Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 2h

I haven't seen any solicitors clamouring at your thighs. Seems like Chris is trying to corner that market, though.

1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 2h

🎶"I've got a golden link to it, I've got a golden rodent on my thigh"🎶

1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 2h

This is pretty much the ONLY unsolicited dick pick the Internet wants to see.

1 1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 2h

Haven't posted any current work for a while, here's a fragment from something I'm working on for @thebrokenspine.co.uk's #WednesdayWIPs.

This is part of a larger poem that will definitely change both form and face. This is just the getting stuff down sort of stage, with some segmenting happening.

Fragment from something which will become a larger, less coherent, more meaningful poem.

So you can see me shine reflected in the light of the halo I spiked to your head
Stolen from some long forgotten saint
Whose chapel adorned with frescoes becomes the skin of my left thigh
And high arched windows reach up my spine to mark my vertebrae with quatrefoil and gleaming stone
Somehow you are building me in intricate connecting vaults using stone blocks quarried from the small soft pebbles I've been placing in your hands
As I rise from my face down ass up grave and pull the most recent stone from between my teeth
To trade with the you I created in me for the me we've created in one another
And if we run out of resurrections or wet erections
At least I will be beautiful in ruins

Reposted by Dorian David Leigh

Rami Ismail (رامي) @ramiismail.com · 12h

Hey look, Israel broke the cease-fire, twice, in two different ways, within 24 hours - again.

Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · 17h

NEW: Israel informed the UN it will permit only 300 aid trucks into Gaza daily, not the 600 mandated by the ceasefire it just signed.

50 2.7K 5.9K

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 13h

About time to repost this, I think. #NZpol #NZpoetry #haka

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · Jun 5

Have anger, will poem.
#NZpol #NZpoetry #poetry

How Not to be Intimidated by a Haka
by Dorian David Leigh

don’t be so
chicken
shit.

i could stop there
but i'll explain it for you
so you’ve got no excuse

a haka is an affirmation
of identity
history
solidarity
a bursting forth of wairua

it’s a challenge to rise up
to gather your mana and
meet head on
let it wash over you like
the cold sea
testing your balance with
salty relentless waves
(is that why you want to
mine the oceans?)

let your tīpuna wrap
their fingers around your spine
let their strength
bear
you
up

(continued next image)

if you find the haka so
intimidating that your
stomach falls in the split
second between the widening
of the eyes and the
explosion of proud reo

you’ve bought into that
dismissive coloniser
war
dance
bullshit

if you cannot stand strong
in the face of that challenge
if your legs shake and
your heart shrivels
before you piss yourself
have a think:

where is your mana?
what did you do to make
your ancestors so ashamed
that they refuse to
hold
you
up,

e hua.

3

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 14h

Really hoping I can make this one, I was out of town when the last one happened and I'm sorry I missed it.

1 1 1

Reposted by Dorian David Leigh

Karen Pierce Gonzalez @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social · 15h

LOOK at who our #NotJustPretty features will be! It'll be another (online) full house! #OpenMic priority: women who haven't yet read in this @thebrokenspine.co.uk series. All welcome to listen. Details: bit.ly/499kkJk #WomenSupportWomen #WomenSpeakUp #WomenSpeakOut #CanYouHearUs

1 3 6

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 14h

...Yep. That is exactly what it is like. You will never escape the genius/stupidity cycle, but the good new is that it's a sign you're doing it right.

1 1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

If I ever do online dating (which I probably won't), I'm going to lead with: "can change the clock on the stove, fold a fitted sheet, and put a duvet cover on a duvet".

2

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

This is literally the sort of thing I am good for. I can sort out a duvet (any size, don't need help, will get lost in it for a bit but it'll be fine in the end), and I panic about overstaying my welcome so I don't linger and chat. Also high likelihood I arrive with baked goods.

1 2

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

I made a face that can only be described as, "MNGGGERRRR!!!!"

1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

@harecomedy.bsky.social This seems like the sort of thing you ought to be tagged in?

2 1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Oh, the temptation to travel to Te Wai Pounamu, visit the penguin nesting grounds, and do this for real.

(I will accept sponsors, I am poor and will curse a penguin in your name if you pay for my travel and accommodation.)

1 3

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

@larsum.com I knew this would be right up your street. Even though it's actually up Albert St in Hokowhitu, which is nowhere near where you live in any way at all.

1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

If the target is that high, would people even consider contributing?

If you could change someone else's life for a fraction of the cost it would take to change mine, would you even consider helping me?

I don't know if I deserve it, there are other people who need it more.

But also... I matter.

1 1 1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Just want to ask a question.

The thing that I: a queer, disabled, unable to work person genuinely needs - costs a six figure sum.

Not available in my country. No way of earning that kind of cash. I'd need to both travel and pay for private healthcare.

1 1 1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Well, I saw this.

A really boring, and I cannot emphasise enough just how boring, greywacke rock (smooth, grey, exactly what you'd picture if you imagined an unexciting large smooth grey stone). Only this one has googly eyes stuck to it, and suddenly it has personality! Admittedly that personality is, "shit, I've got a personality, what the fuck do I do now?!" To be fair, that's probably better than being a shit bit of rock.

1 1 4

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Everyone seems to be doing this thing. I don't know if I should be doing this thing.

I am neurodivergent, queer, and often brutally honest.

If you ask me things you might regret it, but at least it will be anonymous.

Anonymous messages!

ngl.link

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Maybe? Have you been staring at the skies looking for omens?

I was sceptical, but I've found that it is genuinely helpful while also being gentle for when you just can't. (You get rewarded for reflecting on why you need to postpone or skip goals.)

If you want the referral reward thing, just ask.

2

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Currently writing a thing that has a trans woman in it, and she is literally the only stable person in the entire what-will-be novel. Also, she is not white and she does not pander to anyone. She is a bossy bitch to a bunch of people who need a bossy bitch to manage their lives, and I love her.

alyson “october” greaves @badambulist.bsky.social · 4d

put trans women in your fiction. don’t be a fucking coward.

3

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

As someone with ADHD (and autism, and a bunch of other shit) I highly recommend the Finch app. Cute birb? Tick. To do list you'll actually check and do things from? Tick. Halloween special event? Tick motherfucking tick!

Everyone is different so may not work for you, but always worth a try.

1 3

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Pre-ADHD diagnosis, I discovered that the optimum ratio was 250mL energy drink (in my case V black) to three shots of espresso. It made me move superhumanly quickly and my mind focus on stuff and pay attention to it while absorbing it like a sponge being given water during a drought.

1

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Currently having a minor existential crisis which will prevent me from submitting to this, or cause me to over-submit to this.

I know I'm not the only one, I have a fair idea of who follows me and I know you're all strange and doomed and at least partway insane.

At least get a poem out of it?

The Broken Spine @thebrokenspine.co.uk · 4d

Something Gothic this way comes… Submissions are OPEN for The Havisham Steps: Modern Gothic Poetry. We want poems of neon dread, fractured love, haunted minds.

Closing date: October 31st

#PoetrySubmissions #SubmissionWindow #TheHavishamSteps #ModernGothicPoetry

Something Gothic This Way Comes: Submit to The Havisham Steps: Modern Gothic Poetry - The Broken Spine

Submissions Open Throughout October 2025 | Publication in 2026

thebrokenspine.co.uk

2

Dorian David Leigh @notdoriangray.bsky.social · 3d

Sexy titles are overrated. I've attended multiple online talks where Sam has shared various bits and pieces of what's in this book, and they know what they're talking about and are talking about it in an incredibly interesting and accessible way.

Your academic discourse doesn't need tits and ass.

Dr Sam Hirst @romgothsam.bsky.social · 4d

I feel like the title of my book - Theology in the Early British and Irish Gothic - isn't very sexy or puts people off thinking 'well, I'm not interested in theology so... meh'.

But my books offers well researched challenges on key Gothic issues 1/

1 2