Swerfing the Net
Many so-called feminists argue in the same breath that sex workers are victims of exploitation, and propagators of the patriarchy. These feminists are SWERFs: Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminists. They reject the argument that sex work is work, resist calls for its decriminalisation, and
Eucharist
The profound blue of Mary’s shawl sweeps under the horizon just as the glass joins start looking like ant trails. Candles pretend to die, momentarily, as I stumble into the Psalm’s first verse. Then the songs are folded. The pastor reads “release them” from a book that says relieve th
Academics in Dog Collars
The University of Oxford is strange. Its structures are antiquated, its reputation disproportionate, and its influence unparalleled. For many prospective students, this is in large part the appeal of attending the University. And yet the preservation of such archaism for the sake of a conservative a
After Hogarth
Chalked up in white, his plans ran all in Cool blueprints: our house was just too staid. Then lines curved under my tools, sweetly Etched into edges that became snake-like. Right-angles baulked. We hooked fingers in Mingling Cs and recut hard doorframes Into shapes more sinuous. But then, Beh
Dandy
Mr Guillaume brought Paris to London His fingers anchored him to earth with their varicoloured jewels – He told me he once found a pearl shucking oysters And had it mounted on his littlest finger. When asked “how do you like your eggs?” he replied Fabergé. And his fizzing champagne chuckle ho
Everyone is scared of the guillotine these days
But if I had that kind of money, let me tell you – I’d burn it. A new Dior gown every morning. A different pool boy every afternoon. You bourgeois folk and your mid-century shite – you’ll never get it, sucking marrow from warm bones all light and delicate. Me, I’d gorge. Retch and [
A Concert in the Ante-Inferno
[Inspired by Inferno, Canto III, where Dante and Virgil travel through the Ante-Inferno and cross the river Acheron with the help of the ferryman, Charon. The performer, called ‘Nick’, is loosely named after the singer Nick Cave, the frontman of the Australian Rock Band ‘Nick Cave and the Bad
The Stripping of the Altars
They from London came and armed with pages: scrolls proclaiming you a wolf in wool. Father, it seems you have misled us. We went picking fruit and ploughing, strapping boots to furrow sunrise after sunrise into penance. But you did nothing sacred with the tithe. All the sundry charms you hall