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How would I really grow old?
Grow a beard, wrinkles
under my bright blue eyes
and a week-long stubble
across my sad chin
of yonder years
How would I really grow old
as the skies here in Calcutta
ridicule my envy
my rage impotent
like the clouds here in Calcutta
my beloved, that don’t burst
and smear a lot of sorrows
along the city highways
How would I really grow old
among my rains and my sunshine
and my bleak winter cold?
From Fire No 18 (September 2002)
after Gwendolyn Brooks and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
we make ourselves dizzy on fumes & fruit cocktails think of plants
how they are visible to each other take pics of the best looks for the record
if there are flowers, flowers the flounce on a hem
we try everything on each body has its pose a dress that almost resembles a vine
pointy boot or platform shoe our arena of possibilities: the mall
between some image a blur
stretch turtleneck or ruched skirt the brave stockings in hell a radio playing our songs
we shrink into school, then expand: formal chrysanthemum
our hair as big as a neon sign
we anticipate a message (actually talking, on the phone) secret spill
how our jokes line up in permanent rotation the made up games
our treasury of gestures all the sparklings
we have everything but control like trees, we adhere to silence
then out the door skating at night on empty streets our looping paths
the rhinestone traces left behind we who were
Vivienne Westwood, a cento
The garment should say: ‘I am this’
A story of itself
It’s just so creative to put a sentence together
Greet me by ‘how lovely you are’ rather than ‘I like your hat’
I haven’t thought properly about dying
But if I were to write anything on my tombstone
It would be ‘The only revolution is culture’
Every time I speak to someone, I assume they understand
How easy it would have been not to lead this life
I could have been a schoolteacher
What you are given for free should not be owned
Love affairs go a long way to helping life pass you by
Behave according to the clothes
Forget yourself and you will become who you are
I am the centre of my look, like Chanel was
Punk was kids having a great time, but for what? I don’t know
If I go into a room and see Pamela Anderson looking incredible
I’m going to be delighted
The sun makes my skin itch when I’m on a bicycle
A nude is never really naked
I know exactly what I would like my legacy to be
Form is always becoming something else
I design for a world that doesn’t exist, you know, one like this but better
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