Who punishes a mother
with her children’s tears?
Who puts a little child
into a cage?
Who are the cage makers
the child breakers?
Is this America?
Cry me a lullaby for innocence
sing me a hymn to liberty
fly freedom’s banner
on your prison camps
tell me your wall
will make me free…
I don’t believe you.
Bring me your parents
and your grandparents
the hopeful souls
who came before you
as migrants to this land
and ask them
hand on heart
“Is this America?”
What maggot eats
a human heart
that it would follow
willingly
a sly pied piper
peddling old lies
who wears the flag
like a cheap salesman’s smile?
What dark music
draws us on
cheering and chanting
in an insane dance
towards a truthless land
where fear and hatred
are the people’s daily bread?
Already unseen hands
tap out orders
as behind the wire
faceless guards
take children
from their mothers.
Who perpetrates
such acts of separation
from their own humanity?
It could be any one of us
when the only choice
is guard or prisoner.
Choose.
We are not there yet.
Choose now
before the gates close.
Choose to defend
the hard won freedoms
that are every human’s right
before law dances to the piper’s tune
and fear trumps justice
and betrays the just.
Choose to resist
the piping pedlar
he is the reaper in disguise.
Choose to hold on tight
to your humanity
wear it like a hazard suit
around your heart
for you will need it.
Those who would buy their freedom
with the suffering of innocents
sell everything a human heart holds dear.
Silence!
I’m speaking
I, woman
naked
before the mirror
of truth
no disguise
no make-up
no emperor’s wife’s
new clothes
emperor – ha!
no more emperors
no more sun kings
this is an age
of moon goddesses
and you
ridiculous little man
without me
you were never even born
silence, spermatozoid
silence
I’m singing
I, woman
naked and proud
singing the moon
in triumph
at the origin of the world.
On March 1st 2017, the Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke, said in the European Parliament that women are weaker, smaller, and less intelligent than men.
‘The Origin of the World’ by Gustave Courbet 1866, is in the Musée d’Orsay.
Trouble maker, that’s me
attention seeker
imagining things
raking up the past
digging up dirt
spoiling everything
yeah, right
ungrateful
unreliable
selfish
disloyal
yeah, whatever you say
guilty as charged
ashamed
intimidated
broken
afraid
no, I won’t tell anyone else
I’ll go away and be quiet now
gagged, that’s me
blocked
deleted
shredded
destroyed
just a blank space really
no “me too”
no me.
The cladding melted
fell from our eyes
with the bodies of our children
the illusion of a caring society
gone up in smoke
we see with the eyes of the dead now
staring out from hollow windows
of black towering truth…
Prejudice fanned into flame with newspaper
smears soot-stained into walls
facts distorted into twisted metal
figures spun into smoke
humanity costed into ash
behind closed doors
twenty-four floors of hopes and dreams
incinerated like rubbish…
The anger of the poor
once lit
burns deep
and only justice
can extinguish it
we see with the eyes of the dead now
we know what the dead know
we are not to blame.
For the people of Grenfell Tower, living and dead.
(To the proprietors of the pro-Brexit press, sundry trolls, and anyone else who tells me to shut up and get over it.)
Don’t tell me how to love
the country of my birth
don’t tell me that to love my country
I must be like you
and not like me
Don’t tell that you built my country
on your wealth
or won my country on the battlefield
Your wealth was stolen from the womb
of mother Africa
plundered from other homelands
painted red and called The Empire.
My country was not won
in far-off lands
where brave men paid the price
of madmen’s sins
My country was woven in the mills of Lancashire
from cotton picked by brothers and sisters
some called slaves,
and hewn in darkness down the pit
by coalminers
My country was carried on the backs
of common labourers
forged in the sweat of steel-workers
and fed by farmhands
working in the fields
from dawn till dusk
My country was told in folktales
wound round maypoles
danced in clogs
and gathered in at harvest time
by common men and women
just like me.
So don’t tell me how to be British
The Tolpuddle martyrs were British
The men and women at Peterloo were British
Percy Shelley and William Blake were British
the Suffragettes were British
the Conscientious Objectors were British
the trespassers on Kinder Scout were British
the Committee of One Hundred were British
the women of Greenham Common were British
my mum and dad who hated violence
but fought a war to stop Hitler and his Nazis
were British
the 16 million who voted to stay
in the European Union were British
to name but a few
so don’t tell me I must be like you
and not like them
and not like me.
Don’t tell me that I cannot love
another country
or a continent
or all the continents and oceans
of this planet earth
You do not own
the people’s heart
and you cannot define me
and I will take no lessons
in patriotism
from the rattling ghost
of Empire past.
declarations
treaties
wars begin
and end
with words
and in between
the unspeakable
lost
for words
fail me
walls
falling
blind choking
fingers reaching
towards the light
life reaching
up through ruined
war-machined
paralysis
voices reaching
up beyond
indifferent
ice clouds
to that space
where there are
still words
still hope
of an ending.
For years,
we sat in silence
tearing out our eyes
for fear of darkness,
biting off our tongues
for fear of lies
for years
fearful and lost
whilst gaolers jangled keys
and swaggered
and echoes whimpered
in the endless corridors
each blind eye
and silent tongue
turns the key more surely
on each hostage heart
and walls each one of us
into the solitary prisons
of an aching world
but it is time now
time to look
time to speak
we are humanity
and we are neither blind
nor silent
only look evil in the face
and speak its name
and all the choirs of history
shall sing unbound
and before us
no dark lie shall hold.
Pamela Ireland Duffy
I have written poems since childhood, but rarely showed them to others. I have lived in France since 1988, and although I haven’t abandoned my native tongue, I write mostly in French, having been lucky enough to find support and encouragement in various writing groups.
I am not a silent poet 