The name Jenny has a great deal of significance in my family as there were, sadly all now gone, three (some Jean or Jennifer). And each one pretty formidable, in particular my ex mother in-law who was the spitting image of the looked after social worker in my city. This poem has personal significance to me and I always found it pretty heart wrenching as it seems to allude to the Victorian exploitation of young girls by old men. Something that is fairly relevant to this post modern age still unfortunately due to the trafficking of young women around the world that has surfaced recently.
Grandma yelled out 'There's tails in the pan', And then it caught fire. So soon the draughty back playroom Got a new stove and Became the hub of the house.
But what of the old kitchen, Beneath the loft where I lay Frozen with the large windows all around, Bodget and squash Transformed it into a bog And a store, For mother's material For her market stall.
He hung his pain there, The stinking riddled bang birds, Put there to deter Anyone from entering more than once.
But mother was there In her store, Was she listening To the Dales Poacher above, Creeping up And sliding his hand under the fabric? Dark deeds, dark days, A stolen Testament of my youth.
He strung up his prey In the old kitchen's new bog, To keep the French girls away From the store with the stink.
A new loo in the new kitchen's cupboard instead, While he continued to poach My pancake flat baps, The poor cold bang birds beneath my bed, Hanging there riddled with flies.
Oh yes, father had it in mind to deter Visitors to the old bog In the older kitchen Hub of the house.
But wasn't mother next door in her store Sorting her fabric and writing her social studies? Her hearing was tuned To the creaks above, Or was she off to her jubilee committee nightly?
As if a dead pheasant myself, Stinking out the bus I lay lifeless limp and petrified each night.
For Charlie
Lord
Please be with women or their children who have disabilities,
Visual impairment, learning or physical disabilities,
And especially those with mental health disorders,
Surround and enfold them in your love,
And help them to live life to the full
Without fear or oppression.
Help us to bring an end to discrimination against people
Based on who or what they are.
Amen
A prayer for the committment service during my first holiday after my son went away, six years after, to Iona. It was the middle of the refugee crisis when all the people from war torn Middle Eastern countries and Afghanistan were walking across Europe to get to the deserted beaches of Scotland with their shimmering seas and cold clear skies. Washed up on the cliffs and beaches of Sussex or Essex first if they managed to survive the journey. We had a service featuring Paddington bear that reminded me of my son as his grandmother, Non, had given him those picture books, and he had done some lovely collages and cards of Paddington. And of course, his aunt had been a nanny in South America. At the time I liked this poem on the Statue of Liberty by Emma Lazarus.
My son always loved Annie Lennox, and she has such a soaring beautiful spirit, and that helped him with his autism and non-verbal learning disabiiites to learn about beautiful uplifting emotions and spirituality and expression of personality and identity. It may or may not have been until his eighteenth that he got to hear this song, Universal Child, but it was perfect for him at the time it came out. However, it didn’t help me to bring him home or prevent his suffering.
It isn’t just the impact on the human casualties at the time, but war is also a terrible contribution to global warming and desertification that wrecks the ecosystem. The impact of the wars in the first couple of decades of the new millennium will be felt for generations to come if we don’t change.
Detonators blowing
Every now and then
Causing tender ears of kids to bleed
Mines are placed,
Roads blocked
People being checked.
Harassed and stripped.
Feeble cries
Lost in the roar of the deafening blasts.
Roads soaked in blood.
But you’re busy greasing your muscles.
Celebrating your “victory”
Naming your massacre a defeat of the enemy.
Killing thousands in the name of nation or religion.To claim it […]
Sapphire Sea 