“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
Tag: Remain
Hope
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
Madame Dictator
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
Lies in Old Westminster
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
Post-Factual Democracy
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
Dear Ministers
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
Unlock
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
Those Who Build Walls; a Rondeau
“Those who build walls are their own prisoners.”
So Ursula K. Le Guin would tell us,
When I look at the world I see this truth
Where-ever our sense of freedom is skewed,
When our prejudice becomes our jailer,
Ramparts and barriers have hidden us;
We, captive creatures in a crazed circus
Slowly becoming that old spectacle;
Those who build walls,
We can, in large part, blame corrupt leaders
But, for their own power, they must heed us,
We’re our own saviours when we’ve got the gall
But we’re often both guards and criminals
Turning ourselves into the invaders;
Those who build walls.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Truths in the Rough
Exit?
Exit what?
Exit our co-creation?
Exit equals mass confusion;
Exit means shut,
Exit Brexit;
Exit
This closing;
This sealing up;
This opening to chauvinism
This echoed forgetfulness,
This separatism,
This
Whispered fascism;
Whispered near borders,
Whispered corners of reason,
Whispered desolation over
Whispered orders,
Whispered
Truths emerge,
Truths are heard,
Truths are complex things,
Truths beyond words;
Truths examine
Truths.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
It’s Zanish to me
Storm in a Teacup
You say you’ve had enough;
This is a storm in a teacup
But we are the teacup, my love.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
48 Percent Life
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
Governance
A question for 2019;
What does good governance mean?
Northern Ireland’s parliament is in shutdown
With Stormont in a chronic stalemate,
The default position is uneven centralism,
Then governmental stasis in the states,
Meaning more insecurity for North Americans
And every country to which they relate,
Democrats standing up to Trump’s Republicans
Who want them to collude and participate
In a wall built to keep out Mexicans,
A farce millions cannot contemplate,
In France, we see the rise of the Gilets Jaunes
Forcing Marcon into the Grand Debate
When riot police could not keep down
The protests; government could not dominate
With gas, batons or flash ball guns,
In Brazil, two extremes woo the electorate,
One saturated with corruption, in prison
Still claiming to be compassionate
Though in ten years the nation’s been driven
Into gross inequality, theft, violence,
Knifing the opposition, a man with a mission
But one who counts minorities as less,
While in a divided United Kingdom,
Parliament is in an almighty mess,
The cusp of leaving the European Union
Is marked with bilateral anguish
With no agreed, viable solution
To the much- disputed Brexit
Taking up all the air in the room
And consuming all other policies,
Amid worsening living conditions,
Ignoring individual and collective needs,
So, I return to my earlier question
About what all this says about democracy
And other forms of administration,
Problems echoed criss-cross countries
So often wrongly blamed on migration,
I see in each the patterns of plutocracy;
Of rights and voice defined by income,
Then, amid hardships, crises of identity
Leading to questioned certainties, divisions
And rife threats to human ties and societies,
Too often undermining the rights of minorities
In rising tides of nationalism,
There are examples of covert tyrannies;
Of leaders not resigning when they should
And other top dogs taking uncivil liberties
For their own or their tribe’s preferment,
Encouraging disillusion, discouraging diversity,
Increasing alienation and disenfranchisement
In national emergencies, too often political intent
Seems partisan, not meant to broker agreement,
In each case, as in others across continents,
Security is undermined by unstable employment
And people struggling for food, mortgage or rent,
In each case there’s a sense of restricted involvement
Of people in the workings of their government,
Often leading to questions on freedom of movement
When prejudices rise from the undercurrents,
In each case, mainstream media plays its part,
Directing direct democracy, or its proxy,
Sources of funding can fuel changes of heart
Affecting each story’s legitimacy,
While every situation is different,
Each wrought with seeming infinite complexity,
There seem to be patterns that are consistent;
The need for greater political transparency;
The need for engagement, informed consent
And protections against unreachable governance
Whatever the locale; whatever the distance,
Deficits of democracy are meeting resistance
Because deceptions and social disparities
Lead to inequality and festering grievance,
As uprisings against injustice lose clarity,
Destroyed by divide to rule philosophies
Made worse by the walls of isolationists,
Maybe this is a question for psychologists,
Maybe we’re either rebels or pragmatists,
Maybe we’re enigmas for archaeologists
Or evidence against climate change denialists,
Maybe we’re each authors of the crisis
Or targets for the powerful’s devices,
Whatever the truth of it is
We’re made stronger by who’s beside us,
Beyond cultures, faiths, ideologies,
The need to be heard by our leaders
Whether these lead councils, constituencies,
Countries or cross-national assemblies,
I do not have the answers
but
I believe this, we are strengthened by unities
And valuing ourselves and our fellow humans,
To embolden interconnected communities
With shared interests and empowered regions
Served by, not serving their parliamentarians.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The Stolen Sun
They worked for decades
For their place in the sun,
As their autumns fade
They claimed their freedom
From the ache of the rain
In their muscles and bones,
Now they ache to remain
In their retirement homes,
This was not given to them;
They got there on their own,
Is their security to be stolen?
The seeds of doubt are sown;
European citizens in Britain
Are now treated as hostages,
So, their nations of origin
Do the same in this crisis,
This questions the concept of belonging;
Belonging to; belonging with; belongingness,
Both the forces of comfort and longing
And the money and belief we each invest
In the places we choose to be living,
We need to be honest
In this state of anti-immigration;
We have to own this
Process of individual rights negation,
History tells us Britishness
Is formed of centuries of integration,
Will we continue to count as less
All those who come to our nation
And add to its worth and essence?
Our ex-pats too will be distressed
If our neighbours devalue their presence,
This is Brexit’s darkest side, undressed;
Naked of all the abhorrent pretense
in the lies that sought to impress
Some citizens sitting on the fence,
To say we Brits can live anywhere
Yet limit who comes here makes no sense,
Yet many a Brexiteer seems unaware
Their acts may have weighted consequence.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The Bell and Drum
Beneath old towers of golden stone
The clanging bell, the thump of drum,
Where an ageless river flows;
Protesters come, flags are flown
Of unions caught in the undertow,
People have gathered together
In clamorous amalgamation,
Side by side in the bitter weather
In hope, in fury, in confusion,
Equal and opposite in their fervour
For union or nationalism;
Those who see our saviour
In a second referendum,
Those who want Westminster
To deliver the sworn unicorn
And those who’d just prefer
This Brexit business done,
The noise, and then the hush
As the crowds wait and listen
In that huddled crush
For parliament’s decision,
As the bells peel
I worry with millions
That there be a no deal;
An incalculable burden
Leading to more poverty,
Inequality, social division
Affecting the majority,
A bad deal garners historic defeat
As the drum beats
The hearts on the street,
I wonder what consensus
Parliament could meet
That would guard and represent us,
If cabinet chose only to outreach
To Brexiteer extremists in their party
Ensuring May’s red lines aren’t breached
In the name of the mock democracy
Her impassable processes preached,
While Labour refuses doors to dialogue
A far-right Brexit seems a possibility,
Corbyn in apparent stasis, his own voice vague,
I fear a worse deal passed by united Tories;
For a path to ruin to be laid
The percentage win need only be tiny,
Let me be as clear as the tolling bell
I’ve wanted passionately to remain,
That hope by a minor margin fell,
Now, uncertainty and frustration reign,
Disintegrating realms, unforgivable
That all this will cause us all more pain,
We could say the Brexit project’s failed;
For millions of us, this would be preferable,
But other millions would feel their voice curtailed
And we must think of them as well;
Not the bigotry and isolationism
Within the leaver’s swell
Nor notions driven by racism
Which we must quell,
But the inherent criticism
Of governance being too central,
Distant, too far from them;
Too absent in their struggles;
Seemingly devoid of realism;
Aloof in the face of their troubles,
Those who work beneath Big Ben
Can sometimes seem the most remote,
But the EU has been condemned
By those who see the ocean as a moat
And invasion in each boat or plane;
Who’ve been sold the scapegoat
To explain what’s hard to frame;
Hidden in many leaver’s votes
Was a broad, nebulous rejection
Of the status quo,
We need a proper constitution
Yet those negotiations closed,
We traded thoughts of UK devolution;
Of proactive regions within a whole;
Brexit offered as an alternative solution,
Yet, in all the to and fro,
Scarlet barricades and preconditions
There is one thing all this shows;
Lack of transparency in political decisions;
A deficit we cannot afford
On the benches of our House of Commons,
Our crises don’t begin in Brussels or Strasburg,
The problem has long been born at home;
Our economy, among the most centralised in the world,
Witnessing widening gaps in people’s income,
The EU used a stooge, Westminster failings ignored,
As the drum thunders and the bell chimes
To conundrums and discord,
Facing divorce fees or severing fines –
Our futures hanging on a word,
Too much not agreed, too much undefined
And all of us calling out to be assured
In these troubling, world-shifting times,
While we, like collecting dew, are poured
Into the flow of the leaden Thames,
If we go ahead, we need a far softer line
To protect our kingdom’s unions,
Our security, our peace, and the rights
Of our UK and international citizens,
To guard investments and keep in sight
Our shared intercontinental ambitions,
Cross-border threats to climate
And the need for social protections,
But the hour is getting late
As debates continue into the night
And we watch others write our fate
As deals fall in the dwindling light.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Blackmail
She May mean well
But this is blackmail,
After an epic fail
Which she ignores
To carry on
Just as before,
She will not move the ruddy lines
Or give the deal-making more time
Or take ‘no deal’ of the table,
‘blackmailer’, a suitable label
For such irresponsible
Holding to ransom
Of those elected by the people,
She’s inciting pandemonium,
Her way or no way at all
Is close to despotism,
Which is near to criminal
At this time of emergency,
With such a short interval,
To misuse the urgency
As political currency
To pass a dead deal
Come what May
It is not OK;
It is blackmail.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The Big Riot (a political satire)
At the Met headquarters
There’s another call out,
To gather all available officers
To attend another London riot,
When they muster at the order
The streets are uncannily quiet,
Far too silent to signal peace,
The van drivers see the flickering TVs
As the vanguards of PSUs cruise,
They tell their colleagues in the carriers
“Every household is watching the news”
Then, they get closer to Westminster
Where they each get a first-hand view,
Of the riot’s epicentre,
Met commanders aren’t sure what to do,
It started in the Common’s Chamber
And it shows no sign at all of ending,
Ministers displaying criminal behaviour,
They’d have to send the forces in,
Some Brexiteers were running with cleavers
And Boris Johnson was singing
As law-enforcers arrest law-makers
To the sound of ancient plaster cracking
And answering war cries from Remainers,
The police chief rethinks the cons of fast-tracking
While arresting MPs from Tories and Labour,
Extracting an uninterested Corbyn,
If he’d not been killed by Mogg’s sabre
It looks like he’d soon have died of boredom,
The Speaker is still trying hard to call order
As someone nearby asks the chief
“Sir, where do we put the cordon?”
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Democracy
She keeps saying that word, ‘democracy’,
As if she kens in any way
What it truly means, or maps it meaningfully,
Thoughtfully into daily political routines,
Or sees it as her duty, or honours it duly,
Does she? Do we?
In the absence of a solid UK constitution
I took a butchers at the dictionary;
Let’s park the ultimate ‘democracy’ definition;
‘A system of government by the whole population,’
Across centuries this has been the high ambition
But in every recorded era and administration
There’ve been cordons limiting representation;
Defining our inner outcasts; inciting disunion,
So, let’s look at a more realistic take;
To include All eligible members of a state,
Usually via representatives elected –
That’s all of them; not just the cabinet –
Democracy seeks to be inspected,
It does not isolate, negate or delay debate,
Cross-party amendments must be respected
As is that near- impeachment moment
When parliament found May’s government
To be acting in contempt,
Many united voices on each backbench
Knocking on doors of The Prime Minister’s set
To ask her cabal where our democracy went,
But she treats such questions as undemocratic,
Yet it’s her clique that fits inside that lens,
The irony is spiky, bitter, cutting, tragic,
For it is a torn flag May says she defends
And her hands have helped to tear its fabric,
A borderline result in the EU referendum,
Gross exaggeration of marginal statistics;
It was always a blatant overstatement
To say Britain voted for this Brexit –
The difference of a couple of percent,
Most of whom voted ‘leave’ due to deceit,
Buying into lies of the Brexiteer campaign –
The same people she now calls colleagues,
Is it democracy or deception they’d see reign;
Ideally, one requires the other’s defeat,
Instead, a failed attempt at self-coronation –
The expectation entirely unrealistic,
This weakened any credibility for her position
As she undermined terms of a peace agreement
To abandon neutrality for a near-coalition
With one side of Northern Ireland’s dialectic,
Setting the nation up for renewed collisions,
All this to get enough seats for a slim majority;
To fain enough support for her to govern,
Northern Ireland’s needs still not a priority,
Calls for votes of no confidence since then,
The first, directed at her, by her own party,
Went to a ballot she won narrowly,
Oh yes, a half-hearted mutter from Corbyn
Was fairly shamelessly deflected –
He, seemingly most interested
In whether Labour could win,
Only requested parliament contested
May’s place at the helm,
Later came calls from the other opposition;
The ignored, united smaller parties
Disillusioned by her flailing, high-handed regime,
Yet still, May continues her didactic addresses
As if all were there to rubber stamp her scheme,
This is not why any of them were elected;
To say she shields democracy would be obscene,
‘Democratic’ has become a word infected,
Made submissive for assumed power to lean on,
The word shouted as an order or directive
By those who wish to guard their own dominion;
Their grasp of the term is defective,
What about ‘social equality’ as a working definition?
Um, I can safely say they’re failing that one –
Policies stirring frustration, fear, suspicion,
While abandoning pledges to abused women,
More people than before feeling alienation
As we see homelessness break all proportions
Amid cuts to vital services, wages, and occupations,
Crime soars as they cut back on police divisions,
As the cost of living rises to beat inflamed inflation,
The Sausage Song was Christmas no. one,
Raising funds to help feed hungry millions,
Those facing starvation include children,
So, topping the charts is positive direct action
Not by our government, but by the population.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Heptarchy
Once there were seven kingdoms
Of Anglo-Saxon dominance;
Anglia, Kent, Essex,
Mercia and Wessex
Northumbria and Sussex,
Before tenth century unification
Into what became old England,
But not yet it’s modern boundaries;
Seven realms called the heptarchy
Founded this new arrangement
Of central management, essentially,
I still see the relative estrangement
Of all other parts of the UK;
An incomplete enfranchisement
Underpins our other ‘unities’
Where heptarchic centricity holds sway,
When it is thought convenient,
To compromise lives, look the other way
And rip up fragile, vital peace agreements,
When some English MPs side-line or deny,
This feels true again today
When I watch Westminster Parliament;
Though I know some ministers care greatly,
The problems stretch out to such an extent
Blinkered thinking seems to be the generality;
Despite our interconnections culturally,
Despite interdependence economically,
Despite the shared need for security,
Old England is treated as a relative priority;
Northern Irish fears, questions and grievance,
Shelved in Brexit deals, not given real credence,
Indifference buttresses treating another’s existence
As subsidiary to our need for insurance,
Encouraging escalation in cross border violence,
The chance of peace lost is not a cost worth
The elusive ideal of so-called self-governance,
Northern Ireland threatened by the backstop
And an opening for conflict and social chaos,
The reason Westminster speaks of this at all? –
They need Northern Irish votes to seal the deal,
The Northern Ireland that voted to remain,
Where you can travel over to Ire by train,
Why would we trade this for either nation’s pain?
Precious and perilous the amity between men,
Paramilitaries on both sides still have guns,
Brexit can’t be allowed to become
Heptarchia; or a central England predilection
Provoking the smashing of any kingdom,
What of the Gibraltians?
98% chose Britain
Over being part of Spain,
Whilst staying fiercely European;
96% also voted to remain,
Will we squander this union?
Are they well protected by the plan –
Or will we treat their needs as alien,
Forgetting their realm in the kingdom;
The so-called United Kingdom?
Where is this debate in parliament?
Oh, I forgot, there isn’t one
Because Gibraltar has been given
No real part in any final decision,
This British Military Bastion
And bridge between continents
Neglected in isolationist vision
Loosed to the currents
Of selectively chosen ignorance,
Meanwhile Scotland speaks of a second referendum
To leave the United Kingdom
And stay in the European Union
Westminster promises for further devolution
Postponed season after season,
Amidst Westminster undemocratic deviations,
Scottish Parliament makes preparations
To build post- Brexit resilience for her population,
Then Wales and Cornwall, who both voted to leave,
Neither part of the old heptography –
Cornwall long outside English boundaries
Both long over-looked by Westminster priorities,
Treated as political minorities,
Suffering more than their portion of poverty,
Brexit was their sole opportunity
To question the balance of authority,
But was it the EU that was their enemy –
Or the swing of an English majority?
What of the Cornish Isles of Scilly?
What of the Scottish Outer Hebrides?
These small communities
Surrounded by sea
With unique histories
And identities
Sometimes as close
To other countries,
Will their ferries and boats
Still move just as freely?
If the answer is ‘no’
‘Hopefully’ or only ‘Ideally’
How can Westminster vote
For such uncertainty?
Certain Northern realms and principalities
Long divided into modern counties
Whose borders blurred over centuries
Can be heard by Westminster to a lesser degree,
Of the others caught in the undertow,
The fourteen ‘Crown Dependencies’
Not permitted a vote,
How does this affect their families
Safety, economy and futurity?
The nations termed ‘Balliwicks’
From the root-word meaning ‘bailiff’,
Once seen as empire’s colonies,
Now proudly autonomous countries,
Yet still, in some complex way legally
Described as British Territories,
Making us ask what Britain really is,
For we share more than a monarchy;
Our Brexit deal with affect their populace
Yet where are their representatives in this?
Many of these relationships interlaced
With the family now called Commonwealth
Striving for more parity to be embraced –
Though some do call it theft by stealth
My hope is in its a partnering in trials faced –
A hope for those by climate change threatened,
By drought, war, tides or floods displaced,
That help does come from a community of nations,
A harsh Brexit winter could require such grace
But do we consider their needs in our calculations?
How often is apparent worth computed by race?
Former realms and current friends in
North and South Atlantic,
Africa, the Indian Ocean
Antarctica and the Pacific
Many with the flag on Britain
Making part of their own flag,
Of our commonwealth cousins
Our mates in Australia
And New Zealand –
Among the closest we have
Despite the distance,
They’ve been there for us
Like our kin in India and Pakistan,
Side by side through war’s tumult
Yet here Asian citizens
Are too often thrown insults
Here, seeming Anglo-Saxons
Appear treated as higher status
Than those whose origin is thought Celt,
But Caucasian Brits get preference
To almost everybody else,
Many nations in the Caribbean
Whose Windrushers rushed to assist
Us in modern Britain’s darkest time,
With them, Britain rose like a phoenix,
Then there is land used by our armed forces
Like Akrotiri and Dhekelia –
British Territories in Cyprus,
Names to most Britons, unfamiliar,
Our deal affects Cyprian neighbours,
Do we properly consider this?
Last but the opposite of least
Guernsey, Jersey, The Ise of Man –
How do each fit with us with Brexit?
Beyond issues of customs and taxes
Are interlinked histories and narratives
And our dependence on dependencies,
If we are to make a truth of the promise
That we will be secure and stable,
Westminster must be far more inclusive
About who sits around negotiating tables
For any Brexit deal to be persuasive –
Or, frankly even workable,
Because there is a fact that is pervasive –
The biggest threats are global
As are families, communities, friendships,
Many opportunities and goals,
A poor deal will tear us all to bits
As we see local groups and businesses
More consumed by trans-national corporations
Whose size and power are bigger than nations,
So, outside nostalgic heptarchic fantasies
People need states to work in collaboration
To find balance sovereignty and union
Because raising the drawbridge is no solution,
As I write this, I hope Brexit won’t happen –
I identify as ardently British-European
And do not think we’ve found a deal
That anyone could call a solid foundation,
But whatever is to come we have to get real –
Customs becoming insular will diminish Britain
And that narrowing would be beyond geographical.
Once there were seven kingdoms
Who, realising division made them vulnerable,
Banded together to form England,
Like Scottish Clans, the benefits considerable,
Now we risk all unions,
Yet, if we understand each relationship has value
Then horizons can expand
While our societies become more sustainable
And personal and communal sovereignty
Becomes a wee bit more attainable.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
What the Dickens? – A Christmas Carol Revisited
What the Dickens is this?
As parliament breaks up for Christmas
We are visited by the ghosts of promises;
As Brexit consumes the policies
Once pledged to deal with ‘burning injustices’,
The ghost of past oaths and assurances
To tackle rouge bailiffs and rip-off leases
Are abandoned as inequality advances;
See the ghosts to be crouched on cold streets,
Lives, not just statistics in rising homelessness,
The ghost of past undertakings and vows
To confront domestic violence, here and now
With electronic tags for known offenders
And forced rehab for abusive substance users,
How many victims are no longer with us
Since broken pacts to protect survivors?
Ghosts of lawful guarantees to defend us
In the word they gave they’d shield workers
From still legal wage-theft by some businesses,
People treated like those caged wild creatures
Still allowed to be trapped in certain circuses,
As the cabinet prepares to sleep this December 24th,
May they hear the howling wind knocking at their doors
And see the ghost of now, shades of what came before
And the spectre of the future if they don’t change course.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The Lead Balloon
Well, that went down like a lead balloon –
Oops, look I think we broke the Union
And broke an older union too;
When Brexiteers speak of sovereignty
They mean sovereignty for who?
This doesn’t represent me,
Feels like I’m on a ship of fools
Steaming through an icy sea,
Too great to sink, or so we think,
A wreck to rank in history;
Remember the Titanic?
But just imagine, if back then,
They had not forged full steam ahead
And the captain noticed, slowed down
And took an alternative route instead?
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Sovereign State of Stupidity
First you notice the bare shop shelves,
And thank the lord you stocked up on tins,
You nip in to your nan’s, who doesn’t look well
To make sure she’s got enough in,
Her homecare was cut, so she fell,
16hrs waiting for her to be seen,
The news says the country is going to hell,
But who’s still got time for such things
When your travelling daughter calls you to yell
That they’ve cancelled all fights home from Turin,
When you went for a meal on a Saturday night,
The pizza place was closed, a curry palace alight,
You hope those who were inside are alright,
There seems to be even more crime on the streets
And you miss the old, old days of bobbies on the beat,
The family complain there’s so little to eat,
There’s no fish in the chippy, the docks lie empty
While ministers mangle deals for our fisheries,
Embargoes on veggie meals and most gluten free –
On anything from Sweden to Malta, Denmark to Cyprus,
There’s no Belgium waffles, no sugar for tea,
Who knew they packaged it in Hungary?
The neighbours’ children asked why Santa hadn’t been,
His mum said he was stopped at the border and couldn’t get in,
Amidst the rising theft and violence
If leaver’s turn to me and shout
How none of this makes sense
I’ll tell them, they let the monsters out,
The racists and extremists lurking in the darkness
Given an excuse for their worst excesses,
And it will seem like too many couldn’t care less
As we deal with vicious cuts to basic services;
Services like education, care, police, the NHS,
Charities, social work and security forces,
While small businesses fail because no one invests,
Farmers nosedive as they lose EU subsidies
Ailes empty in local grocers and supermarkets,
Welcome to the Sovereign State of Stupidity,
The Ports near closed, food nor people make it through,
When we limit free movement, we limit ours too,
Make ghost towns of Gatwick, Luton, Heathrow,
Stopping freights and ferries from Grimsby to Glasgow,
Perhaps the one temporary winner is the Ozone
But too many are hungry, jobless
With dwindling hope and no home,
Too many drained and feeling useless,
No one lives in the house next door;
The bitter irony is priceless,
Without immigrants we are too poor
To handle the housing crisis,
We don’t have their taxes anymore
And homelessness persists,
As wages freeze and prices soar,
Corporations still getting rich,
Less staff on the tills, fat cats on the board,
While young and old crouch by the doors
Of houses and flats so few can afford,
Medicine stockpiled, or not getting through,
Prescriptions unavailable, costs sky high,
Surgeries cancelled again as they lengthen the que,
The terrible truth; avoidable pain while the saveable die
And this won’t be eased by anti-migrant curses
When we’ve sent away half the doctors and nurses
Because some of them ‘weren’t from round here’
Or due to funding cuts and restricted resources
While the national debt gets ever heavier
As we pay for twenty-seven national divorces,
But gone too are those politicians’ excuses,
Having stocked fires of xenophobic fear,
Those they made stooges for the bruises
Fought back, moved on or disappeared
And most of us miss them and want them here,
Don’t blame Europeans or the world, or raise your fists,
Or say it’s all down to EU politics, or just the way it is,
Don’t look to the financiers – they warned us of this,
There were warning signs half the nation chose to miss,
So many feel betrayed, denied,
From Belfast, Edinburgh, Gibraltar
We watch as the United Kingdom divides
And pray to God by every name there won’t be war,
Due to fragile peace accords we all but undid
And the callousness we cannot alter
Towards international people who work, live
Study, give and made this nation prosper
Who we treated with distrust, deceit, conceit,
To be really frank, we should’ve known better,
In 1945 we celebrated a fascist defeat –
Tantrums saying we expected more
Or this wasn’t what leavers voted for
Won’t help us dig out of the embers,
The EU can’t be wholly criticised
For favouring its members,
I think many member nations tried
To compromise when Brexiters
Just wanted the UK to sever,
But we were stronger together,
We are now a third party
Made to follow others’ rules,
Desperate people conjure enemies;
All the usual suspects accused,
Amid rising hate crimes and bigotry
As we see a breakdown in society’s rules,
Muslim women harassed in the street
And black children openly bullied in school,
Old prejudices becoming less and less discrete
Of course, some twits will blame Jews
Imagining a grand conspiracy
Though there are no facts to back up their views
And things are made worse by such idiocy,
The protections for people with disabilities,
The care for the immobile, ill or elderly,
The ongoing research into curing diseases,
All of it slows down, some of it freezes,
Fuel prices higher as they sponsor fracking,
Energy crisis, environmental backtracking,
Wildlife and eco charities losing their backing
We can’t quite believe it, but it’s happening,
We seem to be self-governing our nation collapsing,
As the globe faces the task of a massive remapping,
All hale the farce made of democracy,
We are autonomous citizens of hypocrisy.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
(A poem about a worst-case scenario Brexit Britain. I do have more cheery poems too, like ‘Fa La La; a protest song to the tune of Deck the Halls )
Contempt
May this contempt;
This contempt of parliament
And more, this contempt
Of democratic procedure,
This contempt of our country,
A United Kingdom; a continent,
Of all here now and here before;
This contempt of everything built
To encourage, protect and ensure
A relative peace taken for granted
We mostly enjoy with neighbours
On nearby shores;
This contempt of the health service
Founded after and because
Of the aftermath of two world wars,
This contempt of millions of workers
Who strive all hours but can’t afford homes;
Struggling parents, low-income earners
Sold lies or made into scapegoats,
Contempt of employees and entrepreneurs,
Including those
Who pay tax but cannot vote;
Those hated, spited as foreigners
And usurpers, even though
Money is not stolen by migrants,
It is the powerful few
Who guard the greatest percent
Of almost every nation’s revenue
And it’s clear most of them
Have not got the smallest clue
Or else were never taught
What duty or honour meant,
Those who place risk over value,
Those who do not know
That integrity, as well as a virtue,
Is now an economic and social essential,
Yes, it is contempt of this; contempt,
Forgetting foodbank ques,
Front bench MPs attempt
To push and bully through
A defective Brexit agreement
Whilst concealing the torch of truth
That our Attorney General lent;
It is this contempt of parliament;
And thus, contempt of the people
By leading officials in our government
Who would, it seems, mislead us all
In not providing the full legal document
Detailing all actual and potential pitfalls,
It’s disrespect, historic and inexcusable,
It is such contempt
That sets a mine beneath Big Ben,
Such deceptions are time ill spent
In arrogance, in acts
Against its citizens
By withholding facts
From those elected to represent,
Eight hundred years ago
They drew up a democratic template,
Adding layers along the road;
The foundation of a constitution
But one without a code,
One we have erected our rights upon,
One we’ve seen expand, sow, steal, erode,
Across times, under a mass of hands,
Now, time ticks like a bomb about to explode,
Shattering the security of millions,
During the aeon in which the clock tower stands
Have we ever known contempt like this?
MPs from six parties have raised the alarm
Because this goes beyond party politics,
Beyond any rebellion chief-whips could calm,
MPs being strong-armed with a fait accompli,
Denied the agreed legal information,
This contempt, this duplicity, this deceit
Would make not only any EU negotiation
A total mockery, it achieves the feet
Of ridiculing democratic and diplomatic relations,
Three times in an hour the proposed deal met defeat,
And so, amidst the conceit, disorder and disrespect
A seed on the winds of consternation;
A rebellion against the corruption of condescension
As the threads of democracy held on
Despite the government taking contempt
To an unprecedented dimension
In the debates of what makes Britain,
And Big Ben beats on,
And one day this too will be written;
The racism of some won’t be hidden;
The blinkeredness, short-termism,
Fear, isolationism that makes us alien
To each other and ourselves,
The panic buys, the empty shelves
Will fill tomorrow’s archives,
But the story is not yet finished
Our nation’s future can survive
As long as influencers don’t forget
The final draft is not complete,
What will historians ascertain
About this world-shifting week?
If we do not bow to contempt
That confuses authoritarian
With authoritative –
If principles don’t break under the strain
Of the rigid and didactic,
Almost half we voters voted to remain
And the sane who didn’t
Still did not vote for this.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The Poisoned Cup
Passing the poisoned cup
One prime minister resigned,
Another crowned by tearing up
The security of Northern Ireland,
When Tory seats were not enough
To form a near-valid government,
The purulent chalice passes
Hand to hand, mouth to mouth,
As we hear gunfire in Alsace;
Blood on the streets of Strasburg
Where sits the EU parliament,
December, in Westminster Palace
The cabinet creates an adjournment
As their Brexit deal is met with malice,
Thus, the cup holder made the judgment
To postpone the parliamentary ballot
Until all debate becomes redundant,
In the hope MPs do what they are told
When later, a decision is even more urgent,
As if it was this or watch the world implode,
They say this really is the best Brexit,
Brim full of bitterness that corrodes
It’s Brexit itself a ‘no’ vote may prevent,
The grim fairy-tale half the UK was sold
Cannot manifest; it has no substance,
You can’t cross a rainbow for a pot of gold,
So, the PM makes deferments to quell insurgence
And, far more worryingly, to defeat debate,
Employing the terror and the turbulence
So, she can later say it is too late
To heed the union’s fate
Or the Good Friday Peace Agreement,
Using the fear of further delays
To rally support for this form
Of European abandonment,
That the continent views as
Foolish arrogance and scorn;
A circus of self-indulgence
As hardliner Brexiteers suffer from
Cognitive dissonance
At the death of their candyfloss unicorn,
Millions watch as Andy Serkis
Does his impression of Gollum
As May guarding her “precious”;
A dark pact become obsession
As ordinary people pay the cost,
She is not a lone politician –
But she is the cabinet’s boss,
This is perilous,
We would have been better off
If we had never taken this road,
Flattening the atlas,
Turning princes into desiccated toads,
Pulling down the Corona Borealis
To claim the constellations as our own,
Here in London,
A noose is carried at the crossroads,
What has our referendum imparted?
Parliament was not yet open
Before negotiations started,
Then, in the Commons, the withholding
Of vital legal documents;
Then, despite our constitution’s lack of coding,
The government found in contempt
Of its house in the attempt
To push through the deal
The vast majority resent,
Triggering calls
For a vote of no confidence
Which saves the premier from herself,
Giving a mass to her insistence,
While shedding doubt upon the doubts
About her proposed agreement,
They do not vote her out,
If they had, what then?
The limits of the entire cabinet
Fall on the shoulders of one woman
Who took up the festering goblet,
If the task passed to the fluff-headed man
To carry out his harsher-edged Brexit plan,
What then?
The Tory’s, faced with that deterrent,
Given assurance of May’s pre-term abdication,
Left her in power, merely weakened,
In committee room fourteen
They cheered the outcome,
But the PMs support remains slim,
This is not on the head of one human
But there will be an awesome reckoning
For all when all the posturing is done,
Will there be another election?
Or a second referendum
To hear the people speaking?
For Remainers, these were among
The many reasons for not leaving,
Forewarned and foreseen outcomes,
Beyond all the proposed tweaking
In every EU meeting,
For we are no longer the pater of imperialism
And this won’t alter by self-deceiving,
We cannot be lead by wistfulness, surrealism,
Or chest-thumping bleating,
This failure was set by the result of the referendum,
The dice thrown in June 2016,
The choice made was ever a loaded gun,
One thing is clear,
The 48% are no longer sovereign,
We are lost in this decision;
The representatives I see
No longer represent me,
As a lifelong British citizen
I grieve for my ailing country,
This broken union for our children,
The open gates of poverty
Bigotry and community division,
Bringing betrayal of heritage, ancestry
And lives yet to come,
If the Brexit of a small section
Of the half that won a victory
By two percent,
Continues, facilitated by
An administration with a weak mandate
And a disordered opposition,
Then any reclaimed sovereignty is fake;
A toxic proposition
Whose cuts will cut more deeply,
Future generations
Will blame all British, communally,
And we won’t be able to save them
From the poisoned cup we gave them.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Without Representation
Tax without representation equals tyranny;
This was a grievance in the seventeen-sixties
Across thirteen American Colonies
Whose governance came from across seas,
Remote, unresponsive to necessities
They could not heed, and so cried liberty,
For to pay yet be muzzled is to suffer cruelty,
This became a seed of the revolution;
For tax must be money taken from citizens
For the betterment of community and nation
Not a cyphering or selective elevation
Of one group requiring others’ humiliation,
To take taxes from persons with zero say
In how their money’s used is autocracy;
An absolutism keeping justice at bay
Until people cried, “We won’t pay
To have our voice or home taken away,
We won’t subsidise being silenced.”
Later, in another century, women cried this too;
Or at least the wealthy, unmarried or widowed
Women with means, numbering only a few,
Less than four decades since wedded women knew
The right to own any property or money; to accrue
Or keep inheritance or wages, never mind a view,
But although they had no say in how it was spent
They were legally bound to pay tax to a Parliament,
That might as well have been on another continent
For how much it heard, saw or represented them
Or any women, for it was a male ego Bastian
That sought to retain unilateral male dominance,
Where men owned wives’ bodies, owned children,
Where women’s sole fortune was a kind man,
Where the death of a cruel one was petty treason,
Where women were thought to have no sense or reason,
Those times are (mostly) gone,
In many but not all ways
We have moved on,
In others the patterns replay
On and on and on,
And yet always there is disenfranchisement;
Subjugation, marginalisation recurrent
For those who cannot vote for their government
But must pay taxes, amongst these are migrants
Who work and pay their way yet are censured
And scapegoated, all successes thrice earned
In economic downturn, less guarded by laws,
My thinking friends, take into consideration
Those with no vote still subject to taxation;
For those with no parliamentary representation
Are those who suffer the worst discrimination;
For policies are built for those who may elect
And those most represented get most respect,
So, when the powerful blame migrants again
Know it’s because politicians can cast blame
And shame on those with other national origins
Because at election time MPs only have to win
The approval of born or chosen British citizens,
It is the same with young people
Who may have sex, go into battle,
Be taxed, labour, work and toil
Years before their opinion counts at all
To those who’d label them criminal,
Tax but no vote from age sixteen
Then under-represented and side-lined
By those who chose to demean,
If you are white, male, heterosexual,
Born here, still fully abled,
Born well off, aligned to the sex assigned
At birth and forty or more
Then you are the ones they write policies for,
And, although this status quo is challenged
The more we are of this, the more we are privileged,
The more our likeness is, in Westminster, reflected,
The more our needs and interests are respected
And the more our right to thrive is protected,
But those who cannot elect or be elected
Still pay into the pot,
But when the going gets tough they’re neglected,
Their contribution denied, rights overlooked,
I look at anti-migrant rhetoric
Recalling slogans of regulators and suffragists,
All people just trying to live
Without being banished, alienated
Or slated for taking when they give,
The lies about them are practiced,
Expected, accepted, authoritative,
To those who believe them I ask them to think
About present and historic links
Between those who aren’t permitted a vote
And those in society who are scorned the most,
Because it is not democracy,
At times it smacks of tyranny,
It opens the gate to mockery,
Hate crimes, partiality, bigotry
And is a smoke screen shielding plutocracy;
A version of this played out in ancient Greece,
And to those who say it’s always been like this
I’d say we create more damage when we believe
Authorities when they accuse voteless minorities
And under-represented communities,
It is divide and rule policy based on demography,
Truth is more complex and harder to retrieve
When a nation enables its leaders to deceive
Then buys the bullshit on Brexit and votes ‘leave’.
The Breakers
Breakers tall, rollers grave,
Catch you a living on the wave
They said another owns the sea
But the brine has her own currency,
No matter the rule, the plan or crown
This is the lore of the coastal town,
For those who would re-map the drink
Know she’ll not yield to paper or ink,
But yet, think on docks and fisheries
Too often bought to the brink,
Upon these rocks, communities;
It is these we worry may sink,
Do not sing -white horses’ lullabies
To those who know a mermaid’s ditty,
Beware closed ports and borderlines
Where swirling shoals have authority.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
For my beloved Cornwall & Devon and all the United Kingdom’s coastal towns. It is fair to say many already feel overlooked by the UK and other governments’ dealings at home and overseas on behalf of the fisheries. Brexit will create further challenges for many of these communities who depend on trading between countries through open ports, busy docks, and accessible waters.
Brexit Fuse Lit
Want to help stop Brexit or secure a better deal?
Check out People’s Vote (on how you could have your say)
Join the Call for a No Confidence Vote in Present Government
Goatskin
Writ on goatskin?
A tissue of lies,
Deals unknit
Before ink dries,
The absent crown
Still not her coronet
During lawless days
We won’t forget,
No kind heart sweats,
Sweats as vile pacts made,
No sweets at the palisade
Drafts delayed, rejected,
Remade, re-inspected,
Hush, do not speak it;
That untaken truth;
We do not have a government,
Wet ink gives no proof.
Now without opening
She spins, spins into
A longer stride,
Poison chalice at her side,
To bypass the beginning,
Towers falling, burning
The sepulcher is rolling,
We have a speaker
Yet no plans for them to speak
But broken lines intoning,
Hush, do not say it;
The lie “Secure and stable”,
We do not have a government
Just unsigned deals upon the table,
Unspoken, mandate unratified,
Parliamentary debate denied
Until the ink inscribed is dry
So we may examine the hide.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
This was written after the last election, which was a farce. It centers around an arcane piece of British law that involves writing on goatskin. Before this had been done and before the Queen had opened parliament, therefore allowing MPs to debate, deals were apparently already being made to further the Brexit mission. During that period it can be argued we effectively had no legally recognised government and definitely not one in which all our elected representatives had a voice. Disturbingly, a deal made between the Conservative Party and Northern Ireland’s DUP in order to get enough seats to legally form a government threatens the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland.
My NHS
i laugh at falling;
so i laugh often,
my spirit strong,
my body broken,
my breathing,
my movement
dependant on medicines,
that may not make it through
with a bad Brexit or a no deal,
i have specific needs for food,
i fear their obstruction on route
as blockades slow the turning of the wheel,
and prices rise with extra duties,
the threat to the chronically ill, the elderly
and those labeled disabled is all too real,
i have lived with disabilities
for nearly four decades,
but extra barriers disabled me
in unspeakable ways,
there are millions reliant on meds, like me,
those with asthma or diabetes,
melanoma, DVT,
depression and anxiety –
the conditions are plenty
and so must be the treatments
for all of us
from a health service
free for ALL at the point of delivery;
The NHS.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Lullaby to Democracy; 3,500 Troops
Lullaby to democracy,
3,500 troops,
Germany in the 1930s
Or Britain very soon?
The menace of martial law
Is the opposite of sovereignty
As we close the door
On civil liberties,
Like the right to protest,
Did any soldier join the military
To enforce this mess; this chaos
Or to carry their guns in our cities?
Young soldiers could not believe
We could conceive of this,
For the 52%, most of them deceived,
Who went to the ballot box
And voted to leave,
This is a ticking bomb, set
By our undemocratic government,
Who are using our military as a threat,
To push forward a dangerous agreement;
The clock ticking on a month’s postponement
In which they’ve gagged the rest of parliament,
“Quick, quick,”
The cabinet say,
Tick, Tock, Tick,
As time races away
On the fuse they lit,
Silencing calls for a people’s vote
As the populace turns against Brexit
And the government says “No”
To us choosing not to exit.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Better Watch Out
This one is written in the horror of knowing a homeless person was set on fire in their sleeping bag in our city. It is part of a wave of rising abuse. I wrote the song to the tune of ‘Santa Clause is Coming to Town’ – I’ve always found the original words a bit sinister. I’m aware the verse would scan better if I’d written ‘The Alt Right’ instead of Far-Righters but I don’t see them as ‘alternative’. This poem comes with strong trigger warnings.
You better watch out, you better not cry
Don’t sit this one out, I’m telling you why, cause
Far-righters are coming to town
They bankrolled Brexit, spreading its worst lies
They’ve got no reason or alibis, cause
Far-righters are coming to town
They burn homeless men while sleeping
Then record it all on tape
They’re terrorising neighbourhoods
With their mates the KKK!
[Chorus]
You better watch out, you better not cry
Don’t sit this one out, I’m telling you why, cause
Far-righters are coming to town.
We’re gonna resist with all of our might
Cause we still believe in the worth of each life,
But far-righters are coming to town.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
Windrush
This one’s for citizens who came on ‘Windrush’;
The generations that generated renewal
During and after the war, first dying in service,
Then more came to help rebuild, refuel,
Re-spark, here at the birth of the NHS,
Facing xenophobes, teddy boys, racists,
Yet ‘they’ are not ‘them’ but part of us,
Bought from across the Commonwealth,
And now, how can we expect their exodus?
It seems like ethnic cleansing by stealth,
Where history is bleached out; whitewashed
Until a nation perverts and destroys itself,
Every single Britain is a child of multiple migrations;
Our ancestors came in need, greed, fight or trade
Through millennia of voluntary or enforced relocations;
By discovery, captivity, by each road built, each stone laid,
Windrushers are the same, they came by invitation
Not by blade, treated as if the latest to invade,
Despite being part of our heartbeat, post devastation
In a shell-shocked, rationed kingdom, so we began again,
How soon civil rights, so hard won, seem stolen away;
As memories fade, bigotry plays on a loop, ingrained
But not innate, division is not fate but a kind of decay;
A deep rot that sets in when instability reigns,
We less aware of our internal struggles than the USA,
Of the grit it must have taken for Windrushers to stay,
Make this the land of their children’s, children’s, children,
When racism was not recognised as the crime it is today
And race riots began in Birmingham, Kensington, Brixton,
Many black citizens couldn’t vote or have their say
Until the British Nationality Act of 1981,
Yet black and ethnic minorities continued on, unfazed,
Discrimination was further written into institutions
Over decades bias lost battles, but was never erased,
Prejudice a virus, sometimes contained, rarely gone,
Now, in a separatist world, white-supremacist crusades
Are launched by government; an act of extremism,
A fictional homegrown enemy, House of Commons made;
Ministers like missiles misfiring, misdirected missions
Against longstanding citizens, a bill that spits on graves
Of war heroes, workers, scholars, in bloody amputations
Treating pioneers and entrepreneurs like discarded slaves,
These inhabitants who have enriched all known occupations,
These families, this part of our communally nourished culture;
Part of the whole, of ourselves, amid dire Brexit negotiations
These tax-payers now among those described as ‘the other’,
Look Britain, see how many are subject to alienation
Let’s ask ourselves this, do we want a fascist future;
A future of white-centric, little Island isolation?
Commonwealth nations once gathered to deter
A powerful regime of murderous oppression,
Beside world-wide allies, enduring together,
Then, with past foes, we birthed new protections
For peace and human dignities for many, forever,
Now, while many gains are squandered by negation
We open doors wide to every antique phobia;
To radical cultural and racial discriminations,
Alongside nationalistic anti-European patter,
And blinkered, blanket anti-immigration,
Irrational rhetoric, as fat cats get fatter,
Fed by rising injustices and violations,
Hidden by resulting clamour and chatter
Racists take advantage of mass confusion,
We forget yet again that black lives matter,
Backing people into traps of self-justification
As they are forced once more to strive
For all covered by the human rights declaration;
Home, country, community all potentially denied,
Policies of exclusion contrive new manifestations,
As if for some it is a crime to simply be alive,
We needed Windrush to swell a ravaged population,
Against the odds, they and their descendants thrived,
Yet they’re deprived of protections of patriation
As if being punished because they survived.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch