https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/26/race-disparity-police-strip-searches-of-children-england-and-wales?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across the page to flow
Like wet paint from an artist’s brush;
And words come in a rush.

Enchanted by the hand that writes,
Bewitched by art, beauty alights.
The script is like a music score
Through which you pass as through a door.
Imagination’s home.

As,mysteriously,to you,to me,
The spirits of our hearts are tamed,
By rhythms of pen,of brush,of mind,
They enter vision quite unplanned,
Like moths to flutter softly round
Fire joined heart and hand.

The pen slows down,the hand goes still
And just as dreams at daybreak will,
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone,
I almost caught that one.

Blind sight scattered my wits Like whitened bones Across the deserts of my mind. I descended into darkness. Love shrank into the tame cat By the fire,unacknowledged hate Grew to fill the room. I stared too much. A full stop grew gigantic Crowded out All the words in the sentence I saw nothing but this dot Now a gigantic black hole Into which I was dragged. An energy coming from within my own head Sucked me into the black hole. That place was the wrong sort of darkness. Within that full stop, Love Fundamental became invisible. Disappeared into the dark. I dragged my eyes away And saw the moon appear,so eerie, It shone,grey silver. If I had opened my eyes wider I would not now lament What I destroyed in the wormhole Of the black dot that drew my eye Into a tunnel of darkness It blinded me to the light Did not let me read the sentences Beside the full stop. An error of focus left hate Unacknowledged,unmitigated, unredeemed, Kept from love or goodness Afraid to spoil my love with hate, The fear of hate became That which spoiled all else else, By freezing Love itself.

I dream at nights of my old friends
My husband and his loving hands
I dream of all the cats we had
Alfred who slept on the bed
He laid his head upon my foot
As I wrote a poem of love
Jimmy who was small and black
She bit my hand if I got up
I did not wish to wet the bed
She did not understand a word I said
The last night here she gazed at me
I think she knew she would not be
Lucky was the nervous one
Black and white , apartheid none
He liked my husband’s shoulder dear
He draped himself and lost all fear
Now the cats have all gone off
I am frightened by my cough
My husband comes to me at night
Fortunately he cannot bite
He touches me with tenderness
Smiles and wished me,God Bless.
When I waken I feel lost
So I have to wear a watch
I seem to have no solid self
I feel nervous of those elves
I don’t mind an angel fierce

He could rub my aching feet
I will have no other man
They are frightened of women
They don’t like to lose at Chess
They don’t like to wash my dress
They will brush my winter coat
Never ask me what I wrote
I do not wish to anger men
They might shout and bawl again
I think maybe I will turn gay
Ask a lady, what to say?
They may not understand my needs
Killing flowers to help the weeds
Talking all the weary night
On the whole they’re parasites
Also they may menstruate
I can’t give them seeds to take
So they will leave and get a man
This is where it all began
Eve and Adam,God and man
Cain and Abel, apple flan
Noah and his Ark so fine
I wish I had one in the rain
I wonder when the world will end?
I am old so be my friend