We are living in dark times
but know this,
half the nation is by your side.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
We are living in dark times
but know this,
half the nation is by your side.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
“Humbug!”
he blusters
at those grieving,
speaking of murder;
the killing of Jo Cox
and every death threat after
by those using his words to gag;
to silence women who oppose him;
to make them fear for their own lives;
voices of extremism
made Johnson their mascot,
they clone expressions
he gives them still
to inflame,
he speaks
humbug.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
On this, I’m 100% with Jess Phillips, Paula Sheffield & the MPs from every political party who are speaking up against the inflammatory language our Prime Minister uses, particularly in regards to fears by female MPs over death threats after the murder of their colleague Jo Cox. This goes beyond political divides and to the core of how the PM and some of his closest advisors operate. His strategy of whipping up hate is not OK; his words are being quoted in threats to life and safety of MPs who democratically oppose him.
Priti Patel tells a nearly all-white, mostly male reactionary elite what she has been taught to say and think in order to be accepted. They look at her, confused, blank round faces staring back at this Asian woman reaffirming all their cherished prejudices. She speaks of ending the free movement of people once and […]
Dumbfounded, I watch this presidential meltdown – hardly the first – the Finnish president looks on as Trump, at his worst, alleges treason against his person; this ‘stable genius’ who coerced the leader of a besieged nation; withholding aid to trade with dirt on an opponent and his son; all this to pervert the next […]
Yellow Hammer document:
What we’ve always known,
Trucks stopped at the borders;
Absent medicine;
People losing lives or jobs
Who would be fine
With the right prescription drugs,
Yellow Hammer document;
What we’ve always known,
Soaring food prices –
Only so much can be grown
In time to feed us,
Who will face starvation;
When they can’t afford
To feed their children?
Yellow Hammer document;
What we’ve always known;
How many closed businesses;
How many lost homes
In broken communities
Full of lost hope?
Yellow Hammer document;
What we’ve always known;
The Leave Campaign lied to us;
No Deal leads to destruction;
Brexit was and is a farce,
We need a coded constitution
And to stop laying blame
On those who can’t be voters
Simply because they came
From other places to us,
They don’t deserve the shame
Of the Brexit circus,
Yellow Hammer document;
What we’ve always known
All those who felt voicelessness
Will feel more of the same,
Isolation, alienation
Injustice, people struggling
All the more common
When mass poverty is doubling
Amid deregulation –
Which leads only to troubling
Food contamination
And protections crumbling
For workers; for women;
For climate; for rights;
For trade; education –
All our past fights
In prorogation –
As if the picket lines
Never happened,
Yellow Hammer document;
What we’ve always known,
They’re going for it anyway –
The government alone,
Absent of morality;
Deceiving the throne
Breaking laws;
They, the institution
The hammer; the jaws
They say they save us from.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson
Would like us to believe
That he is a man of the people fighting
For our democracy –
Piffle Pfeffel!
His arguments brittle,
Hatred inciting, racism igniting,
Self-promotion his skill,
The man plotting to shut down our Parliament –
Tyrannical clown king
Piffle Pfeffel,
Pfeffel sounds so like
Piffle: nonsense; rubbish; gibberish; drivel;
Twaddle; claptrap; noise; tripe;
Baloney; Bunkum; Bunk; Balderdash; Babble;
And other words for lies,
Piffle Pfeffel,
Idiocy worn as the ultimate mask,
Behind Johnson’s hokum
The sly autocrat who utilises farce,
He’s the institution
He in vainest glory feigns to take to task –
Piffle Pfeffel,
School boy of Eton
Then Balliol, Oxford to read the classics
In which the elite learn
Too often customs of ‘soft supremist’
Via Caucasian curriculums
History thinned into white-centralist
Ideas and idioms,
He’ll style himself a modern Odysseus
Battling with Trojans,
That old Butcher Boris,
Our blood on his hands as he serves us the meat –
Our future the carcass,
Must each eat our bones at his merry conceit?
Yet, his role in office
Thus far historic in its early defeats –
Piffle Pfeffel,
Though he has a Queen’s ear and directs her pen,
The UK constitution
Must be codified to prevent such events;
Proroguing parliament,
In other words silencing all debate or dissent
To force, without consent,
Unthinkable ruin, such entitlement
Has scarred a continent,
A globe, a Northern Ireland Peace Agreement,
The UK itself rent;
Torn as he and his chase preferment,
His fibs don’t relent,
Piffle Pfeffel,
Alexander the Un-great, realm divider
Entitled Trump-like twin,
Dividing neighbours, dismantling traders,
Behold the sole sovereign
Who would silence discussion in both chambers
‘Til he, Count Despot wins,
No matter the costs, the losses, the dangers
As whiles wear paper thin,
Piffle Pfeffel,
That is what I call him,
The worst PM we’ve seen.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
They say it’s all for sovereignty;
For parliament’s authority,
But look how fast they turn the key
To shut up the democracy
They say it’s all for, so
Pardon our deep distrust,
Regardless of past votes
We see their power lust,
They say it’s all
For us; these fibs,
Fakes, phoneys, frauds
With voices glib,
They say
They disagree
With laws passed by MPs,
They say it’s all for sovereignty?
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
I’m called ‘citizen of nowhere’
by Theresa May, who asserts
this as the British Prime Minister,
though this is the land of my birth,
I’m called ‘citizen Jew’;
the day after that vote
each racist chorus grew;
belonging then remote,
I’m called, city
answers for me
in a beat, see –
it knows my feet,
I’m called
‘not from round here’
as if I’ve walked through walls,
I’m called ‘citizen of nowhere’.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
N.B: This poem refers to the intensely alienating comments Theresa May made in a post Brexit 2016 speech. I also connect to other experiences, especially since Brexit that have made me feel unwelcome and unwanted in the country of my birth. Partly because of my surname and some of my mixed family heritage I have been viewed as ‘other’ by many since childhood. If I had my other parent’s surname, I would have been treated…
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They call this the greatest mandate ever; even though the results split the UK in half, more than one union near severed - they call this the greatest mandate ever when half the voters go unheard – inferred consent through barefaced lies, flagrantly they call this the greatest mandate ever even though the results split the UK they call this the great mandate. “How?” I ask, when it was founded on fears and deceits, raising profiles of hate, giving them masks; they call this the great mandate. How, I ask, do they ignore the UK’s biggest march by citing only half a crooked plebiscite* - they call this the great mandate; “how”, I ask, when this was founded on fears and deceits. Antonia Sara Zenkevitch *plebiscite = a synonym for 'referendum'
(Alternative text for photo below, a large wooden mallet used to smash a boiled egg)
Photo by Pixabay on
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“The will of the people”, she says,
Though the UK is divided
As Brexit drills on, come what May,
Accords wrecked where lies decided
The will of the people;
But they do not serve us,
Pretending it feeble
As millions amass;
The will of the
Once Great Britain’s
Identity
March, London,
The will
Written in grey
Was never this oil spill,
“The will of the people,” she says.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Petition to Revoke Article 50 (reached over 5.5 million, so far)
(Alternative Text: Countless people waving EU flags and anti-Brexit banners as they march in London)
Madeline Collin, a 24-year-old activist with Gaucher disease, worries that patients like her will suffer deeply if Britain leaves the European Union (EU), as scheduled, at the end of this month. Collin is an expert on the subject. For her University of Bathdissertation, she analyzed Brexit’s long-term impact on the 3.5 million people in England,…
via Brexit Could Have Real Effects for UK Rare Disease Patients, Experts Warn — Ehlers-Danlos News
Of course, now, justice for Bloody Sunday,
(or something near justice) for the grieved;
for civilians gunned down, killed in Derry.
Of course, now justice for Bloody Sunday
is recognised as a priority –
yet the timing questions the incentive,
of course. Now justice for Bloody Sunday
(or something near justice) for the grieved,
for there’s contested deals to be agreed
thus, I will not trust the current motives,
though for survivors and communities
of course, now. Justice for Bloody Sunday
sought since 1972, delays
and whitewashes have often been the creed,
so, I will not trust the current motives:
veiling tears in the vital peace treaty
that saw terrible troubles abated,
of course! Now justice for Bloody Sunday
must answer for the murders of that day
and to survivors who died in the wait,
but I will not trust the current motives
with threats of direct rule being replayed,
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the peace agreement,
like two flags and people’s lives
flapping in the wind
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Below is an account of my engagement, as a witness, in a ‘From the Rockface’ discussion in Northern Ireland. What I saw and heard makes it clear to me the very real threat Brexit poses to peace and security for people living across the Island of Ireland and all parts of the United Kingdom. This would especially be the case in a No Deal scenario.
This talk mainly included loyalists stories and so provides only partial context …
It has never felt more inappropriate to stand and walk from a room. A silence was being fractured and the question was being asked, again and again, “Who would want to hear us?” “Who would want to listen?” Do our voices count in the eyes of the world?” These questions are interspersed with my phone delivering other silent, urgent messages. The texts from a friend asking if I am ready to leave. I am going to miss my plane. I am in a room full of hope and anger, Loyalists trying to discover how to rekindle loyalty with each other, sitting two seats from the main speaker and a room away from the door. When, in this brave and open exchange acknowledging, amongst other things, a feeling of betrayal by mainland Britain, will the only English woman at the table, stand up and head for the door?
Words are overflowing, time over-running, after decades of communities ruled by a culture of silence; ruled by fear and the sense of betrayal.
These men, whose skin is painted deep with their identity; an inky testament to the stories etched upon them that words could not speak but only bodily destruction could erase.
“We have hurt each other,” they say, honesty ricocheting around the room to meet open, determined faces; paramilitary, prisoners, peace-builders, political leaders interspersed with lawyers, academics alert and armed with pens and inquisition. The untold stories unravel before me. The fierce organisation of the Nationalists and the Loyalist trust, initially, in the UK government and military to protect them. The growing confusion and betrayal, the disillusionment that they were protected, the disorganization birthing community to community violence, the killing of all budding leaders who could unify the Loyalists or speak of peaceful ways forward. The silencing. The reprisals and counter-reprisals and fears of reprisal. The loss. The help that was not helpful. The impossibility of decommissioning weapons in 60 days given the fact they were not united, that trans-community conflict meant communications took time and distrust of political will to protect their communities in any other way. The sense that for some politicians the Northern Ireland peace process was being used as a platform for career furtherment over and above the will to end the conflict. The politicians who would call for paramilitary disbandment but come to them for their services. The sense of being in shock, the fear of being perceived as an underclass, even of becoming one.
The vocal ex-prisoner and combatant that now virtually lived in the Transitional Justice Institute with the same fighting determination, arms heavy with tattoo and muscle, eyes seeking something more. The sense of needing now to speak; to tell the stories untold, first to the world and, ultimately to one another. One woman’s voice discussing gender issues in the conflict. Many ears. I begin to make eyes wildly at the Chairman. Eventually, when the other voices in the room slow to draw breath in slightly bewildered air, the Chair states that as we are going far beyond time, anyone who needs to leave can. Only I stand, the English woman leaving. The main speaker apologizes for talking too long and I stop, ignoring the panicked text of the friend who will give me a lift to the airport and the determinedly ticking clock. I say something I repeat now in writing. I say thank-you for his words, I say to them all, thank-you for what they have said. I tell them I want to hear. I tell them sorry… and then I tell them I have to catch a plane.
those who want no deal
pushing us to leap the ledge,
lemmings on a cliff.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
I have written a number of poems about Theresa May and her policies over the years. This included when I was a women’s worker heavily involved in grassroots and party politics myself and she was Home Secretary. I have grappled with myself many times over my feelings towards her. I analyze and judge myself because she is a visible representation of women in power, still such a rarity in the UK. Two British Prime Ministers have been assigned the same sex at birth as I have, and I’ve not been a fan of either. But, do I, as a longterm equalist and feminist pull her down? My answer, as someone who has been involved in politics and been a women’s worker, is complex.
I have done and will criticize her policies and question her moral compass, often passionately. I have queried her actions and even at times her basic ethics. I get angry when her womanhood is attacked but I wonder if I do it too. I’ve been involved in helping make harassment of women recognized as a hate crime in my county but I wonder where the line is when criticizing someone whose ethos as well as their actions often seem abhorrent to me. Is it different because I am a woman and a feminist? Is it unbiased because my poems question the acts, ethics, and judgments of other politicians across genders, including the leader of the opposition? Or, does the volume and nature of my criticism veil a different or concurrent story? In all the poems I have written there is one controversial line from 2014 I still now wrestle with, but I will come to that.
Poems like Shoes? and The Poisoned Cup and A gender very clearly and firmly explore my anger at criticisms of her as a woman rather than a politician, whilst still raging against her policies and political acts. Too many talk about female politicians’ appearance, which is irrelevant to their politics. This is a kind of bating and belittling no heterosexual man in politics has to contend with. It morphs into analogies of sticking high heels in and other suggestions that certain behaviour is ‘unwomanly’, whatever that is, or because we have no children, or because we do. I’ve lived this toxic bias myself. Told as the only woman on a panel that I was talking too much, asked if I have children or what my husband thinks. Told I should not be standing because I have a man in my life. I was stalked and verbally abused. All this rubbish no politician from any party should have to contend with but they do, and they have to deal with far worse too. A diabetic heavily pregnant woman having to postpone a cesarian to vote in one of the most important parliament ballots in a century. Another pregnant woman receiving death threats for being Jewish. A serving MP stabbed to death. Straight white abled males that make up most of our parliament don’t experience this type of abuse.
I left my own political party citing discrimination, having been involved to some extent at local, regional and national level voluntarily in the years I was a member. No, I didn’t receive death threats or anything so horrific, but I left shaken, unwell and soul-weary, treated as a pariah despite having got some of the party’s best results in the 2015 elections. I was not alone in leaving. The party concerned is not remotely unique in this, but I had ploughed in everything I had and expected fairness for myself and others. All parties have discrimination in their ranks, politics and human society generally is full of it, but it’s what they do about it that counts. I’m not convinced either of the main political parties or many if not all of the smaller ones have yet developed enough self-awareness to tackle the different forms of racism, ableism and, for the main part gender bias within their membership and leaders. Do I have the self-awareness to recognize bias in myself? Perhaps. Hopefully.
I have written a lot of poems about Theresa May; more than any other single politician except perhaps Tony Blair many years ago. I’ve asked myself why and I do sense a bias in me; I think I expect higher morals from her because we have so few visible female leaders and those who would chain us in homogenous misogyny blame her womanhood and so in a way all women for her failures. In this, I have internalized the sexism and must be careful of that. Will it stop me being angry and speaking out against burning injustices. No. Very, very no.
Dear Ministers, Lies in Old Westminster, What the Dickens? and The Big Riot (a political satire) are all pretty scathing about a number of politicians from across the house. There are many others. Yet I am often provoked by my emotions to writing about Theresa May. A large part of this is because she is Prime Minister during a time of steeply rising inequity, homelessness, hunger, and insecurity where acts of terror and racist policies hold hands. She is the Brexit PM and I have strong feelings about Brexit and the lies that warped the referendum and what came after. In The Poisoned Cup I talk about her inheriting an unanswerable problem, but I think she helped create that problem too, long before the rise of calls for Brexit.
I’ve become aware that for me it is personal. When I was an interfaith women’s worker active in politics in squeezed spare time, I saw for myself some of the affects of her Home Office policies. Just one example of this was a wonderful Malawian nurse who had been in this country and active in her community for 14 years snatched off the streets and taken to Yarlswood, where all the guards are white and all those detained are black or minority ethnicity. It was an oppressive place to even visit and they took visitors fingerprints. She was not given vital medicine and was in hospital when we finally managed to get her out. Getting her legal help – even getting clean underwear to her, felt like a battle. This is one of many stories I know, including of a woman, who when 14, having lived in this country since infancy, had to fight to stay. I was and am angry at this.
I feel this, together with David Cameron’s capitulation to other pressures, put in place the foundations for many present ills. The farcical process of Brexit spurred on by, amongst other things, spreading lies about immigration as a smokescreen for the real reasons too many are struggling. The racist policy of exiling citizens of the Windrush generations. The attacks on the wellbeing and security of those whose ill health or disability prevents them from being able to work. The undermining of women’s rights through the disproportionate effects of austerity. The failure to act as pledged in their 2017 election manifesto to handle the burning injustices of our time, including those linked to seriously tackling domestic violence and the exploitation of tenants and workers.
My experiences as a witness in 2014 of Theresa May as Home Secretary has placed her as one of the main authors of our current climate of insecurity. Furthermore, watching her undemocratically limiting parliamentary debating the shape of Brexit for nearly three years while the flames of burning injustices rise across the nation has not gentled my ire. Brexit, to my mind, was always going to be a vicious beast, but her actions are among those that have potentially sharpened its teeth – if it happens. May’s bad deal, created after years of negotiations with the EU but near none with Westminster until the eleventh hour, has put us at greater risk of a disastrous no deal Brexit.
My thoughts on her approach to governance can be found in poems such as Democracy, Goatskin, Alternative Arrangements, Contempt and in the 2014-2015 poems Dear Theresa and Securing A Bitter Future. Of all of them, it is only the last and Madame Dictator in which I question whether I have projected internalized misogynistic undertones. In my heart of hearts, I am ultimately unhappy with only one line in which I suggest she should be hushed up. It is in the context of her pushing a piece of legislation in 2014 that effectively hushed up everyone who had widely different opinions to her own. Legislation that potentially left millions voiceless, including myself and the women in the organizations I was working with. The idea of hushing an outspoken woman up is deeply problematic. Mary Beard, in ‘Women and Power’ draws our attention to the fact that silencing of women in public life has been normalized in art and politics from the times the Classics were written. In this, I am a bad feminist.
Yet, where does my moral compass point when I am talking about someone who was with the non-violent extremism act hushing up others? It is a difficult one. Writing it I was thinking only of her as a politician not as a woman. Yet we live in a gendered society where that will be misused and / or misinterpreted by others. In that particular phrase and that particular poem I used gender-neutral phrasing to help distant it from gender rhetoric but I’m not sure, when the person is such a prominent figure, that this unpicks millennia of ‘hush hate’.
Never-the-less, I counter myself in this internal debate, the mirrored context of the others she was hushing up raged in my mind, with the knowledge I was not about to expect less from her as a politician or not say things, just because of her – and my assigned gender. I think it is telling that I would not choose to reuse the phrase, ever.
I feel Theresa May does actually believe she is doing the best for Britain. I feel more strongly than I have felt most things in my entire life that she is very dangerously wrong and misguided by prejudice, her own or other people’s . I do not believe this is because she was assigned female sex at birth, or because of her clothing choice as a woman. Most certainly May will have had a much tougher journey getting where she is now than her male colleagues and contemporaries. I do recognise that this places pressure on a person but it is no excuse for policies and processes that alienate, disenfranchise and impoverish millions while curbing parliamentary debate until there is no other option. I will not let any person or administration singe democracy for fear of being impartial but I must choose the words I use wisely. Perhaps at times, I think unfairly she should be more astute because so few women have gained her level of influence as well as because the stakes are so high in the present political, social and environmental climate.
My fear and experience of being arbitrarily judged as a woman against a person I feel little affinity with does tint my own assessment of their actions. One woman’s social crimes become, in the eyes of many, the crimes of all women, and so we are taught to judge fellow females more harshly than males. Yes, I’ve written critically about male MPs, No Discrimination, Making Progress? and Johnson & Drones being prime examples. However, I think I’ve ingested some of the shame poured on myself and others assigned the same sex at birth, regardless of how they identify. It is the mechanisms of misogyny, not Theresa May I should be furious at for that. Even when I take this into account, there is plenty to be angry at Theresa May about, but I should be equally angry at others. I am.
Now, to turn that anger into fuel for justice and the only way I can do that is to link it back to the love I have for those people, including myself, that I feel have been put at risk. I must choose my words with both care and fire.
“Get on with it!” say Brexiteers, That phrase, gravel in my ears, As one more factory shuts up shop A few more thousand lose their jobs Amid the lies that they would prosper If immigration disappears, The truth is there, but they don’t hear As we tie ourselves up in knots “Get on with it!” They say; our nation’s auctioneers, But the way ahead is not clear Except that we'll all be worse off And more of us won’t have enough; Revisiting depression years, Get on with it? “Get on with it!” the endless round, As government debates confound Both the best and the worst of us On every side of this circus, As leaders’ arrogance astounds, Our creaking democracy found Cold, abused, hungry, gagged and bound, The response offered by leavers: “Get on with it” The majority lost not found In archaic schemes, rules for clowns That sway countries and media, Though eyes are now on Westminster It’s corporations that are crowned Get on with it? “Get on with it!” say Brexiteers, But no workable deal appears, Meanwhile, vital services rot, People, made homeless, later robbed Of any chance of a future As we betray our teenagers Steal children’s potential careers And up the climate chaos odds. “Get on with it!” Say those scared, yet still unaware They’re selling our protections off, Imperfect though they were, to bluff Self-governance that never was, Nebulous words as deadlines near, “Get on with it!” “Get on with it”, get on with what? With the Brexit of the lynch mob Or the one that mimics Norway? The ‘hurry-up’ crowd never say Though they are so rarely quiet, There is no wand to whisk away The social ills of the U.K, Or falsely recalled yesterdays, Brexiteers scapegoated Europe, Get on with it? Get on with what? National decay? Alienating minorities? We've no constitution to cope With destitution beyond scope Of those four words of mockery: "Get on with it!" Not "How?" or, ever, "What comes after?" Nor "What is it?" "What's wrong with it?" Not, it seems, "What's wrong with us?" Never "What's stopping this?" No truth in Brexit For Brexiteers; No real plans At all; None. Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Should I be hopeful
with talk of a People’s Vote
now resurfacing,
up for discussion again
while lies are still circling?
hope, like early spring,
blooms and shivers, in each turn
clings between downpours.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
There’s no discrimination here,
they’re all on perfect behaviour,
equality sits at their core
as they block someone’s access door
leaving no space for their scooter,
There he is, playing our savior,
marking this moment to savor
as if accepting his reward,
there’s no discrimination,
At least he has stopped looking bored,
in fact, they all stand quite assured
captured by news photographers,
unnoticed by the broadcasters;
A human’s safety needs are ignored;
there is no discrimination.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
N.B if you haven’t read my other posts, I’m not a fan of our present government, or of Brexit. But I don’t trust Corbyn and the leadership of the opposition either. UK politics is a shambles. Beyond politics of left or right, leave or remain (I hope remain) there is the issue that no one should be blocking the essential access of a person with mobility needs by holding a rally outside their access door when a sign clearly requests this area be kept clear.
Madame Dictator, have you not heard
Your deal was voted down historically
And yet you resurrect the interred
Proposal repeatedly, delay after delay
Burning our security & democracy away,
Your office not conferred
By any political majority,
You do not listen to a word
From any, except, perhaps, the ERG
Who need an ECG
To find out if they have a heart
Because they seem intent
Only on ripping us apart,
But you, Madame Dictator,
Like a modern Bonaparte
Say you hear
But you do not!
Stirring up terror
By running down the clock,
Perhaps it’s said best by Andy Serkis;
Your attitude to this rambling failure
Akin to Gollum’s with his ‘precious’;
A gold that deserved the fires of Mordor
But instead you throw our futures in
To that furnace, knowing it will make this nation so much poorer
As the homeless line the streets and food bank ques get longer,
And the extremists get stronger
And injustices reign – those you said you’d bring to order
Yet you disengage to build walls of fire at our borders
And, as for climate change …
You focus only on Brexit
But do so without debate
Hushing up all the elected
Tying nation states up in red tape
More than
Two years!
Two years
And more!
In a cabal of your own
Prescribed parameters,
Your negotiations
In closed door deliberations
And perambulations
As you ignite more tensions
With another deadline gone,
I have literally lost count!
Every time you tell the Commons
There will be later debate
Then roll the calendar on;
The dates for meaningful votes
Eternally postponed,
Except that historic one
Where the deal was trodden on,
The same deal you resuscitate,
All the while that lie ‘secure and stable’
When there’s nothing on the table
And security service cutbacks
Coincide with terror attacks
And there is legislation against
Generations told to go back
To the commonwealth after decades of life and work in the UK,
So, just because they are black
You citizens to go away,
And now, will more Europeans face the same?
I visited Yalswood, while you were Home Secretary,
Children and women fearing their fate,
Caucasian guards, all black and ethnic minority
Detainees – I thought, mine is a racist state,
My friend was denied vital medicine
They took my prints before I could go in
The package of essentials I left
Was only passed on after five days,
She had to fight for legal representation,
Hers not an uncommon story,
I’ve known others, one girl just fourteen,
Britishness part of her identity –
Her humanity you refused to see,
How dare you, in self-righteous glory
Proclaim you understand democracy
If you can’t see their lives matter!
Now,
Your promises in tatters;
When you said you’d listen,
See how skilfully you didn’t,
Your cabinet found in contempt
Of our disjointed constitution,
This is wrong! The is so very wrong!
This is becoming authoritarian
And very, very, very dark!
You have polluted
“Safe and Secure”
“Meaningful”
“Democracy”
“Listening”
“Vote” –
All convoluted
By you
Until the words stick in my throat –
And you call this your mission;
To re- enforce your indecent proposition
After the worst historical democratic defeat in the entire history of any Westminster government!
All you are reinforcing are the fault lines of division,
And, for the record, I’m not impressed by Corbyn
So, please don’t read this as propaganda
For a weakly lead, anti-Semitic opposition,
Though I will state I’m firmly left of centre
This is less about sides and more concerned
With the slide towards totalitarianism,
Only idiots will say it is because you’re a woman,
Though they do, pouring on scorn
For all the agelessly wrong reasons,
As they try to make you dance,
Or comment on your complexion,
In this alone I come to your defence
Yet my complaints could fill a lexicon
From your term feeding hate in the Home Office
Displaying a personal distaste towards migration
To this cutting off of deliberation in Parliament,
It’s not gender defining each subverted action
So, I will not hold back because I’m a feminist;
I will call you Madame Dictator,
A title not up for discussion
Unless you decide to govern better
And return the dignities you’ve taken.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The fault lies in old Westminster;
more corroded cogs kaput
as tarnished chains sever
each link they constitute,
The fault, lies in
plain blinkered sight;
acrid smoke screens
our house alight,
The fault
a caldera;
lava churns our vaults;
The fault? Lies in old Westminster.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Brexit No deal risks medical supplies, a direct threat to millions whose lives, like mine, navigate chronic illnesses like asthma, heart-disease, diabetes … Is human well-being to be denied at the expense of our security and our health? How will families survive? At length, how can our economies thrive this hazard to our nations’ existence? Let’s dispense with political pretence; Brexit. No deal. Are we to be undone by misplaced pride? For such high costs there are no alibis. Crohns, fibromyalgia, anxiety, myalgic encephalomyelitis, depression amongst crises that arise. Brexit? No deal! From cancer to endometriosis dementia to ehlers-danlos syndromes, like so many, I battle some of these and all affect our whole society; United Kingdom needs her medicines. Brexit No deal threatens the core of civilization; our dignities, our life-expectancies, our capabilities. My conclusion; Brexit? No! Deal. Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Gone are the days of princesses
and nights in shining armor;
My love, this is England now
In the daze of fares selling fair ethics,
Where knights slaughter sacred cows
Amid rued lives, dignities and businesses
In rude awakenings, fresh grievances
And very little honour towards neighbours,
In a winter that does not seem to pause
A dog sleeping in a doorway chews his paws;
The mighty say we choose this,
A lax hypothesis for half choices based on lies,
Lack breeds homelessness in familiar lanes;
A city’s slow demise in the ice where lives have lain.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The first two lines of this poem were a prompt from poet Sonya Annita Song which in turn reminded me of the haunting Sinead O’Connor song ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’. The content is inspired by things I have recently seen.
In this post-factual democracy
we are seen collectively;
the world forgets
that, in 2016
48 % voted
‘Remain’,
But most of us don’t remember that,
For we are drip fed again and again, again
The idea that Britain is united behind Brexit,
The PM tells repeatedly how, in the general election
80 percent of us chose parties with a Brexit manifesto
But, there was little choice, in this undemocratic system
Seeking a divorce from its own scapegoat, our status quo is
Weighed irrefutably in favour of one of two parties ever getting in,
Citizens have a muted voice and restricted representation that does not go
With an idea that we agree, comply with or know. We’ve been told our decision.
To disagree, it seems, is to be undemocratic as we are taught to follow
A yellow brick road, but we can’t click our heels to return home
And it’s only the Brexiters who are shown on television,
European neighbours regard at us now with fury,
Confusion, frustration, ridicule, disdain, pity
“Only eating biscuits and drinking tea”
In Coordinator Verhofstadt’s eyes
The UK described as ‘disorderly’
‘Crashing’, feeble of mind
Into self-made injury
Upon which we
Cannot stand.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
In this post-factual democracy
we are seen collectively;
the world forgets
that, in 2016
48 % voted
‘Remain’,
But most of us don’t remember that,
For we are drip fed again and again, again
The idea that Britain is united behind Brexit,
The PM tells repeatedly how, in the last election
80 percent of us chose parties with a Brexit manifesto
But, there was little choice, in this undemocratic system
Seeking a divorce from its own scapegoat, our status quo is
Weighed irrefutably in favour of one of two parties ever getting in,
Citizens have a muted voice and restricted representation that does not go
With an idea that we agree, comply with or know. We’ve been told our decision.
To disagree, it seems, is to be undemocratic as we are taught to follow
A yellow brick road, but we can’t click our heels to return home
And it’s only the Brexiters who are shown on television,
European neighbours regard us now with fury,
Confusion, frustration, ridicule, distain, pity
“Only eating biscuits and drinking tea”
In Coordinator Verhofstadt’s eyes
The UK described as ‘disorderly’
‘Crashing’, feeble of mind
Into self-made injury
Upon which we
Cannot stand.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
“I’m making progress, Mr. Speaker,”
We hear Jeremy Corbyn state,
I watch the opposition leader,
As he ignores all calls for debate,
Undeterred, unheard, on with his task;
“I’m making progress, Mr. Speaker,”
“Yes, but towards what?” our silence asks
Cracking delicate glass, their mirror
In each other; a work of Dada
Where masked surrealism prevails,
“I’m making progress, Mr. Speaker,”
Just before each amendment fails,
Falls, and there is no leader I trust;
He cannot overcast Theresa
Who, nebulous, calls out from the dust
“I’m making progress, Mr. Speaker.”
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Arcane these halls, wherein these walls
the pomp and thrills
shroud the lack of clarity;
where the right to a voice
and the order of bills
denotes a lack of legal parity.
2019, the 29th of January,
each motion falls, well, almost all;
one strange one is given charity.
Hopes of extension are lost;
no breathing space
to find out what is real
or to replace 600 or more laws
leaving Europe will displace.
The promised date of another meaningful
Parliamentary ballot,
or the sequence of the day’s amendments
defines how those amendments fall.
The backstop;
which, after over two years
writing between red lines
we’re promised,
against all past assurances
will be redefined;
the nebulousness called ‘alternative arrangements’ this time.
Not for the first time
we all ask what just happened;
to what are we consigned?
In these arcane processes
can you hear
nations unite
around the cruxes
as common sense cries out
and people turn from left to right
to ask the question of 2019;
what does ‘alternative arrangements’ mean?
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
“Roll up! Hear the latest reports from our government,”
A homeless man on a park bench gleefully shouts,
“Woman in wheelchair throws shit-socks at parliament!”
“She said it was for the country’s good,
She’d ensured the more decent MPs weren’t about,
Roll up! Hear the latest reports from our government,
“No one believed her; she said she would
Make sure Lammy and Lucas each had nice days out;
Woman in wheelchair throws shit-socks at parliament!
“She did what few really thought she could,
She’d counted all the laws she intended to flout;
Roll up! Hear the latest reports from our government,
“MPs serve us shit like it was food
And nothing we say or do seems to have much clout,
Woman in wheelchair throws shit-socks at parliament
“Her dream of this suits a public mood,
A dream featuring headlines; a front-page layout;
Roll up! Hear the latest reports from our…
View original post 146 more words
Dear Ministers,
Oh, dear ministers,
Oh dear, ministers,
I have listened, ministers,
To the speeches you gave,
I have seen you, leaders,
How some choose to behave,
I offer up broken couplets
Too messy to make the grade,
Like the Eton Mess you serve us;
Dominic Raab
You’ve had a fair stab
At getting the Brexit you craved,
As quill-master in Cabinet,
Aren’t you part of the mess that’s been made?
But no one’s got a sane plan yet,
How can your vision be saved?
We’ll lose our voice, increase our debt,
Can we not end the whole Brexit crusade?
Andrea Leadsom
I can’t fathom your reasons
For taking a lead upon
Leaving,
It’s not buying us freedom
Just Isolation
More homelessness,
And alienation
That will leave most of us
Grieving,
Boris Johnson
Tone down your ambition
When it estranges our nation,
Where you get facts from
I cannot imagine
But few of them have any traction,
Oh Michael Gove
I don’t mean to scold
But there isn’t much else I can say,
As we’re forced down a road
Which will see us implode –
You were warned Brexit would be this way,
Please, Jacob Rees-Mogg,
Could you stop playing God –
Draining dregs of Britain’s Great,
The Brexiters will no longer applaud
When they examine the state of our state,
You campaigned for something we cannot afford
That’s encouraging extremist hate,
Which will undermine the rule of law,
And you don’t quite have the mandate,
Liam Fox
We’re on the rocks,
Could you rise to our defence?
Brexit has hit expected roadblocks,
Your euro-scepticism makes little sense,
Jeremy Corbyn,
Please curb your boredom,
We need a real opposition,
You’ve been sat there for months
Letting them play the trumps
Not challenging many decisions,
Please don’t stay in the dumps
Between scuffles and bumps,
Wake up, and get with the mission,
You look like your waiting for Godo to come,
Seeming apathy enlarges division
And that’s not a thing we can build on,
Theresa May,
You campaigned to remain
But the deal offered
Is no sort of plan;
Neither here nor there,
Can you tell, I’m not a big fan?
But I have to be fair,
Making Brexit happen
would make any despair,
So, could we start agreeing
That this is demeaning
And Brexit can’t get anywhere?
Frank Field
Please yield,
The foodbank ques
Are already too long,
Think what we’ll lose
If no-deal rules
And our bargaining power
Is all gone,
I honour your ardour
But you’re plain wrong,
And, let me make it clear;
Immigrants belong,
When you raise fear
It resonates on, on, on,
We’re better inside
Making change
Than outside when everything’s gone,
Shouting in
With nothing but our rage
To live on,
You’ll only succeed in limiting
How any of us engage –
Best abort the mistaken vision
At this last sand-grain stage,
Kate Hoey,
What are you doing?
You won’t end the single market
This exit will just lead to our ruin –
And guess who’ll be hit the hardest
If borders are closed, no food getting in?
The working class would die the fastest.
If we’ve hope of any solution
We have to take stock and move past this;
We need a codified constitution
But breaking union won’t help this,
And Brexit won’t offer social justice
But more hunger and less protections,
Ester McVey,
This is far from OK;
Brexiteering
Cripples the UK,
Throwback ideas stirring
Our fears,
And nostalgia for Empire days
In faraway years,
But when ballots say Brexit
It was ever going to be
A state of disarray
As a third-party country,
This was a foundation
Not to vote leave,
We break more than one
Precious unity,
But, for diverse reasons,
On one thing we agree;
This deal won’t work for our nation –
It will mean more poverty
And give near zero security
Or peace,
But Brexit could be no other way –
As most legal advisors agree,
Now our nation has to pay
But have no protection or say
In EU policies,
I could go on with my anti-Brexit song
But would any of you really listen?
You’ve been ignoring each other for so long
As we’re forced to endure such division.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
An invite to all poets, writers, ranters and philosophers:
I have joined in with several great poems challenges on other bloggers’ sites, so I thought I’d reach out and invite poets, philosophers, and wordsmiths to join in with one myself.
The idea is for everyone who wants to, to contribute a 3 to 6 line verse and create something amazing together. We’ll create a collective/collaborative poem from our individual voices. So, here are the guidelines:
View original post 67 more words
I write of lives in indices,
Scenes sketched within margins
Of halts for breath in sentences,
Of freedom in parenthesis
In our secret garden,
I write of lives in ink;
Hers inscribed in water
In quiet apocalypse
Others would call order,
I write of lives,
Their curve in words
At boundary lines
To disinter,
“I”, write
I, not to please,
But for all interred I’s
I write of lives in indices,
Those only angels heard.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
This is a zanze I wrote, posted on my old blog. It’s about certain views on disability, chronic illness and women:
I’m not your inspiration porn
For you to sensationalize
As your source of motivation
For your more abled-bodied lives,
Not your inspiration
Or measure of your skill,
A Paralympian
Nor life uncured to kill,
I’m not your porn,
Objectified
For you to own
Or criticize,
Not your
Provocation
Your stimulus or spur;
I’m not your inspiration porn.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Unlock
This deadlock
Of flailing democracy
Before we’re locked inside
A falling fortress time forgot
Half our number failing to perceive
We are becoming what we are not
A thing our future won’t believe
Warped by horrors of austerity
Fragmented by painful pride
Becoming dark histories
The public outcries
No alibis
For lies
Unmet
Needs
Breed
Crimes
Lines
At foodbanks to feed
Lives
Identities redefined
Maligned
This is oppression’s seed
Partition and hypocrisy
Please heed and unlock
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch