pluralstories | Entries tagged with genre:poetry

"And again I feel
her black wings opening:

do not tame my angel"

Blurb: A poem about a woman's intense, erotic love for her Lilith angel, who comes for her in dreams.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, intense, erotic poem about sapphic spirit love. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld (dreams), dreamfolk, nonhumans (angels, Lilith?), intimate relationships, spiritual

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Screenreadable, free to read on archive.org. Read it here! I'm also just going to post it in the comments because it seems likely to disappear off the internet.

Misc Notes: Published in a Thelema tome, The Equinox Vol. 5 No. 4: Sex and Religion, which has a lot of older stuff in it that isn't well dated. Using 1981 as a placeholder for now, since that's when the book came out.

lb_lee

"I’m him, too, but then I do what he would,
And when he touches his chest, I know I’m not him."

Blurb: A poem about the subjective sensation of soulbonding.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short and sweet, a time capsule to the soulbonding subculture of twenty years ago. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, fictioneers, identityblending, intimate relationships, plural creator

Content Warnings: None

Access Notes: Read for free online here!

Misc Notes: Laura Gilkey identified herself as not multiple, but on the plural spectrum in her May 2002 blog entry ~Ramblings on Soulbonding~, thus the tag. Uncertain about the exact date; it could have been written in the late 90s, like the Trinity?

Laura Gilkey also made five comic strips about soulbonding, entitled 7 Wonders of My World, but it is sadly lost media.

lb_lee

"In 1424, three saints
appeared to Jeanne in a vision.
Saint Michael, Saint Catherine,
and Saint Margaret came to her
as she walked alone in a field."

Blurb: In an alternate universe, Joan of Arc is called by the saints to fight for the English.

Why is it worth your time?: It's steampunk poetry about Joan of Arc learning alchemy and going to war. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, visions, voices, spiritual, nonswitching, nonhumans (the angel Saint Michael), the dead (other saints)

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Free to read online, screenreadable.

Misc Notes: Two installments:
Listening to God (Listening to God back-up link)
The Voyage to Vaucouleurs (Voyage to Vaucouleurs back-up link)

lb_lee

"RAGE AGAINST THE DISTANCE!
KILL THE GHOST!
BURN THE DIVIDE!"

Blurb: "a poem/maybe future lyrics about dissociation--specifically, the moody sort of dissociation where you can't ground and are only able to feel the frustration/irritation around that."

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short powerful poem about breaking dissociation and feeling.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dissociation

Content Warnings: ...it's a poem about dissociation.

Access Notes: Screenreadable, free to read here on Dreamwidth! (back-up link here)

lb_lee

"Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:"

Blurb: A poem about traveling to one's companion in dreams.

Why is it worth your time?: It's fucking Shakespeare, the most celebrated author in the English language.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dreamfolk, intimate and friendly relationships

Content Warnings: None whatsoever.

Access Notes: It's Shakespeare. You can find it EVERYWHERE. Here, here's a link with notes! It's so short, we will also post it in the comments below.

lb_lee

"You’re lucky
we have other bodies

to put your daughter in"

Blurb: a poem about cyborg death.

Why is it worth your time?: the Cyborg Jillian Weise has written lots of cool essays and poems on being a disabled cyborg, how money and society mold that, and that cripplepunk sensibility embues this poem. It's good, give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, copies, children, the dead, bodyhopping

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Involves the death of a child.

Misc Notes: Free, short, plain text and thus screenreadable. Read it here! (back-up link here)

lb_lee

"we both dream of wholeness, of completion,
of the day that the journey ends
and we come home to ourselves."

Blurb: A series of prose poems on various aspects of the plural experience.

Why is it worth your time?: Short, sweet multimedia poems. Give 'em a shot!

Plural Tags: plural creator, intimate relationships, family relationships, enmity,

Content Warnings: see Misc. Notes section

Access Notes: Most of these poems are not screenreadable, sorry! Ghosts have said they hope to switch it over to Twine sometime in the future.

Misc Notes: There are seven poems in this series:

Sleeping in Shadows: a quiet reflection on a moment with a loved headmate (link goes to plain-text transcription, others are not screenreadable) (EDIT: Cohost is going down; here is a subtitute link.)
Insanity: a meditation on ableism and mental illness
Out of One, Many: to broken branches who became trees, who became a forest all their own. (CW: brief abuse mention, discussion of ableism)
Given Space: a kind of love poem on separation
An Ode to a Beast: making friends with a scary, demonized headmate
The Things You Must Remember: the rules of fairyland.
Hello World: an introduction.

2024/10/9: Hungry Ghosts made a back-up of all the poems here! Transcription in progress.

lb_lee

"No distance separates us,
Time and space stand still,
My yearning is our yearning,
Where went "I"?"

Blurb: A religious poem about loving someone not physically visible.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short and been transcribed for free. What have you to lose?

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans [spirits, gods], romantic relationships, spiritual

Content Warnings: It's a religious poem.

Access Notes: This poem has been textually transcribed online.

Misc Notes: This is a poem from the winter 1988 women's spirituality issue of Rainbow Bridge Magazine, a quarterly publication of Ziraat, a branch of the Sufi order, published at this time in San Antonio, Texas. It doesn't seem to be in screen-readable or digital form anywhere, so I transcribed it.

lb_lee

" Practice automatic writing, possessory trance, and other methods of channeling.
Journey to the underworld and find your way out."

Blurb: "A small, powerful set of mythopoetic instructions for working with the queer dead, composed after the overlapping underground worlds of the Bay Area lost thirty-six of their people in the Ghost Ship Fire."

Why is it worth your time?: This is an expression of ecstatic queer grief in the wake of preventable loss. It's short, free, and beautiful in its passion.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, the dead, community, spiritual, possession

Content Warnings: Death and religion.

Access Notes: The nice thing about anarchists is you can get their work all over the place. Read online or download for free in various accessible formats, or you might be able to find one of Contagion Press's paper copies around for $2. Back-up link here.

Misc Notes: Although the author is listed as "anonymous," there's enough overlap in writing style and content that I suspect the writer was also involved in the Mary Nardini Gang's Be Gay Do Crime--which was also first printed by Contagion Press in 2018, also concerned with queer magical anarchism, and also concerned with the loss of friends (specifically, Feral Pines) in the Ghost Ship Fire.

lb_lee

"On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest."

Blurb: A mystical Catholic poem about meeting God in ecstatic, holy, erotic darkness. Also known under the titles "On a Dark Night" or "Dark Night of the Soul."

Why is it worth your time?: It is the source of the term "dark night of the soul," and it is also the gayest, horniest-for-Jesus poem I have ever seen, making it well-loved by queer men. St. John of the Cross was apparently buddies with St. Teresa of Avila, which explains a lot. It is a beautiful, loving poem about being guided by inner sight to a lover nobody (including the seeker) can see, and it's not at all hard to monkeywrench it for plural purposes.

Plural Tags: nonhumans [God], creator speaks from experience, abuse not mentioned, romantic relationships, spiritual

Content Warnings: Uh. Jesus bangery?

Access Notes: Public domain; you can read it on Wikipedia both in English and the original Spanish.

Misc Notes: Apparently St. John of the Cross had to be gently nudged to explain his theology, leading to him writing two books of commentary on this poem. I tried to read one. It was a slog.

lb_lee

"My sister and I
talk in our heads..."

Blurb: Eight short poems by a multiple, dealing with topics ranging from death, despair, and denial, to longing for connection and friendship.

Why is it worth your time?: Some of them still sing clear, even after thirty-five years, and in short lines, they precisely delineate grief, righteous anger, and fear. No clue whatever became of Ann H., or whether she made more poetry, but at least we have this little time capsule.

Plural Tags: abuse high focus, memory work, medical

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Originally published in MPD newsletter Speaking for Our Selves, Vol. 1, no. 4, from June 1986, and thus these poems are only available in bootleg form. The original scanned file of the entire issue (non-screenreadable) is here. I have also textually transcribed the poems alone for posterity.

Misc Notes: Contains the poems "I Called You," "I Have No Arms," "You Ran Away," "Preoccupied," "Why Dig Up The Past?" "Magic Grab Bag," "My Sister and I," and "My Friend, in Peace and Love."

lb_lee

"What she is not or cannot embrace, I shall be."

Blurb: A short poem about the sacredness of the shadow self.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, free, and nice.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned,

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: screenreadable, free to read online. Read it here! (EDIT: Cohost is going down. Here is a back-up link.)

lb_lee

"When you aren't alone in your head
you learn to listen
to the flavored thoughts
of the people behind your eyes."

Blurb: A poem about the intersections between plurality and blindness.

Why is it worth your time?: It's an insightful look into a plural world that is often ignored by the sighted, including the complications of sighted headmates in a blind vessel.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, fictioneers, nonhumans [Transformer/robot, doll], children, teamwork and friendship, switching

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Free, short, and screenreadable. Read it here! (Back-up link)

lb_lee

"When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen."

Blurb: A short poem about imaginary playmates from a century ago.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, whimsical, and fun.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, imaginary friends, children, friendship

Content Warnings: Frenchmen are losers in it?

Access Notes: Robert Louis Stevenson is famous, so finding a copy of A Children's Garden of Verses shouldn't be too tough. It's also easy to find for free online, since I'm pretty sure it's in the public domain by now. This link has both screenreadable text and an audio reading. (Back-up link; both text and audio work in it)

lb_lee

"I am a universe contained, varied and diverse
thoughts and perceptions orbit around
my consciousness; so when it seems
I am not all here,
my mind is probably somewhere
caught up in
the stratosphere"

Blurb: A meditative poetry zine about the fluid, celestial nature of the self, its ebb and flow and ambiguity.

Why is it worth your time?: It's good. I bought this short zine from someone in my neighborhood a few years back, and the mix of handmade care (the string binding, the silver that was clearly penned in by hand for each individual copy) and quiet simplicity has kept it on my shelf this whole time.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus

Content Warnings: none. The slightest implication of a past unhealthy relationship.

Accessibility Notes: This zine is, as far as I can tell, impossible to find anywhere anymore. Sara Makiya has redone a couple of the illustrations since, in full color (rather than the stripped-down black, white, and silver), but that's it. Since one of my rules for this comm is that the work has to be something you can actually get, I textually transcribed the zine here for posterity, and since emailing Makiya and Paige got no response, I finally scanned and uploaded the thing in its entirety (though the silver isn't done justice digitally). It's a beautiful little thing and I'd hate for it to be lost.

lb_lee

Submitted by

thesaltinstitute ! :D

“we clip through one another exist separately yet all in one”

Blurb: A piece of prose, poetry, and prose poetry; about identity, plurality, and memories. Written by three of us& during NaNoWriMo 2018 - we pantsed it that year and ended up writing a half-fantasy half-earnest journey of selves-discovery. Also known as: the Salt Institute goes on a journey throughout the multiverse by interacting with weird trees and encounter various places with Mysterious Vibes as well as a couple(-ish) interesting folks.

Why is it worth your time?: so i am a little bit biased considering i took part in writing it and it's allegorically autobiographical on the topic of Existing As A System And What That Means For Our Shared Life. but we reread this piece on occasion when we remember it exists and think it still holds up after all those years -- we still think the Message is Important, the world and visuals are Pretty And Nice To Imagine, the writing itself is Enjoyable -- and the whole vibe of it is Reminders We Much Need that Not Everything Is Fucked Up Actually and Authentic Connection Is So Important On Many Levels. we have also received two (2) reviews not by friends or acquaintances on it, including one that said things to the effect of "This is beautifulll and I'm so glad to see more writing about plurality (even though it only has 20 hits WHICH [...] IS A CRIME!!)" and "Might-definitely share this with like literally everyone I know because it absolutely deserves to be seen", so it's probably not just us who got something from it even if they're not necessarily the things (or all the things) we actually meant to put in there that i just talked about.

Plural Tags: fictivity/soulbonding, plural creator (maybe also potentially realitymashing given the rest of the stuff in that tag?)

Content Warnings: just to be safe, exploration of (the effects of) abuse and ableism, on a deeply allegorical level with 0 graphic or detailed depictions. the most there is are a few vague mentions + a couple lines said by a cartoonish-type over the top villain

Accessibility Notes: Short, free to read online.

Read it here! (Back-up link)

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Plural Stories

Entries tagged with genre:poetry

From the Tower, by Melissa Cannon (poetry, 1981?)

Who I Am, by Laura Gilkey (personal poem, 2002?)

The Arc of Joan, by Elizabeth Barrette (steampunk poetry, 2012)

Dissociation is a bitch / Untitled Poem by crow& (poetry, 2024)

Sonnet XXVII by William Shakespeare (poetry, 1609)

Future Biometrics, by the Cyborg Jillian Weise (sci-fi poetry, 2015)

various poems, by Hungry Ghosts (poetry, 2019?)

Soul's Desire, by Rabia Clarke (religious poetry, 1988)

First Protocols of Queer Goetia, by Anonymous (magic anarchist poetry, 2018)

En Una Noche Obscura, by St. John of the Cross (religious poetry, 1577-1579)

Various poems by Ann H. (personal poetry, 1985-1986)

Shadow's Song, by Stormgail (poem, 2022)

Intersections, by Rhymershouse (personal experience poetry, 2020)

The Unseen Playmate, by Robert Louis Stevenson (poetry, 1913)

my heart beats in seismic waves, by Sara Makiya and Sara Paige (poetry, 2018)

Tales of the Raven King, by the Salt Institute (fiction/autobio prose poetry, 2020)

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