drip.........................drop.......................drip

Lemn Sissay

On Facebook said on the morning 31/5/12

Drip. How did we find ourselves casting the saviour of life as the enemy of the living. Drop

I replied -

without pure water we are doomed;

there is so little left,

spoilt and wasted by the rich boys

and fought over by nation states,

wrung from the poor,

drip drop

the percussion of a reminder

kicking up the scent of the place,

drip drop

counting the bars till the next rest,

drip drop

lest you forget

the time signature

of life's almost silent

beat

It is because we are disabled!

This is a response from the article 

Disability and the Return of Blame Culture

'It’s no longer enough to be disabled. One must, in modern Britain, be a type. Are you the real type? The genuine that is, the sort that sits there quietly and is grateful for any hand-out they receive. Showing a bit too much life, there? Then you’re a faker, dear, undoubtedly a scrounger – and that objecting attitude means you’re a manipulative threat. It’s not enough to be disabled in these days of cuts and exclusion. There’s a right way to be lame and a wrong way, and if you spot someone doing it wrong it’s your duty as an able-bodied to let someone know.'

http://socialwelfareunion.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/disability-and-the-return-of-blame-culture/

I realise this photo is blurred, 

but amazingly this is the view that the able bodied - the yet to be disabled - have of those with disabilities.

Disabled people are seen through blurred and pixelated false views.

Direct action by disabled people is never covered in the press in the same big up as a charity walk to the north pole with a Prince.......is it. Princes' even get awards for this............and the reward for the disabled, chronically sick and their families?, less support, poverty, removal of independence, lives broken , removal of support to work, our human rights flushed down the toilets that is the Political machines scape-goating by the sick souls of the powerful.

The true stories of the real and actual direct mass attack on the disabled, chronically sick and vulnerable by Government and their agents of callous disregard, THESE stories are passed over, ignored; it can not be true; you can not be serious!

Look at these pictures of the disabled again, see the distortions,  look for the real picture......

It is because we are disabled!

So hard working disabled activists

are not praised by the Government

like they espouse over hard working families?!

Is it because we is disabled, 

and only Goody Goody Charities should represent us?

These politicians and self proclaimed commentators 

spouting talk for 'the common good' 

and what Society can afford through distorted facts and pointed abuse,

are so two-faced, callous, ignorant and discriminating,

pushing the deceit button to fan the mean-hatred and scared part

of your mind-broken psyche

to break your trust and by pass your humanity, your heart. 

I am chronically sick

with invisible impairments 

(not a hope of qualifying for support

under the new 'Citizenship and Joy Through Hard Work' 

cancerous state assessment and flaunted media philosophies), 

and yet I am happy a lot of the time, and even show it..............

and I find that this emotion of happiness is not approved of 

as I am not raising money, 

receiving a cheque from a Charity, 

or competing in an endurance or sporting event; 

The looks I get is that I should be suffering if I am disabled, 

not making the best of my life, my friends and life and myself!

If I am happy, does that make me 'fit for work', 

not in need of support or disability entitlements, 

reasonable adjustments, 

a Scrounger? 

This would seem to be the way things are going

with all the anti-disability rhetoric and discrimination in the media and politics. 

Who will represent us?; 

only our hard grind 

get-through-life-despite-our-impairments determined selves, 

winning over our own impairments and the added 

growing weight

of this Societies continual drip drip 

now pouring verbal and actual targeted and concerted vile discrimination. 

It is because we are disabled?

is the moon any good at parallel-parking...I hope so

May the tides of your life lift you from the mud banks when you need it,
not drown you in emotional tsunamis when you are not ready.
you can always run to the hills
or open your heart to dreams in the twilight

if the perigee full moon is too close for comfort.

May your heart always be with you (it always is there for you)
and the stars reassure you. ( they are always there for you)
The sky will not fall

Homework exercises

I have signed up to a Summer Poetry School with Rommi Smith, and we get home work!
Great, so different from when I was at school ghost summers ago, when the weather in the summer was predictable and I hated ALL home work, and struggled with the undiagnosed dyslexia, which has turned into a blessing for me nowadays....years of school reports saying 'if only he could spell' 'why can't he be neater in his work' and a university career, pre-computer, pre-internet, pre-mobile phone, pre-on-suite-bathrooms, when I made sure I wrote lots, put dots over every word in case there was an i in it, and produced basically illegible scrawl for essays and exam work. I think I got my degree on the weight of paper I submitted, I could hardly read them either...

So my home work, see copies below, computer written spell checked, and a real joy to do and a change of subjects for me; things I would not have touched on without someone else's eye and sense of direction , an exercise in using words of ugliness in a poem of beauty and a pop at the mountain of a subject, the BBC shipping Forecast of the UK   - this just the first week too...so happy.

The scent of a rose after sudden rainfall

The rain has at last stopped its discrimination against the sun

For it felt superior to this shining.

The torture of the rain drops water-boarding the roses

Has resulted in serious wounds.

The scars of ground-strewn sodden petals are wealds on the soil.

Arising scent, released from the thunderstorm’s oppression

Exploits its transcending sense

To fill the air and my eager nostrils with its calling.

Ignored passions,

Held in dulled and darkened slavery

Are now, in this rain break, set free.

And because this is so deeply welcomed,

This is not an act of sensory rape.

My heart rises on these wind-born wisps of teasing pleasure,

And un-shackles me from this moment,

Kills the passage of time

Awakens word-free life-connected joy,

And transports memory and spirit to the palaces and gardens of the blessed.

In Ten (long) Lines – The Shipping Forecast for the British Isles

This kiln-fired, time-fixed ritual, fleetingly frames the changing sea weather in a rhythm of word song.

Brings repeated numbering and quiet spoken lullabies to the storm borne and battered brain

Ridding the growing ocean-long-reach waves as they crown the rock lighthouses, piers and sea walls.

The ear is soothed by the security of this slight sound changing repetition that names

The Air and the Sea and the Land and the Wind and the compasses boxed boundaries,

Chasses the pressure driven jet stream flotsam of Mother Earth’s endless spin and circling Sun’s dance.

Strange flowering phrases of rigid familiarity allow the details to draw back and flow on the spoken ebb,

Providing a comforting spirit-harbour to this ship and small boat Moon, this low Tide and rip-driven Life.

If we would listen to and trust our deep-soul-forecast past the gathered storm-clouds and star lit barnacled reefs,

Like the anticyclone high, we will lose our sector and quadrant-named, shore-snatched, brief identities