Beth Davies’ debut pamphlet, The Pretence of Understanding, was published by The Poetry Business in 2023 after winning the 2022 New Poets Prize. Beth also won second place in the 2022 Magdalena Young Poets’ Prize. Her website is https://bethdaviespoet.
Ace Sex
Sex is when a train runs into a portal
Flies off to outer space
It’s when you suddenly remember the old block tellie
With no channels
That you had to switch on at the block
Sex is
I think it’s an ice cream
One of them novelty flavours like
Popping Raspberry Unicorn
It’s a weird fad but we’re pretty sure
Salted Caramel’s making a comeback
Sex is where google maps leads you
When you specifically asked to go somewhere else
It’s that brand of clothes
You’ve never bought cos it’s ugly as sin
And you can’t figure why anyone would
But it’s their bodies so who cares
Sex is
A broken clock
Or a working one
I can’t remember which but
It’s when time stops
Or starts
Sex is
Irrelevant
It’s the toastie you see every day at the
Toastie shop and think “maybe today”
Knowing you never will and it’s
The shitter of life’s many options
Sex is
An incompetent committee
Or maybe
It’s a competent one
Sex is a neon rucksack
It’s a black wardrobe
Your mum insisted on buying
That you never really use cos
You don’t live at your mums’
Sex is the weird dream you had
About a carnival
You’ve never been to
A carnival
It’s that tv show
The one what overstayed its welcome
Sex is a hydraulic press
Operated by people who
Don’t know what a
Hydraulic press is
It is formative
In the same way that
Abseiling down a high-rise would be
Felix (Fee) Marshall is a genderfluid aroace poet based in Leeds, and honestly just doing their best.
Polyamory is wrong
(Mixing Greek and Latin roots? Wrong!)
Polyamory is less orgies, or threesomes
& more Google calendar, blocking out
precious time, increments of love
portioned out as slices of 3.14159,
infinite, neverending & always fulfilling
Polyamory is less spontaneous fun
whirling across moonbeams at midnight
& more time-poor energy-scarce,
hoping that this month your paths
will cross, tube-line interchange serendipity,
& you can once again fall into open arms
tessellate rainbow-soft shapes, the taste
of silence sweet on tentative palettes
Polyamory is less quick fucks, or
one night stands under neon-ultraviolet
& more, kiss me like the world is ending,
less tidal-waving at goodbyes & more
please don’t forget me while the inbetween
holds our hearts in stasis,
So, please, I am begging you, don’t forget me,
I have more love inside me, bubbling
like lava through infinite hearts,
than can ever be imagined by the
abstract-shape of this singular moment