lgbt

New Film – Glue

The next short I’ve written and directed, Glue, is now finished and going out into the festival world! It will screen at SQIFF in Glasgow this weekend, and from there, we’ll find out!

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Glue explores that inbetween moment, when you’re caught between the past and the future, the person you were, and who you could be (aka lesbian exes meet up).

Credits:
Poppy Lironi as Agnes
Jess Brodie as Anna

DoP                       Ania Urbanowska
Sound Design     Heather Andrews
First AD               Cat Atkinson
Editor                   Vilte Vaitkute
Colourist             Jack Goessens
Make Up              Eleanor Gault
Runner                Tanja Schangin
Photographer     Karen Gordon
Bar Person          Clare Macdonald
Extras                   Tawnya Renelle
Dora Hamilton

Memorial to a Marriage

Hand to hand,

Toe to toe,
Nose to nose, close… You exhale I breathe in.
It’s the morning, before the papers,
There’s sleep in your eyes,
Dreamy half-whispered words
Surf along the sunrise.
We are golden
in this embrace,
formed out of grace, and patience.
We love,
Which every law in every land
Says we do not deserve.
There’s a defiance in the warmth,
A roar in the whispers
Edges to the tummy rolls
and curves of thighs
and the heft.
The permanence of stone or bronze challenges –
“Test our mettle”
If you won’t make space,
we’ll make a monument to ourselves

E.C.

In response to Patricia Cronin’s sculpture, Memorial to a Marriage. 

 

Two Poems

Trapped
Hemmed in
If I could just
Take the deepest breath
And burst the stretch of my skin.
Too full of life,
But there is no buckle
Only my toes poking out of my shoes
Picking up dirt and rain from the puddles
Squeezed onto the ground earlier that day.
If I’m not careful, I’ll start to sniffle.

Loving, pure instinct
Does what it does
Unclipped, unfixed, lives.
Rainbow cape
=/≠ (delete applicable)
shroud of shame.
Playing catch up
From the start,
The finishing line is the same
But our field is full of plot holes.

EMC

Picture: Creative Commons

Update: Film News

Found out this summer that my short film will be at the Scottish Queer International Film Festival 2017! Screening in the Scottish shorts programme, ‘Pull’  is in great company and it will be fab to see it play to an audience. For details: http://www.sqiff.org

Otherwise been writing and submitting poems and stories, hopefully some news on those soon, and performed poetry at the West End Festival, Village Storytelling Festival and with LGBT Health and Wellbeing. Planning on getting back to more performances, more filmmaking, more writing, just… More! Screenshot_20170903-225737

 

 

Monument

I am at the monument to gay people persecuted during the war.
Steps lead to a point
Which looks to a future, the sign reads
Water in the canal comes up against the strong stone,
And recedes.
There are a group of women sitting on the steps dressed all in black.
They have champagne flutes in their hands
And are speaking a language I don’t understand
It looks like a celebration,
And in a way it is,
They move forward and place white flowers
At the furthermost point
Position them carefully across each other.
Memories flow over and into the water
Carried through the air
Moved by their grief.
The celebration of a life left,
Taking the next step, the loss felt.
I hope the person knew how much their friends cared.
There are tears now,
But they pool close
To one another.
EMC
Photo by the author 

Dare

I am the good girl,

The play by the rules girl

Obey, abide, stay on the right side

And I’m told, everything’s going to be alright.

But inside I’m divining that new stars might be aligning,

Shapes I’ve never seen before, they make me feel like molten gold.

Daring to begin, performing roles I’ve never seen,

Before a friend tells me over lunch that it’s a sin,

I brushed it off   but it’s sunk in.

I didn’t know that my exploring was corroding years of doting

On the notions, those outmoded, that then goaded, questions pouring,

I was soaring then came floating,

Down into the gloaming,

And everything looked different,

And like I’d never known it.

You learn to masquerade, to hide,

Become a master of disguise.

It’s strange to conjure up a past

Where you hoped that you would not be asked

To hold that adoration clasped

Like water running through your hands.

The right direction is emerging

And still my thirst needs quenching.

When a book explains beyond hers and his

To inform teachers and their school kids

The usual rags smear their grease all over it.

Or when schools have the freedom

To erase us from the curriculum,

Is the path to relationships

Not even more treacherous to manage

when your fumbles loves and kisses

Are completely missing?

As if you’re non-existent.

Imagine what that absence does to a young mind over time…

When mirrors lose their shine,

Obscured reflections leave us all blind.

 

It’s the weekend and I’m caught up,

Tongue tripping to keep this form up

When sparks fizz,

And lips meet,

And we knock hips

And bump teeth.

But I’m in the bubble, I forget,

Take a step back, just check…

Can’t rest.

But I dare to trust,

That those who paved the paths before us,

We share the same stuff as they were made of:

Heart and strength and deep reserves,

Educating ignorance even when it hurts.

The love that dared not speaks its name has long been amplified,

Its ripples reaching far and wide

Decibels take on the tide,

And into these familiar waves we leap

Every time we dare to speak.

E.C.

First performed at ‘Dare to Speak’ for LGBT History Month. 

Photo by the author.

For Orlando

It is said that sexuality doesn’t define,

And no, don’t write me off.

But it is written through me,

Entwined on each fibrous level.

Meshed, hooked and looped from eye to toe.

It even began to taste sweet.

So it shatters my heart,

Rips the tissues apart,

When infiltrated by those who have hated.

 

Occupying secret spaces,

We have shared language and masked our faces.

Rites of passage thought wrong,

Wandering the straight and narrow for too long.

Until, you dare to deviate otherwise.

Hands contorted from decades of doors prised,

open.

 

I am tired, but they can’t wake up.

From the playground taunts to the political haunts,

Every word led to here.

EMC

Originally exhibited as part of the Stonewall Season, November 2016.

Photo by the author.

Thresholds

Unknown to myself,

Hidden in my heart,

Like a hunch in your gut,

Or a voice in the dark.

 

Strange street signs and alleyways,

can’t see where this leads,

One step at a time,

I trip over my feet.

 

Neon letters glow

With an electric pulse,

A beacon flickers below,

And tells me where

 

To head first.

No hand to hold,

Go it alone.

Bodies move on impulse, and slip by close.

 

These are the bright lights,

They thrum and surge,

And I retreat behind them,

into the club.

 

EMC

Originally exhibited as part of the Stonewall Season, November 2016. 

Photo by the author.