On Realising

Cobweb-covered fingers:

The flesh of eons 

One might think was stone 

As it had always been there,

Was in its perfect place.

Yet here it breathed, 

Despite the dust settled on its skin 

That changed its sheen 

To a misty mirage. 

Realising its aliveness 

The hand shook off its shroud, 

Danced from still to wild,

And though it moved 

Until at last again 

It found stillness, 

It would never go back.

A Poem for Moments of Anxiety

We move through hot and cold,
Hot and cold.

There is grass;
There is sky;
There is breath.....

Are you paying attention to the
Punctuation?
The pauses:
There to let you take your time;
There to allow a slowing down.

There is no hurry.

Let's start again.

We move through hot and cold,
Hot and cold.

There is grass;
There is sky;
There is breath.....
Solid earth supports us;
And there is more air
Than we can ever draw into our lungs.

There is a woman of years,
Her thin, soft skin
Sags gently in paper wrinkles:
I want to follow them with my finger,
Experience such delicacy
That could tear open,
If pressed with more than the lightest touch.

Dragonflies dance,
Flashing their iridescence
In waves of sunlight.
Their turquoise hue matches my mascara,
Though I don't think they've noticed:
They are utterly absorbed in what they are doing.

Here is breath;
Here are fingers;
Here is flesh.....

I am steadfast as a tree trunk,
As light as a leaf.

In-spire.....
Out-spire.....
No need for anything more.

Yodok: The Concentration Camps of North Korea

(Trigger Warning for those of sensitive disposition - 

but please read it if you can and spread the word to raise awareness)

I do not want to read any more.

But I will not do them the disservice of denial.

So I carry on – as they somehow do -

Carrying my heartbreak with me.

Here we have freedom of expression;

There to roll a cigarette from a scrap of newspaper

Which may have once contained a portrait of their leader

Lands you and three generations of your family

In living hell.

Here we can watch and laugh

At celebrities on tv eating grubs

For points in pointless gameshows.

There, their hunger gnaws at their insides,

Turns beautiful humans into living shells;

Where children, yes children,

Given no food,

Are forced to eat rats and insects,

The bark from trees;

Where a man is so desperate

He tries to eat a whip

Because it's made of oxtail.

But a guard catches him;

Forces him to eat intestinal worms from the latrine.

Unsurprisingly he dies.

Here we have healthcare, contraception, family planning, ivf, midwives;

Choice.

There, your child is born a slave

Or an unauthorised pregnancy

Means giving birth then being made

To drown your baby in a bucket of water.

Here we have freedom of movement;

There, no-one escapes.

Here we have the opportunity to live to our full potential;

There, indignity and suffering

Is all life has to offer.

There, they are raped,

Shackled in chains,

Forced to work 16 hour days of hard labour

Where at times they choose to do something

They know will result in being beaten

Simply so they get a chance to rest.

Where they live in rags in their own filth mixed with lice

In cages with no heat in -20degrees;

Where they are made to dig their own graves,

See their families executed in front of them.

Here, our officers and guards

Are prosecuted for misconduct;

There they are rewarded with college

If they kill people trying to flee:

They do it,disguising their own terror,

Their 'thank God it's not me'

With the fiercest brutality.

And the ones with conscious hearts

Who try to smuggle food to prisoners

Are demoted;

Moved away.

The horror is relentless.

I could feel guilt at my own aliveness.

Instead I use it to

Read on, to write, to speak

In hope

I carry for those with none,

That if enough people wake up

To the truth

Then we can, together,

Light a candle in the darkness.

For once, we said

'Never again';

Yet for the people of Yodok,

It still is.

You can donate to Amnesty by clicking here to help bring light to those with none

What it Means to You

Don't tell me what you don't want.
Tell me what fires your spirit into action.
Tell me what you dream of in those fleeting moments 
Before you're interrupted by mundanity.
I want to hear what you love;
What breaks your heart open;
What makes your being sing!

I want to hear about your sorrows,
The things that truly terrify you,
The things which make you enraged,
The deepest grief, despair and disappointments
Your heart has ever had to bear -
I want to know them all
Because I want to know you.

The you who is filled with all the world offers,
Emptied of all hope, all faith - 
Utterly human whether or not you want to be.
Tell me what you want to fight for,
What you want to love with your whole self,
For I want to know, to you,
What it means to be alive.