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"Stop ganging up on May" - She represents your party you fools, 1.3 million to be spent on sprinkler system for Parliament, 4 million children now live in poverty in the UK, 4000 people die within the first six weeks of being deemed 'fit for work', David Cameron in 2012 - "I'll kill off health and safety for good", Grenfell Tower, Home-grown genocide, INQUEST NOT INQUIRY, Miriam and Nadia, So many lost, Stand and be counted, Thanks to Thick Richard for the inspiration, The deprth of this tragedy - the loss- the pain must never be underestimated and never be in vain., The shame of the conservative party
In fury we stand,
As a jury we stand,
Howling and showing our teeth, hand-in-hand.
And we stand in the face of the money denied,
The refusal of funds and the children that died,
The shifting of sand in the government’s hands,
Diminishing the firefighters and police of this land.
Yet they constantly say they’ll be best for OUR nation,
But won’t vote for homes fit for human habitation,
And the reasons they gave were all figures and lies,
Yet few now have the courage to look into the eyes
Of the desolate grieving, stood shaking their fists,
Back at those we fear MOST: the Westminster terrorists,
Devoid of all care for the folk they deem scum,
Whilst counting their profits and cladding their slums.
Cos THEIR children will never have benefits withdrawn,
No matter how sick or disabled their spawn,
They won’t grow up to live with the roaches and rats,
In the cheapest of unfit-for-habitation flats.
It could all have been avoided, that’s the very worst part,
As for years people begged, shouting out from their hearts,
For basic home safety, not cheap, shitty walls,
Then were threatened with courts, given no legal aid at all.
You can’t fight in the courts for your rights, without cash,
Your family’s health and their safety are considered to be trash,
By a government whose aim is to push and to batter,
The poor of this country because they really don’t matter.
Fuck their health and their future, their hopes and desires,
Give them sanctions on welfare and call them all liars.
Make the sick go to work, pay the workers shit wages,
Then label them shirkers in the Daily Mail’s pages,
Where they ladle the blame for austerity’s dear cost,
On immigrants and those they deem the great unwashed.
But the lies are on show now for all to behold,
Like the ashes of the lost they sit darkened and cold.
And the people now march to Mrs May’s door,
Wanting justice, and answers, and SO very much more.
Then they’re told that their ‘mob-rule’ will just make things worse,
Go home and sit tight, she’ll look into her purse,
For some pennies to spend on a flood of fake tears,
But the truth is out now, time to change up the gears.
The guilty must pay, for all they’ve condoned.
This underhand genocide, must now be OWNED.
Esme, that is a very touching and clever piece of poetry about a terrible heart-wrenching tragedy. Well done you for tackling such a subject.
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Thank you for that. It’s impossible not to feel impotent in the face of such horror and sadness, and my rage levels have been and are sky high too. I write, if I’m going to write I should surely do so at times like this. Having said that I found myself lost for words when The Arena bomb went off. You do what you can do, and if all you have are words, then use them. – esme x
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I wish I had your skill, Esme.
Brilliant piece, very well written. x
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You’re so very kind, thanks again. – Esme ❤
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I can’t tell you how disgusted I am at the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, until last week’s election a Tory stronghold, and still the wealthiest of all London’s boroughs along with Westminster. We don’t want to hear bullshit and platitudes to the effect that ‘lessons must be learned’; we want those who were responsible locked up and barred from holding public office for life. All decent-minded people want every tower block that is clad in flammable plastic for aesthetic purposes to be un-clad; we want every block to have at least two escape routes (not one, like Grenfell and many others in Social Housing); we want all floors to have sprinklers (both internal and external), readily accessible fire hoses and clear evacuation procedures signed; we want the government to stop micro-managing the extent of tragedies such as this for fear of a backlash. For 48 hours we were told 6 were dead, then that 17 people had died. I stayed up all night watching a live stream of the horror; it was obvious that many more were dying, and those on the ground knew it. This is where neoliberalism ends up: in the poor and the dispossessed being killed in order to save money for profit-seekers in a rampant, free-market and poorly regulated system. I’m sick of it, and I’ve shed a lot of tears this week for all those involved, as so many of us have. To your foreign readers, I say I am ashamed to be a citizen of a country that can do this to the most vulnerable amongst it. This is what the Tories call Compassionate Conservatism, and it’s sickening. Next time, the people here must vote Labour under Jeremy Corbyn in even greater numbers (the young are waking up, at last), and let’s be rid of these self-serving, self-entitled and spiteful Tory hypocrites. Well done Esme, very well done indeed. Sorry not to be eloquent; I’m too emotional for that. From the heart. H ❤
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Passion has not tainted your eloquence one bit Hariod, and I thank you from the heart for sharing your thoughts and feelings here, I absolutely could not agree more with all you’ve written. ❤ x – Esme
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Esme, I’ve just discovered that the borough of Kensington and Chelsea had £274,000,000 in reserves at the end of this March. Their Tory leader, Nicholas Paget-Brown, said in 2014 that due to them “consistently delivering greater efficiencies while improving services [and] thanks to an overachieving efficiency drive”, they would hand back £100 to residents paying the top-rate of council tax. Nobody with discounted bills or claiming council tax support was eligible for any such refund, or at any level at all.
Sources:
Click to access Draft%20Statement%20of%20Accounts%202016-17_.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/16/my-council-tax-rebate-from-kensington-and-chelsea-is-blood-money
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Yes I’ve read about this too, it’s incredible, yet so par for the damn course. Thank you for the links Hariod, I’m happy to have any information posted under this piece if relevant, it can only inform more. ❤ – Esme x
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This is so powerful Esme. Yet I am so disconnected from this here in the US. No virtually no reporting here in the US. It’s become an even more self absorbed nation, only sharing news that furthers an agenda of those in power or with influence.
Or else, I am so detached from news, even the most abhoric doesn’t get through.
Okay – now I know what you are referring to. I had no idea that the high rise building was in Kensington. We haven’t had updates here since since the tragedy, but I find out more about what the aftermath has been like.
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Hello Val, I’ve edited your two comments into one as they went together anyway. It’s that ‘relative radius of knowledge news and concern’ that goes on all over the world. People are in living hell all over the show and victims of the most terrible injustice, but we either don’t get the news, or it’s very far away and doesn’t hit home like an event which, well hits home almost literally. I think an element of it is a survival tactic deep within humans, and the rest is that they’re absolute gits. Hahahahaha. No, not in every case of course, but it’s much easier to ignore the news than emotional engage with it, and we’d be drained to the hilt if we did so at every tragedy.
It’s a build up of angst this poem, the tower caused the eruption, but like many of those I know here I am aware of the way this government (and Blair’s for that matter) have manipulated and demonised the most vulnerable of their own society. Thank you for saying ’tis powerful, I’m proud of it. it is a far cry from my usual fare mind, but I write what appears on the page, no more, no less. – Esme x
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I really appreciate your straightforwardness, strength and passion Esme!
Fierce love is what we need more of in this world 💕
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Thanks Val. It’s the Scot in me you know! laughs and winks. – Esme x
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That mirror thing does show up a lot. Thank you Esme x
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❤ X – Esme
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Superb.
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Thank you Mr P. That means a lot – Esme ❤
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What he said
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Thanks mak. You’re very kind to stop by and say so. – Esme x
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Thunderous thanks for this, esme. Noting, tragically, how a pendulum swings so ruthlessly rightward on these shores as well, and just as surely, just as deadly. A special relationship couched in political rhetoric bestowing something “exceptional.” Another burned-out structure housing “dregs” of society who somehow threaten a cloyingly nice and polite society that winks approval to proper property, nods knowingly, safe in comfortable manors, bank safes safe too. Behind walls all.
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Yes, so swift come these blows, and everyone is having to weigh up the cost of the political landscape at present. Others, in other countries have lived with such losses for decades, more than that for some. Civilisation. How far we have come and how little the learning gained. Thank you so much for your comment and visit Bill. I really appreciate it. – esme waving at bill over the sea x
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I would love to share this via reblog or the book of face. Might I?
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Please do. Two others have shared on the book of faces already , and I myself have placed it on the Twit of Ers. Thanks Spiders. – Esme smiling x
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Esme, I knew you had it in you. The rebel, I mean; the poet we knew. Now, nurture the spirit to anarchy, woman. Well done. Well done, indeed.
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Thank you Peter. The anarchy within me is all too prevalent but it knots up, big-time and I find it very difficult to straighten it out and be of use with the words. I must persevere, and you are right that I should nurture it. I really appreciate the support here. ❤ – Esme x
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Some of these themes are becoming prevalent throughout the ‘developed’ world. It’s shameful. I can’t help but think, ‘What’s it going to take to wake people UP so they begin to demand social change and justice?’ And the answer to that is not going to be one I’m going to like. People are very asleep, extremely numb anymore to tragedies of this nature. So. So. Sad. Well written, esme, and point taken. ❤
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It is shameful, that’s a fine way to describe it, and sleep they do, right up to the point where it affects their families and their stability, then they join in, but numbers are growing, dissent is rife, we growl and we roar, I can only hope it is some help towards awareness on a larger scale.
“Well written, esme, and point taken.” – Thank you Bela, as kind as ever – Esme x
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Wow. Just WOW Esme. Heart-wrenching that won’t let go. Very well done!
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Thank you Professor, I’m glad it has some power to it. I’ve narrated it five times up to now for a youtube video I was thinking of creating, just the words and maybe some background pictures, and every single time I listen back to it I think I have the wrong voice, and I also end up shouting a bit by the end, which might be a tad too much. – Esme x
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Horrible business. I sick, really.
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Yes, it truly is. Thanks for stopping by Prospero. – Esme nodding upon the Cloud
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Naturally I meant to say ‘I’m sick,’ and I really am. This mustn’t happen again.
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Ah yes, I wasn’t sure whether you were using Matty speak or not there. nods. I sincerely hope that it never happens again too. Terrible tragedy.
Esme x
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A clear and angry (frustrated) view from the cloud. Your thunder rings true Esme. Your words – fists full of lightning.
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“fists full of lightning” – Thank you for that Chris. (That line reminds me of ‘The Whole of the Moon’ by The Waterboys, but I’m not quite sure why.)It came out in one long sheet as it stands, so I’m really pleased with it arriving almostfully baked, but most importantly it seems to be hard hitting enough to get the message across.
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This is so powerful and honest.
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Thank you so much for reading the piece and letting me know what you think of it. Hugely appreciated.
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Ripped from the news but made a spear for our hearts.
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Thank you, that’s more than I could have wished for, ripped from the news, and torn from within too.
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“the Westminster terrorists” – nail well hit on self-regarding heads, Esme. The lies we are told…I must say your cloud comes with some high spec verbal hardware on the missile front. Write on!
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Hello Tish, welcome to the Cloud! You’re very kind with your comment there, this; “high spec verbal hardware” – is so fine a line itself I could eat it, so thank you highly from myself and the rather enigmatic Cloud. – beams a smile out
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And Tish is so delighted to wave back to Esme upon the Cloud.
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