If you remember the first anthology, We Were Always Here, put together by Ryan Vance and Michael Lee Richardson, then you’ll be delighted to hear they have just released another anthology, Fierce Salvage. We’re thrilled to publish three poems from the collection.

Fierce Salvage: A Queer Words Anthology
Edited by Ryan Vance & Michael Lee Richardson
Published by 404 Ink

‘Benediction for Girls Who Want Too Much’ by Jane Flett

Bless you for your greed hungry girl
who was christened Too Much & instructed
to scythe herself smaller. Bless you for grabbing
hands & the growl of your guts. Bless you
walk into a room needs first demanding
all you desire. Unsure the world
will provide but agape anyway & waiting
to be delivered or denied. It takes
pluck to show up with flaunted want
while the rest disguise their appetites.
It takes a girl unashamed to reveal all
a girl can crave. The world is full of cowards
who hide the hulk of their proclivity
& then there is you. You, pretty creature
with your heart’s doors propped open.
You, rabid heart full of the world.
Life, messily, all over the daylight hours.

‘Motor Skills by A. W. Earl

meant to write a sonnet about gender euphoria —
instead I learned to ride a motorbike.
As though I hadn’t pinned my boyhood
on a Triumph T120, blue cylinder, exhaust
smell on cold school morning, rainbow
gloss of oil by a sole, defunct petrol pump.
As though I hadn’t doodled
Harley logos on my schoolwork
dreamed clutch, brake, throttle,
kick start, hot metal, oily rags and fingers never clean,
as though I wasn’t always too young, too late, too clumsy,
too much the girl for it to be okay.

All great wants hurt us more than we can bear,
some failures need to feel forgone
so that we risk nothing on the try.
The truth is we build pictures of ourselves
that have no traffic with the world, weave
stories where if we changed this, and this, and this
the person that we always were
would bubble fragile from our dreams.
I whispered my boy-name and thought he sounded
like the kind of guy who’d press his foot down
into the turn and fly, graze effortless round bends,
wheel glorious, unquestioned, and at ease.

But my god, I am so bad at this,
just like I’m five foot three
and wider than a horse, and older
than I ever thought I’d be. I’ve never met
a motor skill I couldn’t bungle, never learned
to end my phrases on a low pitch drop and not an upward curl.
There’s no great roar of power here, no leathers,
I am no devil-may-care. The instructor calls me Fred,
the bike is only 125, and I am so afraid.

But still, still, he calls me Fred, and I clutch
the handlebars like small birds, left
foot lifting from the ground, clutch
slipping out and engine, engine roar
pentameter of revs and this
this is not words, not body, not
anything I’ve known, all giddy
with chance, and work, and strangeness of it all.
For all my life, I’ve stuck to walking pace,
but here, here comes the first rush of speed.

‘Aig an Oidhche Ghèidh by Robbie MacLeòid

Cha robh Irn-Bru idir aca
ach bha condoms an-asgaidh aig a’ bhàr.

A’ chiad sealladh, seachad air an dorast fhalaichte,
b’ e fear crùbte, na dhrathais, aig a’ choatcheck,
a’ stobadh dha bhaga gach criomag aodaich,
saor bho ghach rud a chùmadh air talamh e.

A-steach dhan chaibeal, solast
gorm is dearg is dealrach,
dathan sgaoilte anns a’ cheò,
roinnte le bodhaigean nam fear,
an ceòl teagnò a’ bualadh mar
fheis fhallasach dhealasach.

Tha cowboy ann,
na bhriogais dubh leatair, is Stetson,
gun lèine ach le sùilean gach dàrna fir air;
chunnacas cuideachd He-Man ann an leotard;
is tha fear aig a’ chùl, gu cinnteach air E,
air mhire, air mhire, a’ suathadh
a chom fhèin, air chall
am measg na glòire.

Ach eadar an deargad is an dorchadas tha sinn a’ feitheamh,
agus thig e, agus tha am fonn a’ fàs agus a’ fàs agus a’ fàs
agus
seo e:

I’m every woman!
It’s all in me!

Chì mi am boillsgean:
na dlùth-phògan, na sùilean
priobach, na làmhan suathach,
na gàireachan, mo ghaol
air na gàireachan. Fairichidh mi
gach boinneag fhallais orm, meanbhphògan
bho Dhannsa e fhèin.

Chì mi aonaran, fear na lethcheudan —
tha ceist san adhair: cà bheil a chuideachd?
Caillte dhuinn,

is chan ann sa cheò seo.
Tron ghàrradh, tha nathair G4S
dol seachad oirnn. Gun teagamh, chan eil
esan a’ dannsadh, na chreutair stòlda
am measg a’ chaothaich, mì-nàdarra,
a shùilean air an làir is e a’ dèanamh air doras
am Fire Escape. Is cinnteach nach eil,
ach tha coltas ann gu bheil e ga ghlasadh,
a’ dèanamh cinnteach, gar cumail
glaiste a-staigh. Tha mo chridhe
gam dhochainn. Tha mi a’ coimhead

mun cuairt, a’ sireadh nan slighean às.
Dè mu theine? No sàthadh? Club Q,
Pulse, London Pub? An deargad?
’S ann orm a tha e, an t-eagal
’s gun tig fear a-steach,
is nach fhaic e mar chaipeal seo,
ach ifrinn, ifrinn a dhìth air cuideigin
airson a cliathadh, clann Dè
a dhìth air dòrainn.
Laigse
am bunait na dachaigh ùire seo:
am feum cunnart a bhith anns
gach àit’ san tig sinn còmhla?
Nach bhiodh e sàbhailte
— nas sàbhailte, co-dhiù —
fuireach a-staigh a-nochd

agus gach oidhche eile, gu bràth?
אֶֶהְְיֶֶה אֲֲשֶׁׁר אֶֶהְְיֶֶה
Tha an teagnò gam thàladh air ais,
cunbhalach a ghluasaid. Seall. Tha lèintean meise
air na h-aingealan seo. Chan eil olc
no droch fhàileadh san adhair. Chan eil ach
ceò, màna, sannt agus gaol, agus tha mo bheul làn
phògan do rudeigin, cuideigin,

’s dòcha dhomh fhèin?

’S dòcha gu bheil a h-uile duine
anns an t-seòmar seo
gam iarraidh
airson tiotan
eadar an deargad
’s an dorchadas
creididh mi
ann an sin.

~

English language synopsis:
‘Aig an Oidhche Ghèidh’ —
At the Queer Club Night

A Gaelic poem about the vivid sensuality and sexuality of a queer club night in Glasgow. The setting, its sounds, rhythms, and feeling are described, in a tone of utopian hope and using religious metaphor and imagery. Here one can feel at home, in community, and desired. But the presence of a security guard is the snake in the garden, the reminder that even in this holy space, queer people aren’t safe; the numerous queer folk injured and killed in similar spaces come to the narrator’s mind. Even still, here is where the narrator can utter, quoting God’s reply to Moses, אֶהְֶיְֶהֶ אֲשֲֶׁרׁ אֶהְֶיְֶהֶ — I am that I am/will be/what I choose to become.

Fierce Salvage: A Queer Words Anthology edited by Ryan Vance & Michael Lee Richardson is published by 404 Ink, priced £10.99.