Transformatrix

Patience Agbabi

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780862419417
• eBook ISBN: 9781847677280
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

They call me Jax, though my real name's Eva
The whole of the Jackson Five rolled into one serious diva
No.1 on the guest list, top of the charts
When I make my grand entrance, the sea of sequins parts...

AJAX

Part I. Parallel Lines

Just spent my last tenner on white powder, trading

Charles Dickens’ crumpled face for a fading

pink postage-stamp envelope sealed with a loving kiss.

Supply and demand = business.

OPEN SESAME

Parallel lines deck my mirror,

my destiny mapped out by razor

blade, destination North South

in through the nose, out through the mouth

and it’s that ski-jump Winter Olympics 78 kick

time is flitting, flying, and it’s magic.

My pupils shrink to a full stop, minute,

my nostrils sprint and my mouth, mute

with soap begins its terrible grinding

dance and I swallow hard like it’s a double brandy lining

the inside of the glass like stretch satin.

And I’m Alice, Ali Baba, Aladdin

in the fast lane on the fast stuff.

Don’t stop till you get enough.

Time streaks on roller skates faster than a double-decker bus

down streets decked with disco lights, paved with gold dust

to The Underground, the whizz kid’s placenta

for the bright lights of the city centre.

OPEN SESAME

Part II. Fly The Tube

I’m devouring the sad ads on the Northbound

till I choke on PENALTY FARE £10

and study the facades on the opposite seat

Trainspotting, Crash and Deadmeat.

‘Fly the Tube’, I’d rather take a plane

Concorde, to be exact, high on cocaine

‘High as a feather boa

70s fashion victim strangles tube controller

for going too slow.’ That’s my mind

working overtime, nose to the grind

and the wages of snorting class ABCs?

a) calcium deficiency

b) warped reality

c) split personality

OPEN SESAME

Typical that the doors of perception are jammed

when the queen of the star-studded dance floor’s in demand.

Time pauses meaningfully, mean

then doors part and time fast forwards, clean

up the down escalator and run

jumps the queue at Club 2001.

OPEN SESAME

Part III. Do What You Wanna Do

They call me Jax, though my real name’s Eva

the whole of the Jackson Five rolled into one serious diva

No. l on the guest list, top of the charts

when I make my grand entrance, the sea of sequins parts.

They’re playing Do What You Wanna Do, my cue

cos a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do

Do The Hustle, Le Freak, says Chic,

Shake your body down to the ground. Then peak.

90s out, 70s in

dance till our bodies Siamese twin.

I take a mammoth dab of uncut paranoia.

Now I won’t speak without a lawyer

and they’re playing Night fever night fever

from the best disco album in the world, ever

yeah, the Bee Gees are the bee’s knees, honey,

now there goes a man who turns drugs into money

but not tonight, I’m skint and sky high

and on a scale from ‘disco’ to ‘psycho’

I’m ‘get out of my fucking space or die’.

Time pulsates at 100 BPM

into the small hours of REM

and the contracted pupils of the chemical class

need to download for the last dance.

OPEN SESAME

Part IV. The Sweet Shop

Open secret. Most of this loo queue have succumbed

to downing uppers, down-in-ones,

don’t-look-in-the-mirrors and don’t-stop-

till-you-get-enoughs. Welcome t...

Table of contents

• Transformatrix
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• PROLOGUE
• HIGH-FLYING FEMMES
• UFO WOMAN (PRONOUNCED OOFOE)
• THE JOYRIDER
• THAT FOUR FOUR TRIP
• BUFFALOS AND SILVER STILETTOS
• DEVILS IN RED DRESSES
• THE EXCORIATION
• THE WIFE OF BAFA
• THE HEADDRESS
• BITCH
• R & B
• OPPIES AND FRESH RED RIBBONS
• SEVEN SISTERS
• MARTINA
• THE TIME TRAVELLER
• THE EARTH MOTHER
• MS DE MEANOUR
• THE TIGER
• SAMANTHA
• LEILA
• LABOURERS OF LOVE
• THE ART OF CREATION
• WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND FINDING A RHYME FOR ORANGE
• IF
• MENAGE A TROIS
• BPM
• COUNTDOWN TO ZERO
• WHO'S WHO?
• MOTHERS OF INVERSION
• THE CHANGE
• AJAX
• DOUBLE ENTENDRE
• CLAWS
• THE STING
• THE SHIFT
• TRANSFORMATRIX
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright