Category: Human Rights

Each and

Every inch of everyone

Became, from baby softness,

Tough and marked by times to come.

But, if we treat each one with love

And treasure their uniqueness,

Then all will grow the legs to run

And heart to love their weakness.

The Second Coming of Yeats

Out of nowhere, magic phrases

Whisper stardust in my ears

And the days of growth and study

Flood my mind despite the years:

Books, that long ago forgot to

Hold their pages close together,

Still possess that spit of youthful

Fire that casts a spell forever.

 

Writer’s Postscript
I have loved the poems of W.B.Yeats since my dad showed me one of his poems back in his dusty, book-lined study at home. I had read poems before but never been that excited by them. There was something about the guttural, grief-stricken anger of Yeats’ political voice combined with the ethereal quality of his imagery that caught me. His work took me to a different world. It got me seriously interested in history, politics and human rights. It inspired me to write poems again: something I hadn’t done since I was at primary school. His poem The Second Coming was one of my favourites and still is today. Written in 1919, it is full of brooding tension and contains a stark warning: ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.’ It strikes me that this continues to be relevant: those who are full of love, moderation, tolerance and empathy tend to be quieter in this world than those who are full of hate and judgement. It is so important that we don’t leave positions of power to those who shout the loudest and in the most binary, dramatic terms. Make your voice heard! Don’t leave it to others to speak up for what you believe in. Those with messages of love must learn to be loudest.

Look Inside

My value is innate.

I know I cannot lose it.

I will not give it up.

It is not mine to give.

 

My worth is at my core.

I do not need to prove it.

I cannot give it up.

It is not mine to give.

 

So I can look you in the eye

And hold your gaze across our tears,

Across our differences and years.

 

For every person holds from birth

A rich, unchanging,

Human worth.

No

I don’t want to go back

Please don’t take me there

Creep of pressured hands

I don’t want to go back

Shriek of throat tight fear

Clammy touch of need

I don’t want to go back

Stuffy sleepless rooms

Love that leaves no air

I will not go back there.

Dear Sultan

If you woke up, still you, but gay,

You’d be the same in every way.

No less rich or strong or bright,

No more wrong and no more right.

You’d still feel joy, excitement, fear;

You’d still grow older every year.

You’d still know love, and cherish those

Who wiped your tears and kissed your nose.

You’d still have interests, hobbies, jobs.

You’d still feel grief’s chest ache wrench sobs.

The only difference might well be

In who you love: the they, she, he.

And yet you, Sultan, have declared

That those, who only love have shared,

Deserve to die.

And when they do, they must feel pain:

Bone-breaking, cracking, smashing rain

Of stone that flies until you fall.

Until there’s no love left at all.

I see you; but I do not see

Your heart and your humanity.