Young Love: A Health and Safety Poem by Jan Sellers

Please don't make love in the showers, dears,
the staff don't like it at all;
it's not that they think that it's rude, dears:
they're afraid that you'll slip and you'll fall.
It's not that we're prejudiced, honest -
we've talked all this over for hours -
but the Centre just isn't insured, dears,
for dykes making love in the showers!

We know that it's fun in the showers, dears
(we wish we had thought of it too)
but we fear we'll be sued for our lives, dears,
should anything happen to you!
Just think of your friends and your families,
this could cause no end of distress;
and if you break your neck in the showers, dears,
then what can we say to the press?

We know that you like to be clean, dears,
that's why you make love in the showers;
but why not go out to the park, dears,
the sprinklers are left on for hours;
why not go home for a bath, dears,
and do it in bubbles instead?
Or be like the rest of us here, dears,
and go home and make love in bed.

I hear that the Governing Body have said that this practice must stop.
It's an issue they hadn't expected,
it's caught the poor dears on the hop...
but they have an excellent solution,
that - well, nearly everyone likes:
it's 'one at a time' in the showers from now on -
but they've built a jacuzzi for dykes!

Lesbian by Caroline Claxton

YOUR IMAGE

I am a lesbian
I open cans with my teeth.
I have a domineering mother,
except when I have a domineering father,
sister, brother, school-friend, neighbour, gay man who came to read the gas meter
when I was six.
I creep out
at the dead of night
to steal men's underpants
which I wear - under my tweed skirt.
I live at Greenham
except when I live next door to you.
I go to drop-in centres
for left-wing-commie-cigar-smoking-butch-bulldykes-against-the-bomb
paid for by the GLC.
I have fourteen fingers
we grow extra ones
you know.
I leap out from under 'man'hole covers
to grab 'straight' women
And I'm secretly plotting with Russia
to 'dis-arm' Ronald Reagan.

HOW IT IS

You've never quite got it right
about me
So let me tell you about myself.

I am complicated but
surprisingly average.
I do everything
and as for jobs:
I have a good job, a bad job, no job
I'm fired from jobs, I create jobs
I've worked just about any kind of job you can think of
except Prime Minister
unfortunately.

I am a thousand colours
and come from a thousand places
I come in a thousand places
and out in a thousand places.

I am behind you in the bus queue,
the cinema, the supermarket.
I live everywhere
except Buckingham Palace
as far as I know.

I am older than spoken word
traces of my bones lie in the stones
beneath your feet.
I am made of rock
harder than diamond
It cuts through your conventions
and your sticky, sticky lies.

I am more women than you would believe
And more woman than you would understand.

What am I?

Apostate by Jan Clausen

Furthermore, I abjure
these textile metaphors.

I discover I do not choose
to sew spin weave quilt
mend knit darn braid
appliqu� tat or crochet
my way through
a whole new
distaff poetry;
fold the laundry of uplift,
whiter than white,
into drawers.

I like to think of
Penelope the Greek
each night unpicking
her virtuous handiwork

and when
I hear the word nurture
I reach for my
pen.

I've Got the General Unspecific - Blues... by Gudrun Fonfa

I've got the general
unspecific - no one's
left me- nothing's
wrong - Blues

the unexplained - down in the dumps -
can't put my finger
on it - Blues

all pervasive
gloomy - moody
depression city
need a good laugh - Blues

my lover loves
me - nothing to complain
about - something's
sad/wrong - Blues

don't need a drink
the pot's homegrown
any old orgasm
will do - Blues

need a good cry
the house is too
calm - is my period
due - Blues

I've got the general
can't carry a tune
can't sing-a-long
no song - Blues.

Which of Us Wears the Trousers by Maria Jastrzebska

Behind the liberal politeness
You're dying to know
Instead of the chat about societal attitudes
What you'd really like to ask is
Which of us in this relationship
Wears the trousers.

I'll tell you
Since you want to know so much
And since it's really very simple:
I do
And then again
She does
And then sometimes
Neither of us
Wears any trousers at all.