Self-transformation

Nick Taylor at Just Write Right editing services has kindly posted an essay of mine on his site blog. Self-transformation is a companion piece to my earlier essay, Self-help, which is available here on A Pencil Is Best. Both pieces examine coming out, self-discovery, and the role writing can have in establishing a queer identity.

As an editor, Nick specialises in queer writing, helping authors of all sorts ensure their output is inclusive and authentic. In answering his call for guest posts, I’m grateful he accepted Self-transformation for posting. 

Self-help

On National Coming Out Day, here’s some of my journey, written to celebrate Gay Authors twentieth anniversary. 

To come out is to make a personal declaration.

Maybe you’ll enlighten only yourself. Maybe it’ll become general news. Or, perhaps, you’ll choose to tell a select few friends or family.

Whatever happens, many queer people see coming out as their chance to live an authentic life. That it’s still a thing says a lot about the societies in which we live. Why should sexual orientation or gender identity be so defining? Is one set of characteristics really so much better than any other?

Voyageur

A longer narrative poem this time. Queering the past.

I paddled on a northern lake   
and mopped a weary brow;   
my arms had started in to ache, 
the wind blew o’er the bow,   
for many miles I had to make  
and waves through which to plow.

Spring Songs

i.

A raindrop’s life is short,
no time for sex or sport
and worse I must report:
the ground it must abort. 

Compare this to the gnat
long weeks an insect brat
on bitten blood grown fat,
ends in a messy splat.

And what to make of man
whose time the years may span:
a charted course he ran
that rarely went to plan.

Much longer lasts the sun,
which has more time for fun;
when our old world is done,
it’s hardly just begun. 

Telling Time

I know that time of year has now arrived,
and not because of calendar and dates
or other such inventions so contrived
to tell how quickly hours must meet their fates.
Perhaps I feel a rising of the blood
as daylight sends the evenings in retreat,
while northward stream migrations in a flood,
enticing mates with melodies so sweet. 
The disappearing snowdrifts whisper soft
of secrets to be kept beneath the sky;
pale beasts encountered with the sun aloft
in voices raised together do they cry.
If only you were vernally inclined,
on mossy beds we'd linger, intertwined.

©Copyright, Parker Owens, April 2018  
All of Parker's work can be found at GayAuthors.org

Spudhunter!

[In an England without potatoes, Tim is a spudhunter. He’s the best. Really – the very, very best.]

Get me a plate of triple-cooked chips! Perfect, salty, fat, golden chips. Money no object.

Tim licked his lips. That was more like it. He stared wide-eyed at the message projected onto the side of the living room in his quaint – not rundown – cottage. No more bargaining with tightfisted clients over a scoop of mash or the worth of one pocked, frost-bitten tuber. Life as a spudhunter was hard.

Bearing Gifts

Even the smallest things can make a difference…

The kiss reminded him of chemistry lessons in school, when if the right two elements were put together, they’d explode. Alan leaned forward to peer at the TV screen, drinking in the men’s beauty, their ardour and sexiness, and the rightness of it all. Even his faded, ancient sweats momentarily swelled in the crotch. Then a lifetime’s worth of regrets, hidden secrets, and loneliness welled up; tears oozed out, one by one, until slow rivulets flowed down the lines in his face.

A groping hand found the hanky in his pocket. He mopped up and blew his nose fiercely.

He turned the TV off, tossing the remote onto the other half of the sofa. “Why start watching the film, you stupid sod? You know that sort of thing always sets you off.” He sniffed hard. “And it’s worse this time of year.”

It’s been a while…

Hasn’t it just. 👀 So, have I spent the time writing? Yes, some of it at least, only not for here.

High time, I thought, for an update and to share some recent marvellous writing news.

First, the news.

Back in March of this year, I wrote a post, Making another milestone about my first ever publication in a literary magazine. Inversion is one of my rare experimental pieces (prompted by a Retreat West writing course). It’s close to my heart and represents one of my first attempts to write historical fiction, so I was super excited when Sundial Magazine accepted the piece.

Quantum Fondness

Some distances are hard to comprehend
for mortal minds make nothing of their size
no matter how the measure’s made to bend,
they can’t conform to what the brain descries.
Across a mighty chasm photons flee
before the twinkling eye can hope to wink,
yet just how wide can synapse spaces be
which let a man consider, muse or think?
And though I understand some thousand miles
Must separate our present-bodied flesh,
Swift prescient thought makes real your laugh and smiles
Enough the weary spirit to refresh.
Connection will all journeys stand bestride;
mere continents cannot true friends divide. 



©Copyright, Parker Owens, 2020;  
All of Parker's work can be found at GayAuthors.org

Sweet Summer

I will come to you at morning,
your light playing on my frame;
your warmth undressing,
bright smile caressing,
and no color is the same
when I come to you at morning.

You will follow me at midday
to a soft, sweet gasped surprise;
my body burning,
full-hearted yearning
for what you ask with your eyes
when you follow me at midday.

I will kiss you in the evening,
reawaken what is still;
yet re-inviting
our blest uniting
so that I might have my fill
when I kiss you in the evening. 


©Copyright, September 2020, Parker Owens.  

All of Parker's work can be found  at GayAuthors.org