If you wish

Though my mind
Is not like yours
Slightly in tatters
I still try to be a friend
Here you can share my thoughts
As the world spins round
Making us dizzy
As life rotates
I will be what I am
And you will too
Carried by peaceful currents
Unafraid, if you wish.

The Tories conscious cruelty is simply no laughing matter.

The Tories are taken us through the biggest cuts to welfare for 100 years, another vicious assault on people on benefits.Cuts to ESA  Employment Support Allowance will see payments for many new claimants reduced by around £30 a week, despite the Department for Work and Pensions admitting those affected will have been found unable to work following a Work Capability Assessment.
The changes, which come into force for new claims from April 2017, affect those placed in the Work Related Activity Group of ESA and will see payments reduced to the equivalent of Jobseeker’s Allowance.The Tory's claim  that these cuts are a in a bid to encourage those living with a disability to find employment, reducing the allowance to £73.10 a week, that of standard job seeker’s allowance.But it is just another example of their conscious cruelty, which is  deliberate and purposeful aimed to hurt many deeply.
Another attack on those already who are the hardest hit, disabled people,the poor, the sick,the marginalised, and vulnerable.It really saddens me that those outside the comfort blanket of society, stuck in the quaqmire of insecurity are treated like pawns in a game of chess, sacrificed  and abandoned so easily.These cuts will not help motivate people towards work,if anything it will push certain people, already in difficult circumstances, faced with mental health problems further away from work and make it harder for them to manage their condition and drive us all into deeper poverty, putting lives at risk, which does not offer even a morsel of hope to those that most deserve it.
On  top of this Theresa May has plans to restrict access to disability benefits known as Personal Independent Payments.The courts recently ruled that people who find it difficult to leave the house because of mental illness should be awarded the higher rate of PIP. Rather than adhering to the rulings of two tribunals, the Government announced that they would rewrite the law, hence denying benefits for more than 160,000 people with mental illness.Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, said: “People who find it difficult to leave the house because of anxiety, panic attacks, and other mental health problems are as restricted in their independence as many people with physical mobility problems, and face just as many higher costs in their daily lives as other disabled people do.
This all comes after the government has repeatedly stated the government is committed to building a country that works for everyone, but the truth of the matter is they simply could not give a damn.
The Tories once again  showing their complete and utter contempt for the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable. During the Budget Chancellor Hammond still managed to press ahead with tax cuts on corporate profits, capital gains and inherited wealth. At least Jeremy Corbyn had the tenacity to respond with a  very powerful speech after  Hammond delivered his cruel budget and raised concerns that are affecting millions of people across Britain. He talked about the effects Tory austerity is having on the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable. He talked about the effects welfare cuts will have on the disabled and working families. He talked about the crisis that is crippling the NHS. He talked about the Tories’ new ‘rape clause’ which has been imposed on Child Benefit. He talked about the effects Tory cuts are having on public services. He talked about underpaid and overworked public sector workers. He talked about inequality. He talked about zero hours contracts and low pay. He talked about the social care crisis. He talked about tax cuts for large corporations and the rich, while the self-employed get a National Insurance hike. He talked about wage poverty and soaring utility bills and inflation. He talked about the housing shortage and homelessness. He talked about the lack of support for mental health sufferers. He talked about cuts to Bereavement Benefit and how widowed parents will struggle. He talked about the effect Housing Benefit cuts will have on young people aged 18 to 21. He talked about women’s rights and the effects Tory austerity is having on women and mothers. And he talked about the pressures that are affecting ordinary people across the country.
While he was doing this, the Tories just sat there laughing, jeering and heckling like the evil so and so's they are, as they keep causing misery to millions of peoples lives. This is certainly no laughing matter.They truly are a nasty lot. FFS sake enough is enough. In the meantime if you could sign the following petition, it would be much appreciated. Cheers.

Treat people with mental health issues fairly under PIP


https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/pip-mental-health-cuts?utm_campaign=LLWUlV2oZJ&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=member

Not yet broken

There are times of trouble and stress
Just look at the state of the world,
It really is in one hell of a mess
Humanity repeatedly smashing itself into pieces,
Tension drowning us in sombre melancholy
Discordant notes dispensing division
Crushing hope and ambition,
As beauty and strength fades away.
Spring returns calling at your door
Bringing the flowers to bloom once more,
Can help  put back a smile on your face
This game of survival, this seasons annual race,
Allows us stop a while, let our minds reflect
As friendship arrives again, never to tired,
Without hesitation we can set course on  new
                                                        destination
Experimenting with home made cures and lotions,
Recording, adapting new dimensions of meaning
Mind awakened can carry on, not yet broken.

Music Freedom Day 2017

FEMALE ARTISTS SPEAK OUT FOR MUSIC FREEDOM DAY!


Everyone has the right to music, both as a mechanism of expression and enjoyment. Freemuse, a Copenhagen-based international organization, established March 3^rd as Music Freedom Day, in order to advocate for musicians’ right to freedom of expression; to carry out their craft without fear of oppression, imprisonment, or censorship. Between 2007, when Music Freedom Day was launched, and 2014, more than 100 partners and collaborators in 36 countries have joined the annual event. The combination of campaigns such as Music Freedom Day, silent diplomacy, and political developments has helped foster the release of artists around the world.
Founded in 1998, Freemuse documents infringements on the rights of musicians around the world. Since 2011 Freemuse has broadened its scope to include projects advocating freedom of all artistic expressions and initiated the global network Artsfex for the protection of artistic freedom. Freemuse collaborates with associates around the world to incorporate their research in nations’ Universal Periodic Reviews to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The right to freedom of expression is articulated in international agreements on human rights. Article 19, of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and articles 27 and 15 of the UDHR and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) respectively, convey one’s right to music. These articles include the right to freedom of opinion and expression via any media, as well as the freedom to participate in cultural life and enjoy the arts. These pieces of international law dictate musicians’ freedom to express themselves through their art, as well as the right of all people to experience music without fear or negative repercussions.
Despite its explicit protection in international law, the right to music remains in jeopardy today.  In every region of the world, musicians are subject to persecution, censorship, and other threats to their personal safety and freedom. The statistics for 2015 noted 469 violations in over 70 different nations, approximately twice the number of cases from 2014. Censorship accounted for nearly half of these infringements, followed by prosecution, oppression, and imprisonment. Freemuse breaks censorship down into four distinct categories: political, religious, corporate, and censorship against women. While the historical majority of violations are grounded in politics, there was a significant rise in religiously motivated attacks on musical freedom in 2015.
Music Freedom Day (MFD) is a powerful, united manifestation to support persecuted, prosecuted and imprisoned musicians, many of whose only crime has been that they have spoken up against authorities and insisted on the right to express themselves through their music. Worldwide, musicians’ and composers’ rights to freedom of expression are violated, but the strong support for Music Freedom Day every year demonstrates the will to continue the advocacy and defense for the universal rights to compose, perform and participate in musical activities.
Today March 3rd 2017 MFD makes a special focus on women performers and female musicians. In some countries women are not allowed to sing or play instruments and have been threatened, assaulted, persecuted and even killed. Additionally women face especially difficult conditions in many countries as performers and are often subject to discrimination, sexual objectification and unfair industry conditions.In celebration and protection of women’s voices, artists from Afghanistan to Sweden stand in solidarity with women musicians who are censored, attacked, persecuted, imprisoned or even killed simply for making music.
Join the global event here: Music Freedom Day 2017
Music can be a very powerful tool,  it should not be a crime, it is also a human right.

www.musicfreedomday.org

Harri Webb (7/9/20 - 31/12/94) - The Red, White and Green

A poem for St David's Day

Harri Webb was one of Wales's most popular poets, known for his wit and erudition , for his historical perspective and awareness of contemporary realities, and in Wales he enjoyed the status of People's Poet.
Born in Swansea, spent much of his life as a librarian, in Mountain Ash and Merthyr Tydfil. In the 1970's he took part in the BBC Wales programme, Poems and Pints.
Though he was an individualist, his political slant was one of Welsh Republican Socialism.
After a long period of illness he moved to St. David's Nursing Home in St.Helen's Road, Swansea.
It was here that he died in his sleep on the morning of 31 December 1994.

The Red, White and Green
reprinted from
Harri Webb / Collected Poems
Gomer, 1995.

On the first day of March we remember
St.David the pride of our land,
Who taught us the stern path of duty
And for freedom and truth made a stand.

So here's to the sons of Saint David,
Those youngsters so loyal and keen
Who'll haul down the red, white and blue, lads,
And hoist up the red, white and green.

In the dark gloomy days of December
We mourn for Llywellyn with pride
Who fell in defence of his country
With eighteen brave men by his side.

So here's to the sons of LLywellyn,
The heirs of that valiant eighteen
Who'll haul down the red, white and blue, lads,
And hoist up the red, white and green.

In the warm, golden days of September,
Great Owain Glyndwr took the field,
For fiften long years did he struggle
And never the dragon did yield.

So here's to the son of Great Owain,
Who'll show the proud Sais what we mean
When we haul down the red, white and blue, lads,
And hoist up the red, white and green.

There are many more names to remember
And some that will never be known
Who were loyal to Wales and the gwerin
And defied all the might of the throne.

So here's to the sons of the gwerin
Who care not for the prince or for queen,
Who'll haul down the red, white and blue, lads,
And hoist up the red, white and green!

By the way, I love Wales
But avoid the nationalism
I prefer the mystical, deep streams
Let no man be a slave - heddwch/Peace

Israeli Apartheid Week

 

Israeli Apartheid Week, (now in its 13th year) is an annual international series of events held in 200 cities and campuses across across the globe over the next two months.IAW 2017 also marks 100 years of Palestinian resistance against settler-colonialism, since the inception of the Balfour Declaration. It hopes to educate people about the nature of Israel. Demanding full equality for Arab citizens of Israel and an end to what is known as the occupation and the dismantling of the apartheid wall, with the protection of Palestinians, and their right to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N resolution 194. It will be launched in London next Tuesday.There will be exciting discussions, concerts, panels, film screenings and creative actions to raise awareness about Israel’s illegal settler-colonial project, military occupation and apartheid system over the Palestinian people, and to build support for the growing BDS movement for Palestinian rights.Check out the program, or build and register your own, and attend:

http://apartheidweek.org
Calling the Israeli regime as one of apartheid is not rhetoric, nor is it an exaggeration or a propaganda tool. This is the reality in modern day Palestine, where the Israeli regime is based on discrimination, through laws,practices and most aspects of life and the policies instituted by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people meets the UN definition of Apartheid. This apartheid regime is not only imposed on the people in Palestine, but also on millions of Palestinian refugees denied their right to return to their homes and lands.
In effect, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory constitute one territorial unit under full Israeli control. As of 2015, of the total population of people that live in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, around 6.6 million are Jewish Israelis and about 6.4 million are Palestinians.Under Israeli law, and in practice, Jewish Israelis and Palestinians are treated differently in almost every aspect of life including freedom of movement, family, housing, education, employment and other basic human rights. Dozens of Israeli laws and policies institutionalise this prevailing system of racial discrimination and domination.
The occupation Wall is also another element of the wider system of severe restrictions on the freedom of movement imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian residents of the West Bank. There are over 600 closure obstacles blocking Palestinian movement within the West Bank. In addition, the system of roads is segregated: travel on hundreds of kilometres in the West Bank is restricted or prohibited outright for Palestinians, whereby Israelis are able to travel about freely. About one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is completely prohibited to Palestinians without a special permit issued by the Israeli military.
These severe restrictions violate not only the right to freedom of movement,they also effectively prevent Palestinian residents from exercising a wide range of fundamental human rights because of their identity, including their right to work, to health, to education and to an adequate standard of living. Farmers are stopped from assessing their fields and thus from exercising their right to sustain their livelihood. Many Palestinians are also prevented from seeking work outside their locality. Children are prevented from accessing schools and students face restrictions in choosing their university of choice. Patients are prevented from assessing hospitals, blocking them from exercising their right to the highest sustainable standard of health.  Israel has in effect created a system of seperation in the West Bank which fits the textbook definition of apartheid. Segregation is also carried out by implementing separate legal regimes for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians living in the same area. For example, Jewish Israeli settlers living in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are governed by Israeli civil law, while Palestinians also living in the occupied West Bank are governed by Israeli military law.All this combined  with murder, torture, unlawful imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty, especially of Palestinians living in Gaza, and the ongoing persecution of Palestinians because of their opposition to Apartheid.
As awareness across the world of all of this continues to increase  campaigns to boycott, divest and sanction this regime provide a very effective and natural response. The world witnessed a similar response transpire and bare fruit in the case of South Africa, and there are very good reasons to believe that it will do the same in the case of Palestine.

 “One has to keep telling the Palestinian story in as many ways as possible, as insistently as possible, and in as compelling a way as possible, to keep attention to it, because there is always the fear that it might just disappear.” ( Edward Said, 2003).

Threads ( An attempt at a sonnet)

When the dawn tumbles towards us
Is the glass half empty or half full?
Frightened of the daily news
People grow fierce, poets keep vigil,
Reciting incantations stitched with diversity
Hungry eyes stop us from falling,
Yearning for something different
Continue  building something new,
We are all related, all carrying different stories
Dreamers and risk takers passing through,
Holding together various points of view
Twisting and contorting like free birds,
In our various struggles try to renew
a new sense of human possibility

Songs are like rivers - John Berger (5/11/26 - 2/1/16)

'Songs connect, collect and bring together. Even when not being sung they are attendant assembly-points.
The words of songs are different from the words that make prose. In prose, words are independent agents; in songs, they are first and foremost the intimate sounds of their mother tongue. They signify what they signify, and at the same time they address or flow toward all the words that exist in that language.
Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything came. The fact that in many languages the place where a river enters the sea is called the river’s mouth emphasizes the comparison. The waters that flow out of a river’s mouth have come from an immense elsewhere. And something similar happens with what comes out of the mouth of a song.

John Berger -  'Confabulations’

 John Berger - About Song and Laughter

Sukhdev Sandhu introduces a rare radio-minded feature by the late celebrated critic, novelist and thinker John Berger.  Berger talks about the songs in his life and about Charlie Chaplin's radical power. Featuring Katya Berger and the music of Woody Guthrie, Cesaria Evora and Yasmin Hamdam among others. Producer: Tim Dee.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05sxz6l

an earlier tribute of mine to the man can  be found here:-

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/rip-john-berger-goodbye-to-beautiful.html

Gunnar Ekelöf (15/9/07 -16/3/68) - Everyone is a World

 Gunnar Ekelöf , was a Swedish poet, a socialist, born in Stockholm. His first collection Late Arrival on Earth, 1932, established his reputation as Swedens most outstanding modern poet. His work draws attention to the immediacy of life rather than to the presence of the past.He was influenced by the French poets Baudelaire and Rimbaud. His collection Sent på jorden (Late Arrival on Earth), 1932, introduced surrealism into Swedish poetry. He often used an 'invisible hinge; between opposites, acknowledging the immediate counterpart of his statements. After his death in 1968 in Sigtuna, his ashes were scattered in the tiver Sardis, near the cult of Artemis. He remains a true alchemist of words.

Everyone is a World

Everyone is a world, peopled
by blind beings in dark commotion
against the self the king who rules them.
In every soul thousands of souls are trapped,
in every world thousands of worlds are hidden
by blind beings in dark commotion
against the self the King who rules them.
In every soul thousands of souls are trapped,
in every world thousands of worlds are hidden
and these blind, these underworlds
are real and living, though incomplete,
as true as I am real. And we kings
and princes of the thousand possibilities in us
are ourselves servants trapped
in some greater creature, whose self and being
we grasp as little as our own superior
his superior. Our own feelings have taken
the color of their love and death.

As when a mighty steamship passes
far out, under the horizon, lying
in the evening glitter - And we don't know about it
until the swell reaches us on the shore,
first one, then another, and then many
which strike and bloom until everything has become
as before, - Yet everything is different.

So we shades are troubled by a strange unease
When something tells us that others have gone ahead,
That some of the possibilities have been released.

Audre Lorde (18/2/34 - 17/11/ 92) - Litany for Survival / Love Poem

On this date in 1934, Feminist,Poet. Civil rights activist. Anti-war activist. Gay rights activist.poet  Audre Lorde was born  of Caribbean   parents  in Harlem. In her own words, she was: "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet."and was also a factory worker, social worker, X-ray technician, librarian, civil rights activist, communist and more 

Audre Lorde dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Her poetry, and “indeed all of her writing,” according to contributor Joan Martin in Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, “rings with passion, sincerity, perception, and depth of feeling.” Concerned with modern society’s tendency to categorize groups of people, Lorde fought the marginalization of such categories as “lesbian” and “black woman,” thereby empowering her readers to react to the prejudice in their own lives.

Starting to write at an early age, Lorde was first published in Seventeen magazine while in high school.As society progressed with the anti-war, feminist and civil rights movements, Audre moved from themes of love to more political and personal matters. In the 1960s, she graduated from Columbia University and began to participate in the feminist, LGBT+ and civil rights movement of the time, where she contested the class discrimination and racism existing in the feminist movement, which was generally focused around the experiences of white women. 

Lorde identified the wide and varied experiences of women in matters of class, race, age, sex and even health, which is often referred to today as "intersectionality", noting that “there is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives”. She  used her platform as a writer to spread ideas and experiences about the intersecting oppressions faced by many people.  Her poetry developed an angry aura as she became more involved in activism but developed into an emotionally-supportive outlet and connected her to the world of politics with well-known figures like Langston Hughes. Lorde shaped the Black Arts Movment with her powerful writings on  racism, sexism, homophobia and police violence.

Author of the controversial essay "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House." In 1980 she co-founded (with Barbara Smith and Cherrie Moraga) a feminist publishing company called "Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press," the first publisher for women of color in the United States.
After battling with cancer for more than a decade, Lorde died in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, at the age of 58 in 1992 after battling with cancer for more than a decade.She was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea. Throughout her battle, she found inspiration through her struggle as she documented in the 1980 special edition issue of the Cancer Journals. Her story included a feminist analysis of her experience with the disease and mastectomy. Before passing away, Audre changed her name to Gambda Adisa which means “Warrior” or “she who makes her meaning known.” Her writings have become increasingly influential since her death.

" There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives " - Audre Lorde

“Poetry is not only a dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”- Audre Lorde 

Litany for Survival  - Audre Lorde

'For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

Audre Lorde - Love Poem

Speak earth and bless me with what is richest
make sky flow honey out of my hips
rigis mountains
spread over a valley
carved out by the mouth of rain.

And I knew when I entered her I was
high wind in her forests hollow
fingers whispering sound
honey flowed
from the split cup
impaled on a lance of tongues
on the tips of her breasts on her navel
and my breath
howling into her entrances
through lungs of pain.

Greedy as herring-gulls
or a child
I swing out over the earth
over and over
again.