
Sheit
****
It happens.
The name Francie works well with this poem.
judy smith Aug 2016
Aneeth Arora refers to herself as a ‘textile and dress maker’ rather than a fashion designer. That’s because she makes her own fabrics, a process she enjoys, and says that if it’s only designing, then there is not much left to it other than giving shape to the fabric. Aneeth will be showcasing her collection in the city at an exhibition titled Nayaab, which features creations by 12 handpicked designers, who work with craftsmen to produce intricate garments.

Aneeth’s collection is entirely in off-white with gold and silver details. She’s transformed luxurious brocade and wispy Chanderis into shimmery jackets, summer dresses, flowy maxis and tunics, smart scarves, skirts of varying lengths and long kurtis. Adding a dash of colour to the display is the capsule featuring clothes with hand embroidery and beads. Her trademark anti-fits find their place here. The collection is laidback, with a few elements of androgyny and some downright girly.

A part of what’s on display here was showcased at the Amazon India Fashion Week Spring Summer 2016, where she put together the famous pyjama party with sleeping bags and models in comfortably trendy shorts and dresses.

For Nayaab, she’s also specially created a few outfits that are not available at the stores.

Pero, which started in 2009 with one tailor and one runner out of Aneeth’s house in Delhi, now has 80 people working out of a bigger space. “If you count the weavers I work with, the number is far more,” she says.

Right from the beginning, the 32-year-old has worked with handlooms from all over India. For example, the block prints are done with weavers in Gujarat and Rajasthan, ikat is done in the South and the woollens are from Himachal… “We are inclined to anything that’s handmade,” she says. This includes Mexican braids, lace from Europe and crochet from Afghanistan.

The last decade has seen a revival in handloom, with more designers incorporating them in their designs. This has, in turn, brought about a change in the buying pattern of clients.

“There was a point when weavers didn’t see a future in what they were doing and sent their children to work with construction companies. Now, they know there is a market for weaves and they are confident. Their families are getting involved in it again. It’s all going uphill from here,” says Aneeth, contented.Read more at:www.marieaustralia.com/purple-formal-dresses | http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses
Robi Banerjee  Jan 2014
Androgyny
Robi Banerjee Jan 2014
There is something about seeing a woman
in a man's clothes
that hints at recent sins,
for where are her own clothes
and why does she choose to wear
a man's shirt? A man's stink?
His salty passions, faded nights
written sartorially in drink?
The wood of his wardrobe
and his love of meatballs?

Jackets are overcoats, clothes lie,
skin peeks from behind rolled up sleeves
pants are dated, we say, **** pants.
There is a sense that what I've been wearing
has never seen better days.
I study this creature with a cat's grace
masquerading in a mongrel's wrinkled skin.

It is then I decide that these clothes
are no longer mine, that they belong
to she who they've chosen and that
I'd rather be naked than feel the shame
of being second best for my own things.
Quietly, I peel her like an orange,
tongues singing like electricity.
As seen on Apostatements (apostating.wordpress.com)
Meghan O'Neill Aug 2014
Streets filled with bodies
Dead or alive
Nobody knows
Blood runs through the streets
Like floodwater
Innocent blood
Flows like runoff
Through concrete veins
But only because we let it happen
Because of judgement
Because of ignorance
Because of prejudice
Prejudice that we carry over
From our predecessors
The violence and hatred of our ancestors
Continues on through us
But only because we let it happen
Because our naïveté lets us see the world
As monochrome
Everyone belongs in one solid genome
Straight white cis
So they lock us up in a cage of exile
Invalidate the opinions that don't sit well
On a stomach full of lies
So we stand in solid lines
Hands locked together
Silently screaming
NO!
With the ******* hidden in their claims
It hurts but the pain isn't enough to break our chains
At least until the weakest link caves
And the flood gates open up
Our nerves sting with rubber bullets and tear gas
Police brutality and 'controversial' crowd control tactics
Resulting in the blood of innocents.

The truth comes out
Oppression
Recession
We deliver new life
Spoon feeding democracy
Cookie cutter
Build your own government kits
Follow the instructions with a gun held to your head
Puppet government
Corporations pulling strings
Calling the shots with a mouthful of greed
Blaming tragedy on street rats with golden teeth
Hiding behind business suits and briefcases
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtains
Take part in the rat race
Get distracted by the fast pace
Pay attention to your own **** problems
And forget to see the big picture.

Another ride on the metro
Catcalls and wolf whistles
To the wrist to the neck to the ankle
I'm breaking the dress code
The double standards are air tight and unbreakable
I'm stuck in the choke hold of the patriarchy
Kicking and screaming
Perverts jacking off to the sight of me
Objectified, and only fourteen
Take precautions stay safe
Because we have reason to be afraid of the dark
When we have to assume that everyone is a ******
The world is out to get us
Plaguing the younger generation with pop music and photoshop
Shellshocked by the devastation of self confidence
Short hair means you're a ****
Long hair means you're property
The American dream is four walls a roof and a wife to call your own
To own
****** assault is normality
I'm appalled at the way my peers think I owe them something
My virginity
My body
I'm not a carcass to be picked clean by vultures:
The beasts who sit next to me
Who view me as a threat because I'm intelligent
A ***** because I'm intolerant to their ignorance and oppression
The gender roles and discrimination
Objectification
A one woman war
That every woman faces.

Hopelessness stands at the alter
Spouting discrimination
Dug from the depths of the bible
New age bigotry
Picket signs versus pride parades
Spot the queer in the crowd
Wipe them out
We are not a virus of humanity
Your hateful words aren't the only thing that cuts me
When coming out equates to ear splitting arguments
"Get out of my house"
"you are not my son"
LGBT blood on the streets
****** of trans teens
Pop culture is enemy to androgyny
*** education skips over me
And change is met with board meetings
Conservative parents complaining
Claiming they know better than the mouths they feed
Age is not a crown of wisdom
The 21st century witch hunt
Discrimination spills from the mouths
Of little Hitlers
Screaming "God hates ****" before they know what the words mean
Wrap my coffin in a rainbow flag
When they find my mangled body on the street
The product of a hate crime
The product of the war I'm fighting
Brittle bones riddled with stab wounds
Every one carries weight with the words they were paired with
Queer
***
******
I don't have invisible amour
The words pierce me in a way that can't be seen
My blood leaks silently and joins the masses.


We are a generation so full of hatred
Promised so much that wasn't delivered
And so we raise our hands and salute the mother ******* rebellion
Our sweet saving grace
America isn't free and neither are we
We are slaves to misogyny and bigotry
Police brutality
Crafty government puppetry
Patriarchy
The enemies that we face aren't the ones we see
Well **** society
We can create our own
Carry in the revolution on our shoulders
On our knees
Plastered across our twitter feeds
We fight with words
With fists
Whatever it takes
Speak out across our dashboards timelines and comments
Word of mouth
Engrave them into your skin
What was started needs to be finished
We have a price to pay



It's time for a revolution *****.
This is very inspired by the recent events in police brutality and racism, as well as a hell of a lot of pent up frustration towards the patriarchy and white *** conservative ******* trying to tell me how to live my life. I think I speak for the masses when I say that I am well past done with the *******.  We're bringing in a liberal age and it's time for a ******* revolution!
Brent Kincaid Aug 2015
He always wanted to be a ballerina
To dance so dainty up on his toes.
But everyone could see under his tutu
And the bump they saw was not his nose.
He had the talent and the perfect figure
To perform the balletic steps just right.
There was no way he could ever manage
To keep that ample package out of sight.

Jete, jete. Plie, Plie.
Dance like that’s all you want to do.
Dancing straight, or dancing gay,
Do whatever is right for you.
Hands and toes pointed fine
Back and necks held straight.
Maybe it’s not your time to get picked.
But make it worth their wait.

His skin was smooth just like a swaddling baby
There was no concern about flat *******.
Many ballerinas are rather mannish
With not much curvature to their chests.
So he could pass completely undetected
Androgyny was his great good friend
But any moment when he swirled about
Tutu would lift and then spell the spell would end.

Jete, jete. Plie, Plie.
Dance like that’s all you want to do.
Dancing straight, or dancing gay,
Do whatever is right for you.
Hands and toes pointed fine
Back and necks held straight.
Maybe it’s not your time to get picked.
But make it worth their wait.

He never really loved the danseur posture
The holds and lifts and hearty leaps about.
But in the world of ballet and its leaders
Ballerina guys are always left out.
Still he danced in tutu at auditions.
He heard the comments, paid them no mind.
If they could not see grandly male Pavlova
That meant that all of them were blind.

Jete, jete. Plie, Plie.
Dance like that’s all you want to do.
Dancing straight, or dancing gay,
Do whatever is right for you.
Hands and toes pointed fine
Back and necks held straight.
Maybe it’s not your time to get picked.
But make it worth their wait.
Xander Duncan Jul 2014
I grew up hearing
Little miss this and
Little miss that
But I think there’s been a little mistake
A little misunderstanding
Like there’s something that they missed
Because certainly sir could replace the title of miss
And mister wouldn’t stir up a fuss
And I could still be me
Right?
Ever since I was little I took pride in the word tomboy
Not realizing the other labels that pride could be applied to
Because I spent my life being lied to
About what gender really means
And I’ve been starting to question and I’ve been starting to learn
That expectations aren’t everything
And when it comes to gender roles
I grew up just rolling with it
But recently realized that I don’t have to
And I’ve been coming up with different ways of coming out
But mostly I’ve just spent a lot of time thinking
About spectrums and pronouns and labels and orientation
About binders and binaries and identity versus expression
About the way that I never really minded the onslaught of
She
She
She
Shhhh…
He
Maybe he can fit just as well
Maybe she fits fine
Maybe I can be a daughter by day and a son by night
Maybe I can bypass the binary and angle towards androgyny
Or transcend transgender in term of ambiguity
Maybe I can be
Me
And maybe someday that will be enough
Because boy oh boy there are days that I do love being a girl
But what can you do when it’s a dog eat dog world
And you were born a cat?
Just a little bit more of a ***** than you were hoping for
In this world where facts are misconstrued
And your words are misinterpreted
And you’re feeling a little
Just a little… misgendered
So hi, I'm gender-fluid.
I thought you would have made the most grandiose of lesbians, as women go, you were quite sublime. You caught me with your androgyny of  hair and your boyish shoes. Too safe to listen to country music, your exquisite headphones blasted out some beligirent cross-hatch nonsense. So i tailed you, so i went to where your footsteps had inwittingly left their mark. I followed you into bars with organic juices, and book shops for the intelligentsia. I watched you across a crowded room, in smokeless bars, whilst you laughed gently at friends jokes; and how i wished i was the punchline, what i would give for that mouth to smile at me. Mirror-red, i would take off your head if you would let me.....

How i wished you were dead, so i could mourn you in a proper fashion. Looking glass. Paper hearts. Ancient things i had forgotten when i looked at you - so exquisite, so shiny, so super and new. How everyone envied me. I had been so good uptil now - the modern bride, wedded to my mind. Singleton screams soprano from my face, orange peeled lips. Unzip me, my handbag head spills on the pavement. Confused by you, confounded by you. Oh you majestic awe-inspiring lesbian, you seem to tick all those (non-conformist) boxes. I, a brilliant lazy yorkshire matinee; you, a grandiouse west end friday night opening. I read the script, somewhat deja-viewed. Are you shocked i worked thee out?

A date with your phone. oh, how, very..... original. Though i cannot but tear my eyes away from what you are doing....a penny in a handful of silver. Drop from my fingers, remove your eyes from my sight. REmove, my sweet experienced delight. Watch as i drive away..the weight of my absence must crush you surely.....? Do alarm bells ring?...No wait..does the heaven sing and mourn your loss? what a pity, a-fly-by-the-night-at-any-cost-i-don't-care-because-i'm-toooooooo­o-cool-for-you, sorta pity? I am not your shadow, your stripes were blacked out by the light, i didn't care to see anymore, and i knew you would not follow so i chose my leave to go. (just so you know, this is me...leaving, you)

Too many lips for me to count, you talk tooo much. You sit there and all i can think of is lying you down and making you stop, talking. Too much? My oh My. Let me take you from here, make you forget who you are. Walk down a beach, hold hands, even if its raining. Too much to ask? Oh so many task. So many standards and obligations, too many notes and standard citations. I just want to do, anything, but listen to you talk. Again and again, i wonder when you will stop to look at me. I guess you would always be the girl, who was afraid to know, the truth. For the lack of you, do something. Four seems better than three, don't you think?
Lucy Crozier Nov 2014
you painted your nails again. spanish moss, this time.
it's meant to be a signal. an intentional marking of the body,
your (white) body, to say something. say?
the cat scratched your hand up pretty well-
you even bled a little.
there's something pleasing about the pink lines,
dents and pock marks,
knuckles russet where cold air and washing dishes
ripped away. it hurts, just a bit.
you keep your nails short, another signal.
sign in, out, off. signifying nothing?
these things are relative. related to other markers.
relating to who is doing the looking.
you are often curious as to what they see in your hands.
when they look and they don't see you,
despite the careful work you put in,
it hurts, just a bit.
Work in progress. Gender feelings and thoughts.
René Mutumé Aug 2013
Back down the million mile road
down south again, buildings
familiar love, fashionable stones for throwing
across the Thames, office fields, floating stocks,
driving to the train rythm of city gulls and movement,
eager, bored, and feral, but
you’ve gotta choose your home…

London-queen of
mimetic ceremony
silhouettes cornered in pristine rooms,
finer than the attire of imagined skin, remembered and felt,
classic
projected
films
moving
into one line
of crowded parade,
stepping to
and fro, dressed differently
every time

the city and i- we
head to a shop
that puts a crate of beer
on my shoulder,
and a better drunk than us both
asks me for one

i say:
“sure man, take one”
and i offer him my smoke too,
“take it, just made it”
we add,
“ah! you’re Captain Scarlet!” he tells me
as the man sings the theme song and rewards
me
with a dance.

And sometimes the sickness and poverty of it all
helps
and its ok
tell me that after two breakfasts land down,
for a while, and two tumours laugh
in an empty car park
at the same thing.

The name for god always changing,
some days a digital
word,
sometimes
a bird stood upon a lamp post
at 10:16,
the way
someone smiles,
the science behind welcoming,
cancer guns
and the engravings
on the handle,
that you care for more
than all the dry sweat
night dripping,
the kind that paralyses
insomnia
and rises from your bed
outside your mind,
again:

that familiar smile.

We won’t be a salary in the morning,
we’ll be a Magritte, or a Picasso
at the weekend,
we’ll stand in front
of artists dead
and see no difference
between lamb, now roasting-
and the experiment in seasoning,
that you, or I
added

there’ll be a non-charging cash point,
counting sounds
that are lost in chaotic uncares,
and if my lights go out at 4am,
whilst we’re linked,
the vat
will at least
be made of us

the androgyny
of burnt climaxing sky line
will be clear through the polluted hive line
of buildings,
we’ll be wearing hooded macks
in the rain – sliding between still light
and shadow,
crossing the intersecting lines
of humming traffic
and unheard noise
we’ll pass without tickets,
as they fall from the bridge,
and the edge lifts away
from our feet

and the rest goes underground,
behind ageing tunnel wall of aging
graffiti skull -
tracks nulled by snow in winter,
body late, perspiring -
pouring peddle down, response
automatic,
eyelid better for counting
time, than opening eye -
synthetic wait for for any fire
that is kind,
raising corners that blink
in false dream

our seven seeming tied, and untied, bonded,
and unbonded,
gropes untied with hunger,
the sky kicks in the brick walls slaying the hours
with calls from strangers and friends
indifferent-

one.
-
two.
-
three.

seconds
and faces.

(and the city hates slowing down
doesn’t (s)he?)

until its ready that is,
the only joke being to wait and drool over corpses and post mortem like
thought the place being in your heart and the ever-glow being the same
as any love that you feel and the way you need it to take you forward
and just let you ride the and forget that its there because I’ll die
before I stop acting on my instinct for you the ever-gloom and the skull can unwind elsewhere! Oh the poison
that forgets itself if only needing the same formaldehyde
to keep it still-

That’ll do.



Perfection is a woman without eyes.

Perfection is a man without limbs.

Perfection is the home that walks you back when the day is yours,
and someone elses.

Perfection blinds the crippled mask.

Beginning.

One that fits your birth.

Your death.

All of the ****
islands.

All
of the ******

****

islands.
René Mutumé  Oct 2014
Zero Hymn
René Mutumé Oct 2014
The Thames rides high in the city's red wheel!
the indigenous birds of one country are moored no longer
the night is worth its ride, and castrates each reason
to not sell: the freshest cut mind: its only state: its only guest  

Babes milked by dunes, growing giants from their anima palm
low nebulae of sea anklets, by the cooling of patience
by the stored morning of vittalic kin, usherette grasps
shatter spite, at the risk of all peaceful vibrations in humour
where the roads connect to all amor fati, amor fati, Amor fati!
la chimère d’amour; where rhythms are shared by all animals,
unflexed in the skull by denizen skull: the populace melts

So passed the point of brinking-worlds, there are only elements
so no rapier can slice through dream like the scent of day,
and we scream in melodious waves of diving accident;
which brings notions back of extending fire sighs so opaquely,
happiness cherishes the chaotic mirror of booming children
the figureless dance of the last disgrace, which has no pity
and is the travelling word for success against liberty

We are no longer life, or its blushing ripped condescension
only my shadow and yours are the freeing muscle
where man has shattered space into the thousandless voice
of solitudinal stars in the androgyny of light-
hemisphere of binary pleasure; jealous boys and girls drink smoke
we the haphazard twin of darkness and light forget, wilfully
as if destiny is a circular pleasure, of both stomach and sky

By the watering mortars of the watchmen from Soho dancing again
and to this city the agile mouth of a field is awake
where the sad winds entwine with the yeasts of the hare
the smallness of light balancing on your cheek, gargantuan
to everything through the hymns of a car choking, to spirit
two moments transmit all there is, by the third, death emigrates
or it does when we dress each other by the charm of time

I have no idea where this music begins, and perhaps our DNA laughs
as do my fathers, your mothers, in the emergence of reversing gods
the birthing of make-up, the evening day mobbed by innocence
where purity is less magnetic than a sliver of fish, dead in a dog's heart
even that now, même que maintenant, even this now
même ce maintenant, is a better howling blood of choice
where a little fatter and choicer- rage is the sonata of calmness

And much dusk where the glimmer is, the ****** drool of half
heartedness is your soft wolf walking in, the silk of your bating voice
my only vice, and the point of all tantric scent
the murals of our past are now the sculptures of changing grip
like early and significant horses enduring the guilt of eating
all tribes in all ice and fire, the fastest cars cannot beat the tram
the tram and old bust marriages of constant grace

Fundament, infallible, mercurial, wholesome in lie
there being no flea with enough backs to carry us all
no poem in hell can survive without being saliva
too much **** and not enough road makes a dull car of us all
but, there is only one liver waiting on the ground
what is the perfect song to let it breathe? Tonight
you are my attire, and I am yours

We soak the ribbons with massacred blood, we say
to the absolute: no, I choose my partners carefully
I am yours, you are mine, our habitual skin
blowing leviathans training the wind
and chokes as we stroll releasing our hands upon its neck
but let ours fly together and apart, nothing holding the world
in the divinity of wood, your translucent perfume, our body

The dogs have blown into darkness
The moors create hybrids from themselves
Wild garlic ferments in fields of skin
Texas leans into Vertigo’s kiss
An ape is born smelling of you
My sweat is your blue June
Armed only by light.
Martin Narrod Dec 2015
Come to me great entangler of speech, until the mouth
is a thicket of word mash, you
who rakes strain out of the day to day visions.

Four nights last week you came in the dream-sweeps
flying at forty-one thousand feet. Encrusting this crimson suitcase of blood production with aurulent Trojan footstep rumbles in the hundreds of thousands.

Are you the new blues guitar, the trill bliss in satirical Dutch painting;
you who wrestles the languages of sleep. To get to keep you we'd **** all mystical beasts, sew treason, and wait naked for the dead things to come.

Remoteness in the time of the lonely.
Where you shed shivers of  sharks
In wild dance and wicked tantrum, lilting
Beside the androgyny of days and Time.
You the dashboard Jesus of sin and canter.
No scurrying footsteps to barge the heavy moods of ****** or abscess.

In half breaths you weaponize yourself,
A take of drink and then with the rest of the aves,
Swallowed by the colossus of entanglement,
Taken beneath the blue awning amidst the company of the sea.

— The End —