IWD 2024

 The Insurgence

He crushed

Brushed me

Aside 

Like crumbs on a table

Only he preferred the bread

He wanted me dead

He lanced me

A boil leaking

Unnoticed

Only my frame remained

Empty

A good place to begin

Before Him

To let the flow in

Rush deep 

Into the seas I swim

A gathering of pieces lost

A space you cannot win.

Resolution

 Fully. Wholly. Holy.

She took off being lonely.

Held. Heard. Unfurled.

She put on being lowly.

Community

 The net that holds

The arms that fold

Suffering into the centre

Turning it into pizza.

Him

 You slowly stripped 

our souls.

With fists that dripped

malevolence.

Words that chipped

holes.

Into our bones.

One 

disappointed 

sentence

at 

a 

 time.

A List poem on Grief

 Absence louder than presence

Pervasive pain

Ruining my egg sandwich

Tastes good with a red

A long held longing

For that forever gone

The dead and the dying

The fear and the flying

 Who am I without them

My edges shaped by loss

The thick of night before dawn

The day which never comes

Surprising laugher

Guiltily smothered

A hushed embrace

The silence of those

Who don't want to get it wrong

Carrying a quiet void

Not quite hidden by eyeliner

That ever shifting sand

Oh I think I'm ok now

And then I am drowning.

Fire

I am unafraid of the apocalypse

For it already lies within me.

The burning bush is no matter 

When my insides are aflame.

The destruction that abounds 

Is no match for the unceasing

Screaming of my soul. 

Goodbye

I AM NOT ENOUGH 

TO KEEP HIM 

HIS ABSENCE LOUDER 

THAN HIS

"I MISS YOU"

Cliffs

 I walked too close to the edge 

For far too many years

Obedience and pain the same

My friend the path of fear.

But my feet are planted now

My eyes are on the sea

Where safety was a far off dream

Is now a joy to me.

Birthday Beginnings

 She closed the gate on her worry

And shut the door on her fears.

She lay down with her Good Shepherd

Let Him whisper in her ears

"This year is yours for freedom love"

So she let the still waters in.

The tide that washed the pain away

Is the current that lets life begin.

Collioure

 Those streets that keep

My childhood sleep

With no record of the score

Where pain is lost and tossed

Like waves

And I ate cherries on the shore.

Sabbath

My tightly coiled mind unravels here,

A ribbon loosed by the breeze.

Untethered to the size of my thighs,

Woven instead among the trees.

A few days in the Oaken Fort and I am realigned.

Happy New Year

 

He is Home

 “When the ground around feels fragile

And your feet falter

Go slow then and know 

That Heaven’s rest is now his home

Where chaos meets perfect order 

and souls are made new.”

A French Revolution of My Own

In my heart’s home I am healed

By the land and Your hand as I stand 

Here.

I am a girl and grown all at once in this place

Trapped in the spaces of the past

And at once flung forward into a 

Free future not yet known.

Perhaps my day of glory has now arrived

Built on the years gone before

Wrought in my very own war

This is my liberty. Beloved liberty.

The value of a refugee

A serpent refugee

A person in need

Do you hate my skin

Blonde gets you in

In a wood in a tent

Welcome home have a bed

My wounds are unseen

Hotel showers make you clean

A lorry again tonight

Private jet, direct flight 

Does anyone there see us

Here have your visas 

Easier perhaps to be dead 

than 

to

inconvenience 

anyone 

by

p r o c e s s i n g

me.

I think that non-discriminate abundant care and extravagant generosity should be given to anyone who flees their home because of war, persecution or danger.

I don’t think our government have gone anywhere near far enough to accommodate and support the people of Ukraine and the other countries in Europe in assisting them.

It is clear that there is a massive need and it is right and just that those who have much and who are safe should want to afford that to those that don’t (through no fault of their own).

I cannot get the refugees stuck in Calais and Dunkirk out of my mind though. I keep imagining how it must feel to be so desperate to be humanised whilst being treated like dogs and rats, driven out of make-shift shelters again and again by the French police and ignored by the British government. What do they think when they see Ukrainian refugees (rightly) being given access to hotels and spare rooms in people’s homes? I can’t fathom the suffering of those who have already escaped war, travelled so far, risked everything only to find that somehow their exodus is less valid, that their torment is less traumatising.

I wrote a poem a couple of years ago from the ignorant and demeaning perspective unfortunately held by some people in Britain; those who view refugees as snakes to be stood upon. It’s in the old archives here if you’re bored and want something to read.

International Women’s Day 2022

Animal/Human

Property/Home

Pay gap/Close the gap/Close your legs

Bleed.

Broken/Dreaming

Child bride/Grown

Rich girl/Poor girl/Dead girl

Bleed.

Silenced/Singing

Gutter/Throne

Who cares/Who’s there/Who sees

Bleed.

Lost/Chosen

In the dark/Known

His life/New life/Whole life

Freed.

You can’t say “Happy International Women’s  Day” until you acknowledge that it isn’t happy to have to protect yourself from the police. 

The idea of women’s inferiority has been propagated for far too long and feminism isn’t a cry of superiority but a call to be considered as a soul not an object. This day is a challenge for me and all of us to ensure that the future looks different to the present and the past. Grateful for Jesus who saw women exactly as they were and honoured them entirely.

On Hiking

She walked 

into 

the 

forest 

to lose her head

but found again, 

her soul.

She grew in that space 

and came out taller

than the trees themselves, 

full of their majesty 

and peace.

Crippling Entitlement

Today he thought he’d hold her hand 

but there was a crash as the 

stand

fell and the man rolled

broken but not

old

his body was 

 cold.

Wet air in but not enough out 

he retained it all 

yet couldn't

recall

the name of his son.

One by one

the levels dropped short 

as his heart

fought 

and his family grew 

fraught 

while @LozzaFox

caught 

a ball with a friend and said 

"I am a fierce liberal and I am wrong."

Let me be

  Let me be little.

Allow me to wander unattended in a field of green and 

make daisy chains.

 Let me be little.

Allow me to swim unfettered in a whirl of blue and

splash the fish.

 Let me be little.

Allow me to fly unhindered on a swing of red and

kick the sky.

 Let me be little.

Allow me to run unchained down a road of hope and

not look back.

 Let me be little.

Allow me to sleep and not weep in my bed,

where I wish I was dead.

 Let me be little.

2021

When all around is noise and sound I can abide.

When death abounds and fear is found I can speak life.

In whatever moment, day or year I find myself I want this to be my choice, and my story.  

“We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

This isn’t a burying of one’s head in the sand, a pretence that pain isn’t real and that suffering isn’t grievous. This acknowledges that awful truth and yet still calls us to a quiet within, to a joy that transcends. To a hidden sanctuary of peace and hope that remains undaunted in a world that would try to snatch it at any moment. 

Let this be my unwavering posture in the year to come, whatever it may look like.