A long-time #disability activist and member of Disabled People Against Cuts (#DPAC). She has always written poetry and recently had her first one published in Corona Verses: Poems from the Pandemic.
15th April 2020
Protect yourself and others
Protect yourself and others.
It’s simple.
Wear gloves and a mask and wash your hands when you get home.
Protect yourself and others.
It’s simple.
Except when masks and gloves
Are rare as hens’ teeth to buy online or anywhere.
Protect yourself and others.
It’s simple.
Unless you are disabled
And depend on carers for whom
masks and gloves are rare as hens’ teeth to buy online or anywhere.
Protect yourself and others.
It’s simple.
Unless you are disabled
And depend on carers for whom
masks and gloves are rare as hens’ teeth to buy online or anywhere.
But even should they find it your carers can’t afford to pay for PPE
And nor can you, on your meagre benefits.
So your choice is simple too; risk it or starve. Risk it or get really dirty.
Johnson said we are leading the world in our fight with Covid-19.
It’s true. Leading the world to hell
Unless you are well
And very, very rich.
1st May
We should have seen it coming.
Our governments have always been war-mongers
Happy to kill Others
So we should have seen it coming
The day this bloodlust would turn inwards
Turn to killing our own
Turn to contempt for us,
Its citizens and those who care for us.
Our governments have always pretended we
Were better than Others
So we should have seen it coming,
The day they’d be pretending to protect us
From the Covid killer
Despite the warnings loud and clear
By Other experts, round the globe
And on this day, when lives of doctors
Nurses, carers, seem to count for nothing
We should have seen it coming
That we disabled folk would fade from view
As councils drop us like hot coals
From Care Act duties
With Government permission.
So they’ve announced the
We Don’t Care Act 2020; for disabled folk
No help with food, nor benefits raise;
No ventilator treatment despite need
No decency, just DNRs we’re made to sign.
We should have seen it coming. Maybe we did, maybe we did, I think WE did.
12th May
LOOK TO THE LOWLY
My friends are poor;
Asylum seekers get so little.
But when a charity gave them chicken last week
They passed it to their neighbour
Who had only sandwiches to eat……….
Look to the lowly
For inspiration,
Not those who’ve never had to fight.
Look to the lonely
For education
Not those whose social life is bright.
Look to the lost
For orientation
Not those who’ve always had their place.
Look to the weak
For cooperation
Not those whose strength lacks any grace.
Be smarter now there’s lockdown
Drop your gaze from those on high
For love and life and learning
Sit down here, not in the sky.
9th June 2020
I am the mother of black twins. It was the morning after the first riots in America, following the murder of George Floyd. One of the twins came downstairs looking truly miserable, so I asked "Is it about what is happening in America?" It prompted an angry, but also tearful outburst about the fact that police #racism and violence is bad here too. 'Don't you know' they (preferred pronoun) asked, 'that deaths of black people in custody here, per capita, are worse than in the U.S?' And I didn't.
I did know that they had once been on the receiving end of police violence during a perfectly peaceful demonstration, but not the full extent of it. I knew they had been dragged by their hair. I didn't know that they had then been pushed to the floor and the policeman had pinned them there with his knee in their back. Are they tall and scary? No they are a tiny 4'11"
What I also knew, because the police had taken them to court and I was there, was that they had been described as 5'6" with spiky hair. Utter nonsense. But it was a perfect example of the police having soaked up the Angry Black Woman trope. The case came to nothing.
Again, I knew about our slave trade; I knew that there were black men and women who were hugely influential in ending the slave trade here, but who are never mentioned (I learnt this from a David Olusoga programme) not just William Wilberforce ; I knew that Bristol had a massive role in the slave trade. I did not know that there had been numerous requests, petitions and campaigns to have the statue of Colston removed and all had been ignored. So when I found out and saw it pulled down and rolled into the very harbour where his ships full of slaves had docked, I cried at the poetic justice.
Until we come out of our collective denial and acknowledge the racism that is sewn into the fabric of our justice, housing, education and health systems, something we white folk have to do; until we respond to democratic and respectful requests to alter our racist ways, we will have to expect more demonstrations and violence.
As a 70 year old who is self isolating whilst waiting for an operation, I was terrified by the thousands of people marching together, so many without even masks, but I was - and remain - sad, not angry, at least not with them.
17th June 2020
Comfort Your Hearts
Comfort your hearts, dear friends,
In these troubled times.
Revel in your memories of love,
of beauty, friendship and wonder.
I recall with greatest joy
My tumbling twins as little ones;
Climbing anything that challenged them,
Creators of endless smiles.
I recall with greatest joy
The sight and scent of frangipani;
Huge but perfect white and yellow blossoms
Fragrancing Mombasa’s air.
I recall with greatest joy
Eager, upturned faces of children I taught;
Their cheek and laughter overlying
Truly kind and helpful hearts.
And I recall with greatest joy,
this song from Greenham Common days.
‘You can forbid nearly everything
But you can’t forbid me to think.
You can’t forbid my tears to flow
and you can’t stop my voice when I sing.
Comfort your hearts, dear friends,
In these troubled times.
19th June 2020
TEST AND TRACK
We’ll test and track
Do slap our backs
Cos ours will be the best.
We’ll track and trace
Yet face disgrace
For …it will fail the test (and track)
We’ll spend, spend, spend
Till the bitter end
On greedy private scams.
We’ll thank our staff
Just for a laugh
Then…send them on their way (peanuts pay).