The stunning forms of spring-turning urban trees have caught my attention throughout March as I have looked up to bud&blossom against sun-blue skies – after weeks of stormy cloudscapes.
Protected elm trees in Brighton & Hove have been the theme today for my first of thirty 17-syllable-haikus to be posted daily throughout April – the US National Poetry Writing month – on this new Off The Trolley Productions blog page:
http://ottpshaikucity.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/haiku-no-1/
Now that I live in Brighton & Hove, I find myself at least once a month taking the bus out of the city to Saltdean, for some therapeutic bodywork. The bus route follows the coast eastward from the Pier, alongside the promenade out to Brighton Marina, mooring harbour for both millionaire yachts and working fishing boats. Then onward, the sea ever in view, through Rottingdean: pebble-dashed Sussex village, once home to poet-novelist, Rudyard Kipling and Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones. Saltdean is the next seaside town with its art deco swimming Lido and restyled Thirties apartment buildings.
Three years ago, living in Devon my coastal travel took me, once a month, on the train from Totnes to Taunton in Somerset; I was travelling to the female-towards-male support group for the South West, like other Trans persons coming up from Cornwall or down from Bristol or Wales. This train journey ran alongside the Teign and Exe estuaries in Devon – and the sea between – on the now-famed railway line that collapsed at Dawlish during the February storms.
Seeing that the beautiful coastal stretch of that rail line may now be quite defunct, I am delighted that I spontaneously captured it on mobile camera in June 2013 (returning home to the South East) when I found myself at an open train door window whilst waiting for the loo to become vacant! Here now – for posterity – is my fotovideo of that coastal travel:
‘Queer in Brighton’, a book of lesbian, gay, bi & Trans* queer creative writing, excerpts of oral his-her-their-stories and ‘not going shopping’ photography images, was launched on 26th February at Brighton&Hove’s Jubilee Library after its 18month-long gestation. See…
http://www.queerinbrighton.co.uk/about/
http://photoworks.org.uk/projects/queer-in-brighton/
https://offthetrolleyproductions.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/acronyms-can-be-subhumane/ (an earlier post re my participation in the ‘not going shopping’ photography project)
Before there was being resident (queer) in Brighton and off-on-holiday in Devon, there was (my being queer) living in Devon – but off-on-holiday in Brighton (& London): all captured in the photo-journalling (including out-going-shopping) that started on a modest Nokia fonecamera back in April 2010, putting written diary-journalling on the back burner after 40something-long years…
courtesy thegrowingarts.com at google images
1970 saw the start of my non-air-guitar performances. I preferred the tangible hockey stick Hendrix. Here’s my acrostic (not lacrosse stick) proem to the legend:
JAMES MARSHALL HENDRIX
Jimi. The legend.
Angel of Woodstock.
My little wing’d hero.
Eulogising the voice, the face.
Still he lives on in
Music out of time:
Army boy’s blues,
Riffs on his guitar,
Sending me blind.
(Hyde Park, Isle of Wight.
And I? Born too late…)
Lost in this voodoo chile’s
Laudable guitar wails
He plays with his teeth.
Experience his band of gypsies:
Narcissists, barbiturates & babes…
Drifted away in his electric ladyland.
Raise hell in heaven unholy Hendrix.
Infidels & initiates celebrate thy legacy.
eXit genius. Stage lefthand.
As for this bunch, they didn’t inspire me to ought but this culinary parody… (more trans*pired than inspired)
Sassy Spice
My sister’s a true spice girl.
The first thing she showed off
in her new home
were those thirtysomething jars
with the oh-so-neat labels.
There tiered shelving in the cabinet
awaited her precious cache.
Baby spice pots mounting the base
for ginger and other warm sweet exotics,
rising to the sporty set:
fenugreek, mustard and coriander.
Seeds lead to scary chilli,
turmeric and cumin, with room
for posh saffron on top.
She’s a cordon vert lover in the kitchen.
She’d make a nice bomb on the box
if she chose to do a Delia;
exploiting the masses’ desires
for meatless dishes and
‘desettling’ those chief male chefs
with her cruelty-free tarts.
But my sister’s not one for flashing
her all in public. At home
with her chopping board,
mouth a-pout, gaze fixed;
she raises two fingers in a V,
licks the butter smeared between,
and her dressing gown slips apart
to reveal cleavage and navel as she poses
the question to her espoused, shouting proud
“Do you want paprika on your ciabatta pizza?”
And as mozerella melts and spices sizzle
with the heat of her passion,
her gas hob-top oven, she hugs
herself with the thought:
“I’ve got me here some real hot grill power.”
This post is ‘queer art homage’ – in the form of a fonecamera fotovideo.
By way of introduction.
The following text is very close to that which I presented (alongside the premiere viewing of the 5-minute-long fotovideo below) at the Trans* History performance event at Brighton&Hove’s Jubilee Library on Saturday, 15th February…
http://www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/WhatsOn/Pages/LGBTHistoryMonthatJubileeLibraryFeb14.aspx
When persons gender transition, it becomes hugely significant to them that they have appropriate spaces to go & facilities to use according to their gender identity.
That means for me that it is really important, for instance, that I can go swimming at a pool where there is a unisex – or gender neutral – changing space.
Luckily I dress pretty much entirely in recycled clothes so I am very familiar with the ‘gender-free’ charity shop fitting room (as has been homage’d in the mid-90s with a sonnet ‘Ode to the Cubicle’…)
Most significantly, as this is a daily necessity, is for me to be able to find and use gender-neutral toilet space and that means mainly using an accessible toilet. (This is also necessary for other trans persons – especially in the early days of their transition.)
I feel Aspergically and sensorily more comfortable (and safe) in a solitary and more spacious ‘loo’. I take Aspie pleasure in their architectural features, and in the fixtures and fittings.
The fotovideo is a celebration of the accessible public convenience as transgenderqueer space.
Person is Not a Rude Word 
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