When I was a homeless girl

I had yellow teeth with holes,

Big enough to fall through.

Twenty six years of antibiotics

written on my enamel. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2008 The Aspinauts and I were gathered in a living room improvising with me doing beat poetry as the guys jammed on guitars, drums, keyboards.  It became an anti war protest song, Ladies and Gentlemen.  Luckily, someone hit the record button so when Paul joined us as drummer in 2009 we began to rehearse the song.  It became a powerful, almost Floydian stand out piece of sound art and made it onto the debut album, Broken Biscuit in 2010.

Here’s the video clip made by Oz Thomas, a colorful human and a wonderful poet in his own right.

THE DANCE

Grizzle, grizzle, grizzle grump.
Sore throat you woke me like a broken record.
“But you sounded so good…”.
And I remember myself like a poster glossy and shiny
shredded overnight in my interrupted dreams.

We’ll fingers crossed, hey?
We’ll hope like hell.
‘Cause Jesus ain’t waiting in the sunlight with fairy dust.
and positive thinking won’t buy me a Mercedes
(or an immune system).

Click your heels Dorothy.
Hope ’til your nipples fall off. Read the rest of this entry »

Three years ago I began an interactive poetry challenge on my blog.   It involved the public sending me 1-2 word titles and I had to send back a poem to each title within 48 hours.

Ranging from surreal, to grungy, from romantic, to funny, from political to symbolic and everywhere in between, the poems were as diverse as the titles sent in.   I gathered them into a collection called Weirdos Like Me.  It’s a collection of poetry, art and surrealism.  Amidst the poetry are also song lyrics to songs by Donna And The Aspinauts with whom I am the lead singer and main singer-songwriter. Read the rest of this entry »

He came at me from nowhere, rushing toward me.  By instinct, I had grabbed my corn chips, Hole-Sum Originals, no less. No added anything.  Then, twack, I’d landed my first blow. Still he flailed, manicly.  Inside of me, my conscience screamed, “stop it, you murderer”.  But my bag of corn chips struck another heavy blow.  His legs detached and my guilt was merciless.  He’s broken now, you bitch, how could you, finish him off.  So I did, with full consciousness, trying to justify how this one inch creature had so threatened all five foot three of me.

I apologised to God, just in case there was one (I’m a spiritual Atheist) and cursed my arachnophobic instincts.  I’m sorry I murdered you in my kitchen, Mr Spider. I swear, in my warped instantaneous reality, I murdered you in self defence. Read the rest of this entry »

Some people can voluntarily open the Eustachian tubes in their ears.  This causes a clicking or popping sound.   Those who can’t do this suffer from ear pressure on aeroplanes but those who can do it may suffer from something else, especially if they also have OCD and perhaps even more so if they suffered from chronic ear infections throughout childhood.  Why?  Read the rest of this entry »

When my mother was pregnant she was reading the Spanish dictionary.  She was a ‘boy mother’, that kind that gets along with boys, can relate to them.  If I was a boy, I understand I’d have been named Stewart , meaning ‘steward’, someone who is the caretaker.  But I was a girl Read the rest of this entry »

In childhood I was called Dolly Burger by my mother’s side, Miss Polly by my father.  I’d rather have been Miss Polly even if I was sick, sick, sick too often than be anyone’s doll.  I didn’t like doll’s, those staring, plastic almost demonic representations of a one-size-fits all normality or perfection.  I never identified with being Doll-y or anyone’s doll.  When my mother told me I was hers, her doll, I felt the foundations of my feminist rejection of conformist expectations of ‘what a girl should be’.  I liked the ballet dress with its fluttering leafy skirt, its sheeny pink sating and mother of pearl beading catching rainbows in the lights.  But the doll thing… Read the rest of this entry »

The rock musical, Footsteps of a Nobody, next goes to Doncaster Playhouse in Doncaster on Saturday 20th Jan.  We’re also planning on a show in April to support international Autism Month.  For information about the show visit www.aspinauts.com .

Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

It’s amazing how humble you get after 6 antibiotics have failed you and you’ve almost drowned in your own lung muck, had your infected throat too painful to swallow, lost all your energy so you’re walking like a 95 year old (and are only 46) and feel your biggest exercise of the day was breathing as the weight falls off what’s left of your skinny self.  I remember the shrink who would always say, ‘one day you’ll look back and laugh’.   And I feel so happy to be off Bactrim, yet I can’t help but be grateful to that demon drug.  Read the rest of this entry »