The HyperTexts

Peter Brokenshire

Peter Brokenshire lectures at Hang Seng University in Honk Kong, in the School of Translation and Foreign Languages. His teaching interests include literary criticism and stylistic analysis, British English elocution, business English, grammar, impromptu speaking and writing well.



All is Well

Can you see the sounds of hunger
Can you hear the sights of fear
Why so strong then swells the anger
That the costs be borne right here

Do you feel the scent of darkness
Do you taste the notes of shame
Is it not a touch of madness
That we treat this like a game



Abomination

She suffered in silence for many a year
Until she reached eighteen:
She had to confess, compelled to redress
Mentally where she’d been.

The ‘jury of stares’, the revulsion of cares –
The torment of being unfree:
The doctor said with a guarded stare
That s/he was likely trans g.

Developmental dimorphic brain…
Desynchronized sexual… me;
Genetic, perhaps – well, thanks, you chaps! –
But please stop calling me She!

S/he howled at the cost, transition s/he must
To survive – No, that can’t be your fee?!?
The face in the glass my soul does not own –
Transition I must! – I’m not me!

Lesbian, so they said, when s/he’d met
This girl when s/he was a lad:
But I wasn’t a girl, so how – oh, I see –
I was just a fetish, a fad;

Her love was loss, her kiss was curse –
Where was your trust in your me?
Her joy was pain, her smile was wound  –
Duh! ‘I’m likely trans g…’

I long for a pronoun; yet plainly I see
My truth costs me your fear:
Contagious, am I? – “Just getaway from me!” –
Your grimace is just a veneer.

“You pervert, pretender – abhorrent freak,
Your biology’s clear! – Shove off!”
And so it goes on. I’m flailing against
Sliding into the trough

Of abject ruination – Aie! –
Oh, the bitter, cruel harangue!
Feeling dehope pression distress
Despair riapsed—Bang!

No, I shall live, prosper and thrive
And finally I shall be He –
For tomorrow at last is my surgery day:
The abomination ain’t me.



My Little Hamster

(For my niece, 2021)

Puffy is a hamster, as cuddly as can be,
A little fluffy prankster, looking up at me.
I wonder what he’s thinking, inside that tiny brain
That clearly isn’t working, and driving him insane!
I think he needs some apple, and maybe other fruit,
The company of people, so he can show he’s cute
And ready to be cuddled, and kissed and fussed all day
And nice and gently handled, because he’s made that way!

The HyperTexts