Shannon May Powell
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Poetry Series
Only Here, Only Now I press my hand to my heart
breathless
for what is more terrifying
than the revelation that it is the present moment?
Leaning over the rim of the world
plunging towards the moss-covered ground
of the here
which is now
and there
drinking forgetfulness
I hear laughter, but not my own.
I am close to life
and death at once, tearing
the seam between them both
and yet this is only here
only now.
There is a pause.
I am arrayed, prepared
the conductor has lifted his baton
time is hung.
This is the dark moment before the orchestra begins.
We are alone.
Clothing is shed like week old lilies
bodies wilt and yield
lips drape like heavy curtains
pupils shine and coruscate in the dark.
We stay like this
eyes sealed, afraid
to break something.
Skin barely there
just the aura of bodily presence
and the feeling of heat
ultraviolet, making us glow and fluoresce.
Where do I end
and you begin?
There is in both of us
the need to become Other
to exchange bodies
to transcend the Self.
Venus Their skin had the softness
and solidity of carved stone.
Something translucent
about their touch.
Like a ghost
They were always there
barely ever seen.
Afraid to take up space
and move beyond the plinth
or mythology upon which
their marble body stood.
Venus as a woman.
With gender draping,
hanging, almost falling
from the holding of hips.
Moss I am tempted
to take you
apart
and reconstruct
the hierarchy
of senses,
which brought us to
this misty
place of hunger.
Tempted to lift the fog
of this familiar blanket
and gaze at our limbs
tangled like
the shrubs
of a labyrinth.
I'm always finding
my way
back to your
middle.
Passing through
the mirrors
that threaten
our self-awareness
leaving pride
like damp moss
at the entrance
to our most
secret garden.
Church Clouds shift over me
like stampedes of horses
while I wait for you
like a lone dove, waits
in the church windowsill
of covetous and unsung
desires.
Interview
Mia Muse x Shannon May Powell We approached you with this project a few months ago — I think creating work of this nature, in this mode, is difficult to do when there is a result in mind. What did your process look like?
For as long as I can remember all of my work, with both art and the body has been about the erotic in the broadest sense of the word. It's a subject I could never tire of exploring and I truly do feel like when you start exploring the uses of the erotic in a broad sense it is infinite. I'm still constantly touching places in my own erotic life that I didn't know existed previously. It's a constant emergence. So this project was a pleasure and felt like a very natural expression. I'm honoured you and Vanessa trusted me to run with this.
In a personal essay of yours, you write really beautifully about your own discovery of eroticism and the sensuousness inherent in the world. You also reference Audre Lorde — whose essay was the seed for this project. She writes about the necessity of reclaiming pleasure, reclaiming erotic space. Is this something you feel like you had to do?
Absolutely. I think reclaiming the erotic and reclaiming erotic space is a right of passage. It's not an easy path to begin walking because with all pleasure comes pain, so I want to acknowledge the pain as well. At least for me personally, and I'm sure many people can relate, there is a lot of trauma around sexuality and our erotic lives. The culture around the erotic is so shrouded in patriarchal dynamics and cultural conditioning and that takes a lot of disentangling before you can really relish is the practice of pleasure and feel into an erotic space that is truly your own.
Audre also writes that the empowered erotic subject is dangerous. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea?
The empowered erotic subject is dangerous because it subverts patriarchal ideologies. Personally, as a young womxn, I didn't feel as though my body was my own. Since that sobering realisation, for years now, it has been a daily practice to reclaim sovereignty over my own body, my own sexuality and my erotic life. This is why inviting the erotic into my creative practice has been so cathartic. It is the opportunity to rewrite that story and create a new language. Language is a powerful weapon, if you can change a language you can change a culture. So it is an ongoing process of re-culturing and empowering the erotic for myself and hopefully for anyone who experiences my work.
What artists are inspiring your work at the moment?
So many, but most recently I have become obsessed with the work of Ocean Vuong. He is a queer Vietnamese/Irish writer and poet based in the US. His work of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, is the most existing and important work I've read in a long time.
