I act you out in black & white
\nLily Allen’s baggy pussy no concern
\nwhere objects are concerned
\n& I find myself directionless & line-
\nless
\n \twe kiss just
\noff Lavender Hill & I am blue
\nlike the middle of a riot <\/p>\n
I excel at such short-lived intimacies
\nyou are too dull even to write about
\n \tthough you wear all the leather
\na girl could wish for <\/p>\n
the lightness of our time
\nis all from ipod minis
\n& I sing along I do like
\nall the others \t\tI take you
\nlike a punch
\n \t\tof salt.<\/p>\n
In this world of keeping
\ntabs behind bars
\nI do lines
\nof poems & sit-ins that should
\nbe illegal they feel so good\t:
\nwe are led off one by one
\nhashtagging Team Nigella<\/p>\n
Drug Education is changing
\nso that the worst side-effect of coke
\nis Charles Saatchi’s hands around
\nyour neck <\/p>\n
So I laugh as you slip across
\nthe tiles of Embankment tube
\nafter the rain being non-pedestrian
\ndown the escalator & on
\nthe district line<\/p>\n
How you
\ntake \tup \tspace
\n \thow \tyou \ttake
\na breath
\n \tI am astounded
\nby this wonder-<\/p>\n
What is that dialect
\nthat makes you such
\na beautiful moment of talk
\nan exposed thigh on an old
\nLP sleeve broken pair of heels
\npainted nails & blood on the pavement<\/p>\n
At this time
\nof high artifice
\n& \t6:34pm
\nI am on the wrong
\nside of the bar
\npossibly in the centre
\nof a gay speed dating event
\nlike some effete perfect boy
\nI worry for us & our
\nfuture on the street
\nso let no one follow me home
\nbut you <\/p>\n
My Vincent Warren Period<\/strong> <\/p>\n I feel joyfully It’s like that time I joined I had a paintbrush in my hand; ripped trousers; since I’ve met you where you go off to Canada \twe’re all such straight lines \t\taren’t we? So I dance to show tunes all the way across \u201d\u0192 On a public shaming website luckily a twitter lesbian couple here is a picture of my you write such alphabetical let me be your memory loss Steubenville is still at the centre ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> you write such alphabetical let me be your memory loss By Prudence Chamberlain.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nuncommitted
\nin the mornings
\n& I make coffee
\nam not hung over
\nopen my laptop
\nto begin again
\nwith poems
\nalmost a lady lazarus
\nof 9am\tbut less
\ninternal rhyme
\n& a little less feeling <\/p>\n
\nthe Labour Party & ignored
\nall of their e-mails until
\na local representative turned
\nup on the door step
\n \tlike some dispossessed
\ndisenfranchised ideology in a
\nsad greying suit <\/p>\n
\nsometimes I’m so butch & so great & had been
\npainting a wall
\n \t\tbut I see myself reflected
\nin the eyes of others & I know I’m O’Hara
\nfairy not Myles urban gunslinger <\/p>\n
\nI can’t stop for writing
\n& this better not be
\nmy Vincent Warren period<\/p>\n
\nleave me with an ugly STI
\n& my death is imminent
\n& \tif we’re honest\tyou’re
\nnot the beauty of the Bolshoi ballet in a body
\nbut there’s something in the fragile
\nbetween that obvious collar bone &
\nthe line of your shirt that subtlety of
\nmasculine I love all the way through
\nyour jaw line <\/p>\n
\nThe way we fall & fuck & think <\/p>\n
\nmy bed which is paisley & made
\n& think about my ineffectual political subjectivities <\/p>\n
\nSteubenville<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nthe steubenville case is being
\ntweeted facebooked redditted
\ndisseminated deconstructed
\n& what shocks me most is that
\none commenter can write on
\nsocial issues but has not learnt
\nthe difference between \u2018could
\nof’ & \u2018could have’ so for all his
\nconditional tenses & futurity
\nhaters gonna hate; rapers gonna
\nrape, but the rules of grammar
\nshould always apply <\/p>\n
\nI follow like a traffic report on the
\nM5 have met other lesbians &
\nare live-streaming their dialogue
\n& tube rides & cake eatings &
\nsmiles homogenous smiling homo-
\nnormativity
\n \t\tso I’m distracted by
\nthat & all the blond machinations
\nof what I could be with a lady
\nthat matches better than my bag
\n& shoes <\/p>\n
\nself; let me attach it to
\nthe e-mail then whatsapp
\nyou about it \t\tI’m
\nwearing pants in it which
\nis novel for this age \t \tbut I’m trying to make
\nnew new again;
\nyou tell me I’m all delicacy
\nof form & lies of lyric eyes
\nwhich are blue & batting
\ntheir heavy eyelashes like
\na victim would <\/p>\n
\ntorture; I couldn’t come up
\nwith a better way to hurt
\nthan reading you all day \t\tSo I do;
\nsit down with coffee & start at your blogspot <\/p>\n
\nor let me be your yesterday
\nat the local Indian takeaway
\nI remembered our first date
\n& felt the familiar easing in
\nof how you used to walk down
\nstairs & smile my way so I
\nwent home and googled Julia
\nKristeva at Queen Mary this
\nWednesday booked tickets for
\nhow To Survive A Plague at
\nthe BFI & found ways to make
\nthis longing a culture all my own
\n \t\tbut it is always
\nyou now <\/p>\n
\nof my evening \tthough I
\nam a London girl by heart & word:
\n& in response to this crisis of he-said
\nshe-said he-did she-was-unconscious
\nPiers Morgan has suggested we
\nequip our women with whistles
\nfor a whole new public shrillness
\nbut I’ve heard Flo Rida’s \u2018Whistle
\nSong’ & know blowing anything
\nis analogous to trouble <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/945834_254197818077361_1100622550_n.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nPrudence Chamberlain<\/strong> is a practice-based PhD student in London where she works on flippant feminism, Frank O’Hara and Eileen Myles. She is a visiting lecturer in Poetic Practice at Royal Holloway and has done readings at POLYply, Feelings, Hi-Zero<\/em> and Benefits<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/945834_254197818077361_1100622550_n-327x179.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\ntorture; I couldn’t come up
\nwith a better way to hurt
\nthan reading you all day \t\tSo I do;
\nsit down with coffee & start at your blogspot <\/p>\n
\nor let me be your yesterday
\nat the local Indian takeaway <\/p>\n