Submission

Dedicated to all the fascists in the audience

Submission #1: For Sophie

Hold me, find me,
hold me, bind me;
I want to lose control,
I want to be your doll,
your slave, your dog, your whip-tied hog,
I want to lose control.

Hold me, still me,
hold me, thrill me;
I want to lose control,
let madness take its toll,
till all is just beauty and lust,
I long to lose control.

Hold me, kiss me,
hold me, miss me;
I want to lose control,
surrender up my soul
and subjugate me to your fate,
I need to lose control.

Submission #2: For Eliza

The face that launched a thousand ships
that made an empire strut and talk:
a thousand thousand busy lips,
a surgeon's girl from County Cork.

The face that launched a thousand songs
of lands of honey, lands of milk:
a thousand thousand righting wrongs,
a surgeon's daughter dressed in silk.

The face that launched a thousand guns
of iron worthier than gold:
a thousand thousand screaming sons,
a surgeon's daughter grown so cold.

The face that launched a thousand deaths
that kissed him at Cerro Corá:
a thousand thousand sighing breaths,
a surgeon's girl who went too far.

Submission #3: For Clara

Upside down on a meat hook,
you stole my heart away;
with the petrol fumes and the cigarettes,
the baying crowd and the suffragettes.
Upside down on a meat hook,
upside down on St Catherine’s day.

Upside down on a meat hook,
upside down in a history book;
upside down in a photograph,
upside down where the red girls laugh
and the black boys weep and the devils sleep
and life is noble, life is cheap.
Upside down on a meat hook,
where the dukes and the divas play.

Upside down on a meat hook,
upside down on St Catherine’s day;
with the Knave of Clubs and the King of Hearts,
your beauty fades in fits and starts.
Upside down on a meat hook,
you stole my mind away.

Russell J Turner - June 2009