Two Poems From Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Sonic Shapeshifting: An Ode to Trans Joy
for Beau
Through distorted sky, all engines revert to deck, four wheels
and a foot pushing asphalt to propel, grind, churn aggregate.
Nobody skates much here anymore. It’s all electric two-wheeled
humming, Tesla-esque, lit from beneath
as if GT Tokyo Drift. whereas skating
is technical foot work, no soft landing,
except broken limb, chipped smile, ruby gash to bone’s white grin.
Kids these days have no balance, a friend suggests, but they all have
power-boards. I remember Biddle sidling up beside me recently
in piss-stained Northbridge
on an e-scooter. I was startled.
Not by him (although his neo-punk
Vivienne SEX pirate fashion can be exquisite, like a battery
to the tongue) but by the menacing silence of his steed.
Such vile skinny long mute hobgoblins. The scooters, not him.
At least the compulsory helmet
looked super cute atop his crown.
Apologies, this is the rhizome of a poem:
Biddle, angelic larrikin, in ghetto golden hour, making beautiful
that which I loathe, pulling focus from our contemplation of 3am sonics,
Canyon’s sandy lip slurring motor against Nyx, metal licking bitumen.
Cruiser wheel cars, they truck
a growling purr of soft durometer.
Only missing is skater’s sole kick
pause thrust rumble grrrr as if a wave of sound and cement being surfed.
Canyon breathes acoustic in deep, elongates skating dream as cars barrel
into a flat tsunami of roundabout, corners and coastal highways, wet
with saltwater’s
sweat. Biddle’s voice,
too, is deepening.
CONTENT WARNING: This piece contains references to historical transphobia, medical procedures and murder. It is based on the life of Roman Empress Elagabalus who was trans.
Remember Elagabalus
after CAConrad
for Anna Piper-Scott
for all the denarius aureus
& coffer’s bronze coins,
Elagabalus could not buy
herself her self
even staking Empire
for a surgeon to augury
affirming surgery
- to align body to the body,
to transition, to cut flower
from the bone without
bleeding out on a slab
in some holy temple
where vespers gesture
toward possibility -
was fruitless
without their vision
she threw rose petals
across orgies
& caressed Elagabal,
the black rock of her god,
prayed for adolescence
to bloom womanhood
as she ran her chariots
backward
at night, brothels
made Empress adored,
a covet of desire
The Senate did not approve
dragged from a chest
- her mother’s arms
the final touch she knew –
their two heads rolled
into Tiber’s murky tongue
Rome, your damnatio
memoriae shall not hold
each time we say her name,
websites use pronouns
befitting her legacy
& the re-carved statue
of her as Hercules
becomes more feminine
Jupiter never returns: Rome,
Elagabal is your god now
& he whispers:
Elagabalus,
your Empire for a body you can love
my altar for a womb
your life, soft pink & blue,
the flag begins with you
when Rome eventually burned
her ghost was seen dancing
in the ash
& she laughed
& she clapped
& we remember
Elagabalus
You can find more from Scott-Patrick on Instagram, Facebook, and what we used to call Twitter. As well as some previous publications right here, and here, on Baby Teeth!
