protest

Your Stripes Represent My Future

 

There are a few things I don’t care about. And one of them is which royal is going to give birth to which royal. As my friend, Mickey Mouse, used to say in his song…

I remember you was conflictin’/

in a black dress under a white coat /

and I fought /

that face I’ve seen somewhere else /

in a movie about the abuse of power. 

La, la, la, la, la, lah! 

Those around me keep on running /

I stand and convince myself /

the stripes I’ve got represent my past /

but yours /

represent my future. 

La, la, la, la, la, lah! 

No chance in the doggy-doggy fight /

I’m convinced /

that dress is bullet proof

I’m convinced it’s against repetition

and revolution and honesty.

That dress is against me, babe!

Further information, in International Times.

Picket Line

Photography: @JStadnicki 2018

I wanna protest

against Trump but mama says

I’ve got eczema,

there’s ironing left

to do,

the lawn, the beds,

bleach,

scrub the stairlift,

move the mouse-trap from A to B

once I’ve finished with that I should

make a start at

boiling jam.

Seventy-quid-train-fare should feed us all

the week after the picket.

I wanna protest

against mama but Trump

turned the noise right up

in my slum we think

earmuffs should do

she has a whole load of washing

my homework needs checking

for subversive context

a neighbour lost a cat and

she’s now on the phone with 111.

I am not heard.

 

@Maria Stadnicka, 2018

Uranium Bullets

I always arrive late for everything.

Stuck in a traffic jam by the docks,

missed Noah’s boat but

survived under water

accidentally trapped between stolen books,

trapped by a word heavier than a stone,

lighter than a feather.

 

Hidden in the overcrowded wooden train carriage,

radicalised by the anonymity of my blue name-tag,

with a heart growing outside my body.

Each beat painfully visible to the guards

around the Monopoly table.

 

On the waiting list for ballet lessons,

radicalised by the price of uranium bullets on Mother’s Day

handwriting an apologetic note.

My deep eye silenced.

The familiar solemnity of a world without a face.

Photograph: @John Stadnicki, Bristol MMXVI

Early Memory

Just before midnight, in the unpreventable moment
When my mother woke up to give birth to me
I jumped out and
Spilt all her blood on the floor.
That was my first angry poem
Which I screamed at the top of my voice
In the pale room.
I had good lungs. The doctor’s verdict.
But the still asleep city shhhed me and
Asked to turn the noise down.
Mother went back to bed.
The following day I learnt to
Write on white walls with red letters.

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Photo: Georgiana Calinescu-Barber