Poem
John McCullough
GEORGIE, BELLADONNA, SID
GEORGIE, BELLADONNA, SID
GEORGIE, BELLADONNA, SID
Paper, scissors, stone. Grinning poster boysfor Winston’s bona home front, the flashing sky
pink as a boudoir. Sid’s craggy martinis thump
away with a powder puff to the gramophone
trills of ‘There’s a Small Hotel’. My eek hovers
above Lady B’s sink, bleach storming my scalp.
Open your aunt nells, dear. No beauty
without agony. Bitch. A zhooshy recruit,
I have plucked and plucked to prove devotion,
my fitness for trolling and jitterbugging
in prearranged gloom. Kohl, rouge, bronze lipstick.
Steadfast sisters, we camp like Fates on the periphery
of guest-houses where bonaroo forces are stationed,
B stitching sequins to maroon gloves by the light
of a tissue-papered torch. Sid bats ogle riahs
in ten minute spells. We’re the bang they want
to go out with, saintly omi-palones who fall
with a stroke of the Polish navy’s smooth serge.
Cackle is ruthless: weather, duties, family –
buvare at mine? My favourite’s a Yank.
Ed Paxton, his fluent hands unknotting the rope
of my body, loosening dreams that have never been,
will never again be freer. Between his legs
I’m the right shape, intrepid, all-seeing.
The horrors of peace are many. Street lamps slam on
beside cod snapping bunting, thrashed Union flags.
What’s wrong with your eyebrows? brother says.
I stare blankly back, incapable of irony,
laughter. Sid moves to Orkney – Bless her
Chatsworth Road heart – has five dolly feeles.
Belladonna signs up for the merchant navy.
She screeves, praising bijou striped curtains,
black sailors, the Atlantic’s sharp smell
though I do not reply. I linger here, still paper
but folding, folding. The streets swarm with mammoth
skirts, decency, bedsits. I’ve used the last smudge
of American shampoo. Each dusk I vada
the ripped-open, scattered rose sky and pray
to God for the safe return of my blackout.
© 2008, John McCullough
From: the lives of ghosts
Publisher: tall-lighthouse, London
From: the lives of ghosts
Publisher: tall-lighthouse, London
Glossary of Polari Words
Polari is the English homosexual and theatrical slang prevalent in the early to mid 20th century.
bona – lovely; martinis – hands; eek – face; aunt nells – ears; zhooshy – tarted up; trolling – mincing; bonaroo – wonderful; ogle riahs – eyelashes; omi-palones –effeminate men (literally ‘men-women’); cackle – talk; buvare – drink; cod – vile; dolly – beautiful; feeles – children; bijou – small; vada – look at
John McCullough
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1978)
John McCullough was born in Watford in 1978 and grew up there during the eighties and nineties. He studied English and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia before completing an MA in Sexual Dissidence at the University of Sussex, followed by a PhD on Shakespeare and friendship. He still teaches creative writing there now, in addition to similar work at the Open University. His ...
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GEORGIE, BELLADONNA, SID
Paper, scissors, stone. Grinning poster boysfor Winston’s bona home front, the flashing sky
pink as a boudoir. Sid’s craggy martinis thump
away with a powder puff to the gramophone
trills of ‘There’s a Small Hotel’. My eek hovers
above Lady B’s sink, bleach storming my scalp.
Open your aunt nells, dear. No beauty
without agony. Bitch. A zhooshy recruit,
I have plucked and plucked to prove devotion,
my fitness for trolling and jitterbugging
in prearranged gloom. Kohl, rouge, bronze lipstick.
Steadfast sisters, we camp like Fates on the periphery
of guest-houses where bonaroo forces are stationed,
B stitching sequins to maroon gloves by the light
of a tissue-papered torch. Sid bats ogle riahs
in ten minute spells. We’re the bang they want
to go out with, saintly omi-palones who fall
with a stroke of the Polish navy’s smooth serge.
Cackle is ruthless: weather, duties, family –
buvare at mine? My favourite’s a Yank.
Ed Paxton, his fluent hands unknotting the rope
of my body, loosening dreams that have never been,
will never again be freer. Between his legs
I’m the right shape, intrepid, all-seeing.
The horrors of peace are many. Street lamps slam on
beside cod snapping bunting, thrashed Union flags.
What’s wrong with your eyebrows? brother says.
I stare blankly back, incapable of irony,
laughter. Sid moves to Orkney – Bless her
Chatsworth Road heart – has five dolly feeles.
Belladonna signs up for the merchant navy.
She screeves, praising bijou striped curtains,
black sailors, the Atlantic’s sharp smell
though I do not reply. I linger here, still paper
but folding, folding. The streets swarm with mammoth
skirts, decency, bedsits. I’ve used the last smudge
of American shampoo. Each dusk I vada
the ripped-open, scattered rose sky and pray
to God for the safe return of my blackout.
From: the lives of ghosts
Glossary of Polari Words
Polari is the English homosexual and theatrical slang prevalent in the early to mid 20th century.
bona – lovely; martinis – hands; eek – face; aunt nells – ears; zhooshy – tarted up; trolling – mincing; bonaroo – wonderful; ogle riahs – eyelashes; omi-palones –effeminate men (literally ‘men-women’); cackle – talk; buvare – drink; cod – vile; dolly – beautiful; feeles – children; bijou – small; vada – look at
GEORGIE, BELLADONNA, SID
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