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
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.
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
I shared a Britain Europeans could call home
In the four decades my skin was called my own,
One day I’ll tell our Islands’ descendants
I shared a Britain Europeans could call home,
Before the dice of jeopardy was thrown
And all that amity was gone and done
In the four decades my skin was called my own,
I shared a Britain Europeans could call home.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
This is the second Triolet I’ve written in as many days, inspired by a challenge set by a wonderful poet whose diverse work can be seen at https://reowr.com/ . My first triolet was 48 Percent Life, which is perhaps a better poem structurally than my second attempt at this form, but I’m enjoying this particular type of poem.
You say you’ve had enough;
This is a storm in a teacup
But we are the teacup, my love.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
into the loaded silence, I write
all about a 48 percent life,
while the globe spins on a knife
into the loaded silence, I write
as i watch, gross injustices ignite
my body immobile, thoughts in flight
into the loaded silence, I write
all about a 48 percent life.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Hi All,
Hope you’re keeping warm and safe. This post is a bit different to my others. I wanted to share some of the songs and artists that keep me going. One of my earlier posts; Brexit Playlist is a poem that references some of the music I listen to when I feel angry about what is happening in the UK and around the world. This collection is different – only uplifting melodies and songs of hope and unity. It makes me happy to think it might put a smile on some of your faces. There are links to videos on YouTube. So, here goes:
Win Or Lose, Sink Or Swim
One Thing Is Certain We’ll Never Give In
Side By Side, Hand In Hand
We All Stand Together
Play The Game, Fight The Fight
But What’s The Point On A Beautiful Night?
Arm In Arm, Hand In Hand
We All Stand Together
Keeping Us Warm In The Night
La La La La
Walk In The Night
You’ll Get It Right
Win Or Lose, Sink Or Swim
One Thing Is Certain We’ll Never Give In
Side By Side, Hand In Hand
We All Stand Together.
8am,
The grieving wind
And sirens in the air,
An icy 18th of December,
The future forecast
Still nebulous; unclear
As destitution stings
The atmosphere
And each gust calls
Like an anguished mother,
Where do we go from here?
Then, through the thin walls,
The chimes of a child’s laughter
And my heart hurdles to my throat
In that breath and beat of hope.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
We are living in dark times
but know this,
half the nation is by your side.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
This is my playlist
For the farce of Brexit;
Illusion, by VNV nation
From the album ‘Judgement’,
Momentum, Song of Return,
From the Trajectory EP
The Writing’s on the Wall
By Sam Smith,
Under Pressure by Queen & Bowie,
Then Thunder by The Prodigy
From the album ‘Invaders Must Die,’
Mixed with a little Prey
From The Neighbourhood,
Both of which seem now to be policy,
So I play Some Kind of Joke
Courtesy of AWOLNATION,
Destroy Everything You Touch
By Ladytron – the end –
Of Disk One,
My playlist for Brexit continues
With AfroCelt Sound System’s
‘Dark Moon, High Tide,’
Imagine Dragon’s Battle Cry,
Renegades by X-Ambassadors
And Time is Running Out by Muse,
Their Supermassive Black Hole,
And a little I Feel it All by Fiest,
Sleep to Dream by Fiona Apple,
Pompei, and Blame by Bastille’s
Album, Wild World,
Invisible Empire, KT Turnstall,
Grey Days by Chelsea Wolfe,
From her Abyss Collection,
And The Wrong Direction
By Passenger,
(By this point, I’ve cranked the volume
Up much louder, )
Then Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
We No Who U Are,
And Lauren Aquilina’s Wild Fire
From the album Liars.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
My father’s, father’s father was Cornish,
From a long line that worked the pits,
There’s a whisper of Welsh,
And a good dose of Essex –
64 sixth great- grandparents
For each human to exit –
Bring on DNA tests for xenophobes,
Extremists and racists,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British
Because I use the name Zenkevitch
Not Brown, Jones or Smith –
Though my ancestry has names like this
Along with Eastern European and Sephardic,
I am proud of my name and heritage,
I use my maiden name even after marriage
To my love of Northern parentage
Whose own ancestry goes wide and deep
Into this land and, at some point, overseas,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
Each one of us is multifaceted,
Every human has a wondrous mix
Of choice and cultural inheritance
And you and I are no different in this,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British –
Do you really know what British is?
A mix of Saxon, Norman, Viking, Pict
Was just the start of part of it,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
I was born it, others chose it
As they’ve done for countless centuries
In our interwoven histories,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
It is far from true, though they might wish it
For the Arian vision of their kind of Brexit,
I say to them; stop it, you’re being a twit.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Hello All,
Welcome to a poetry site dedicated to the 48% of the UK who voted ‘Remain’ in 2016 and still believe and to the EU and world citizens who are too often scapegoated by politicians simply because they cannot vote, so are an easy target. Likewise, it is dedicated to those who were too young to vote for the shape of their futures. If you voted ‘leave’ but radically changed your mind you are just as welcome, though may find one or two of my poems triggering.
I was heavily involved in politics up until a few years ago and have always been a bit of a writer and poet. I live with a complex collection of disabilities which make going on marches for me presently out of the question. This is my march.
Feel free to share. Please excuse the fact some comments are closed, I’m simply protecting myself from abuse from the few those who use the small Brexit majority as an excuse for all kinds of extremism and hate. (A few times bitten, you learn that lesson.)
I hope you enjoy the poems. Even more importantly I hope you, whoever you are and where-ever you come from, find the best way through this political chaos for you and all you care about. Remember, we’re still stronger together and you are not alone.
Antonia
The 48% 