Sportn’t - Stas Forte, Mercury Tarantino, April Egan

Introduction

(Image Description: A Greek statue of a man bowling, except he is holding a crescent moon against a blue background)

we thought about calling this ‘never good at sport’ until we realised we were. We love being outside. It was simply hard to leave the changing rooms we were thrown into, hard to see how games that so often ended in us being insulted could be enjoyable. We found ourselves later in our bodies and our myths and we also found freedom in other things we love to explore. We are fast runners and swimmers and dancers now not for escape but for ourselves. Our physical education continues on our own terms. The remnant of a joke between three queer kids that somehow became a vessel for us defined by our lack of co-ordination - Sportn’t.

(Some of these poems contain references to disordered eating)

1. obituary for a body.

(Image Description: White statue of a body composed of hands, in a beige museum)

you don’t quite remember when you started changing in the showers, but you don’t remember it any other way. you do remember a teacher tying up your hair like she wanted a leash on you, rubber band grabbing around her angry fingers. they clamped up your hockey gear to make you useful where no one can see you. it was then that you learned that this game wasn’t made for you. yellow ladder rungs leading through the nine circles of hell, these will decide your place. oh boy, you loved being at the bottom.size 3 trainers tip-toeing pathetically withall eyes waiting on you. there’s something bittersweet about cheers of pity.blame it on the weather, hayfever, rain and quicksand mud. they watch on from safety.chants of your name, an uncertain greek chorus narrates.don’t look back, orpheus. don’t look back.

crossing the finish line licking bloody teeth and burning cheeks, tearing out your lungs 1400 metres underwater,a shitty plastic oxygen tank as your saviour.

you don’t quite remember when you started skipping lunches, but you don’t remember it any other way. you do remember the beep berating you because your dignity ran away faster than your legs could take you. then they thought you had a change of heart-you were never the sporty type.they weren’t surprised when you quit the team, though you appreciated the pretence- you had spent up your energy running from the dining hall, and there was no more left for pity.when skipping became your favourite sport, you finally found your team. local parks your pitch of preference and freedom at sixteen.

1. Hymn for a Broken Nose

(Image Description: black boots on a summer field, with dead grass. There are two shadows on the yellow ground, one of a person and one of a bat)

a year on Venus is 84 years on earth before it hit, you were in orbit

frantic spokeshaves over the science block

space and earth there’s a home runa gritty, summery acid in your teeth

it hurts before it gets good

it feels like the word swoon a raising of a head that bobs her ponytail & shakes the earth

a human has never been to Venus

but someone certainly fell so far

hercules unhappy, uneasy as a fielder

acid stains the high grass, the steeple and the base

she’s a singing aspirin it hurts before it gets good

did she see me? did she see?

2. Sad Golden Eyed Boy of Olympus

(Image Description: the white underside of a canopy of birch trees, looking upward)

run, run, run, god of speed!when your talaria take flight, you are the wind! run, run, run, god of travel! when you reach the place of love and light, you are thelight! run, run, run, run, run, they say,they yell, i’m too slowi try and say but i am out of breath, why is it always a race? why is it always so fast?why? why do i run? and why does everyone keep passing me?

sad golden eyed boy of olympus, son of a bastard, son of a victim,ran for as long as he could muster. apolloeven told him he could run farther than he everhad, and when he tried, the heavens opened upand swallowed him whole. protesting golden winged golden eyed kings of the clouds, when would the god realize thathe just needed to start speeding up?

serpentine forces

wrapped their tendrils around your neckand shoved them down your throatand they decided that your sufferingyour angerwas enoughhis bodyissick.delivering the bounty at midnight that night. you better come down and say something while there's a body still there!while there's a body still there!you were so selfish in life you were so angryso selective...you'll never see him again witch of the north.while there was a body still there, your hand was still warm when i interlocked your limp fingers with mine.i heard you in my head and my heart oh, my lovely friend, it's not so easy to get rid of you.there's a part of you in every leaf that falls, in every fish that swims in a stream, in every breeze of wind that blows across this busy but barren land you are still here.

always.i have talked to you for 700 plus days after i talk to God. i hope i don't talk too much. but in fact, you never really minded. you would always listen.i feel you hug me sometimes. i thank you for thatserpentine forces took you, but yet when i see a small serpent,i always hope that the bright puppy eyed snakesmall, alive,somehow has wingsand somehow has your same heartand i remember,i remember!there is some one out there, midnightdeliveries,who has your heart,their blood in your cardiac muscles, and there you go!another life!

3. Hermes Meets Me By The Atstroturf

(Image Description: A shadow of a man in a winged helmet with a sceptre against a white changing room tile wall - written on the wall in red ink are the words ‘YOU REALLY ARE A GOD’

kite cowboy cool fanged queer king o divine us

peering into swimming pools on the bus the still

family tide unmooned unmoored blue floored

overflow moth stomach aglow you say

sometimes

I wish I had one

kite cowboy tangled in a sunbeam o soft serve

bat o love letter jolt o hypersonic hearer to

pain o whistling autumn o shell song shrill

o sunglass season o solitary in this changing

room o kite cowboy strange angel sugar

mountain o bluebird impaled at the aorta

o hear it

that?

my heart?

4. Erysichthon’s Lover (after ‘Cry’ by Julia Jacklin’)

(Image Description: Dark background with only the light outline of a profile visible, most significant is the profile’s broken nose)

canyon coloured burn, instead of dressing you I fill and fill. I gutter when I try to walkand she won’t eat. I’d like to be waxing and waning, the undisturbed crater crash of growing local illness until it corrupts football

season, when boys play for slippery love in a field mirror-slick. she won’t eat. I just can’t find our cracks percussive, not our locked ribs, a hand on my helm which twists me quiet through the drug-lighting of the corner shop. she won’t eat. bandage on the rim, and benched bruise, border of my body’s war-cry.

5. The Unwanted Prince

(Image Description: a sideways view of white birch trees against a white and blue sky, looking distorted. In the bottom left corner are two painted cherubs)

serpentine forceswrapped their tendrils around your neckand shoved them down your throatand they decided that your sufferingyour angerwas enoughhis bodyissick.delivering the bounty at midnight that night. you better come down and say something while there's a body still there!while there's a body still there!you were so selfish in life you were so angry

so selective...you'll never see him again witch of the north.while there was a body still there, your hand was still warm when i interlocked your limp fingers with mine.i heard you in my head and my heart oh, my lovely friend, it's not so easy to get rid of you.there's a part of you in every leaf that falls, in every fish that swims in a stream, in every breeze of wind that blows across this busy but barren land you are still here.

always.i have talked to you for 700 plus days after i talk to God. i hope i don't talk too much. but in fact, you never really minded. you would always listen.i feel you hug me sometimes. i thank you for thatserpentine forces took you, but yet when i see a small serpent,i always hope that the bright puppy eyed snakesmall, alive,somehow has wingsand somehow has your same heartand i remember,i remember!there is some one out there, midnightdeliveries,who has your heart,their blood in your cardiac muscles, and there you go!another life!

6. Psalm For Pain That Promises Gain (blackout poem after the beep test instruction manual, Paul Otenio)

(Image Description: Broken Greek statues, faces and body parts blended into a black background)

Applause for the last one standing, arrowed all through

Procedure 1. Place yourself at the start

before running back to the other until you are unable to

remember starting

warning slow, will increase

running space

measuring music

body, gender

conditions (weather and running surface)

7. Ensure that all subjects are adequately warmed up

8. Springtime Sacrament

(Image Description: a red mountainside against a blue sky, in the desert)

bright eyed cowboy greets from the water’s edge / wind waving stevie nicks glory by the shore / plague doctor knowing all with words like bandages / cowboy being the medic though we are both out in the trenches / cowboy in no man’s land / cowboy here to monologue me to sleep if i ask / cowboy knows we are so much / cowboy is a comrade in overflow / cowboy worries about the apocalypse(s) / cowboy is a comfort where the cold turns over (though the change is rough in these wild lands) /

i love watching the end of march tick into you / cowboy here to overflow into my mind and i can barely grasp it / cowboy swinging into my life like i’m a child again / cowboy having my mother and hers at once / cowboy ready to meet me on the playground at midnight / cowboy being the little fire to warm me through the winter / cowboy carries too much human in a small amount of human / my brokeback mountain travelling tambourine salesman outside the harp concert / cowboy, strap a gun on your hip and we’ll be men together / cowboy kicks away the tumbleweeds as they burn into the horizon / cowboy spits out a cigarette butt and we all go up in flames / cowboy lassos the boxes and throws them into the canyon / all you wanted to do was ride into the sunset and how could i blame you? / cowboy daydreams at pretty girls and has fist fights with baseball bats / snapshot bloody noses and bloodier grins /

cowboy being the polaroid in my bedside drawer / cowboy comes to me with a pharmacy so i give her my favourite pills / we write our metaphors and they become our arms / cowboy, we will get

our tattoos and swordfight at midnight / cowboy taught me to become liquid / cowboy dancing down at the river with amber in your eyes / gentle swan angry at the world / one half of a heart though we know that’s not how anatomy works / cowboy sweeter than the name of the month on my lips.

9. Dock Leaf Liturgy

(Image Description: the first page shows a woodland clearing with a swan stretching its neck, the second a blue sky over London in the evening time.)

‘british children are becoming so disconnected from nature that many struggle to identify wildlife and plants’ - sky news, august 2019.

british child has never been stung by a nettle. british child tends to windowsill succulents and holds pringle cans in their arms like a baby. british child soothes raging flip floplacerations on the mid-august co-op floor. british child stuffs their top with wax and oranges, which wobble uneasily. britishchild does something bad. british child peels a shirt in sweaty segments and lets slip a little balm. british child likes the bite. british child knows the pharmacy is close and evergreen, 24/7.

/

british child has never been lake diving in summer. british child swims with koi fish to the outlet cistern; they smoke down there.british child feels the leech and pondweed creeping up their thigh, pink lace. british child tries to surface but the lord is always spewing wishes. british child grew lacy gills, picked clean.british child is afraid of lurking, but the watchers lounge at the edge of the fountain and flick pennies which bounce on the glasssheet. british child lights up and scratches patterns in the steam.

/

british child has never milked a cow. british child grows electrolysis and key quotes where syringa and honey apparently used to occupy.british child is told to drip feed. british child allows the three hour poetry exam inside their veins, where it sits in their secrets and wrings.british child is gossamer toothed. british child salivates a solid string ofresults. british child knows love is round and soft and warm tongued.british child collapsed behind the slaughterhouse. british child closes their eyes and allows it. british child knows what the alternative is.

/

british child cannot identify birdsong. british child cracks open cheapcider and stabs out a fag on a slaver’s monument. british child hears the orange juice embers of their heart breathe with every drag. british child marches to a sertraline beat now, the underhum of a battle. british child always liked california, mercury, orbiting blue. british child watches it unhorsed. british child, wilting electric bloom of a train, joins a chorus

of panic, my kingdom, my kingdom, my kingdom for good news. british child goes south for the winter, to the cold and clean, general practitioner.british child dirges silently in the waiting room. british child is a copper kettle, a circadian rhythm seagull screaming the house to sleep.

/

british child does not recognise a robin. british child is a hoodied druid who feels the changing of the seasons, without moss in hollow bones.british child watches october explode into tinsel vomit. british child wishes to obey the law of their body only, to lay in the dark and debloom.british child is only allowed the worn one-way corridor out of here. british child eats fistfuls of stolen energy and shaves their head. british child chooses elixirs over haircuts. british child chooses ritual over tradition. british child kneels by the pond in their primark hair shirt. british child, buzzcut, baby blue, knows too well their nature.

10. Ode to Anamnesis (blackout poem after medical history form)

Please check off the following if you have ever had any of the following AND had to go to the doctor about:

do you hear pressure (what type and when?)

(what when and how?)

Yes, and what is it for?

ease child.

sick or injured,

bring to me

one day

excuse for a doctor

yours

in health and fitness.

11. The Loving Spirit / Fisherwomen

(Image Description: legs in yellow trainers against a yellow and blue wall, and a dedication: For Rowan, Dora, Madge and Sarah)

all girls are anagrams of each other

stroking the sound of their personal darknesses. oyster-lips cackle themselves open. lace lizards splitting tongues oncorners of venus, wake with the gum knife’s crack.my mother ran away at sixteen & tornadoed home with a tattoo.

back to backbone & needle loping mother before & mother & mother & mother and

one whose child was killed in washing water, one by liver, one by labour one in the boarding house

I’m my mother’s rearrangement, purple jeans and penned school shirt, the end of March, the last year on earth. my mother is driving me back to the hotel, and says so quietly, I cried so hard when I said goodbye to her that my mother decided this life was too much for me and sent me to boarding school. and so quietly, so guilty, I still hear it like a gunshot, but I’d given her my barbie, and I wanted my barbie.

big blue swimming pool between shore and motherland.

time for us is a smooth haired sky, or else

a long eidolon highway-tongue taking us nowhere but back into the darkness.

12. Moving On

(Image Description: the same trainers from the previous poem, except it is revealed that the legs are scarred and tattooed with the words ‘OVER’ and ‘THINGS’. There is also an image of someone on a beach walking on a staircase buried in the sand, going nowhere.)

my mother says I’m too intelligent to believe in poems.

birthday card brain. happy hemisphere warm-shoed sunday regret, sunlight tip-taps across the parquet

I examine my teeth in the stained glass window and their tropic that keeps the hometowners enraptured

pushing my air through all-i-gator out loud for the lord and the eager handed altar boys

half dipping incensed fingers in ravines of corduroy

reading the borderlines on the basketballI know more than them. I know there’s no one saving me I am the last one standing. high hall asteroided I know what the girls mean

when they ask me not to look. I know what the teacher meant when he grabbed my wrist and said my tears couldn’t wash him

but when he joined their side, their fag-chanting

low aiming, I stopped believing anyone knew anything more

than me, too skinny, too small &

loving

girls like oil spills, marbled murrelet gunge

sparrow souled, meant to go south. I watch them

tattoo each other on the floor, the ritual grinding

hurting, marking, pulling in and away. I watch them

always, rearranging. conch-whistling to war

waiting for the last ball to land and shatter the virgin

waiting for the lesson to end.

(Final Page Image Description: a white tiled changing room wall with the Mitski lyric ‘I’m holding my breath with a baseball bat’ written in red ink, against a shadow of Atlas carrying the world)