Protests in Paint, Pen and Poetry

There have been two occasions in the past that I can remember participating in a march. One was intentional and the other accidental.

The first one was way back in 1987. At the time Graham Kendrick had organised marches across the country singing songs and waving banners. They were all under the umbrella of ‘March for Jesus.’ There might have been real umbrellas too, but it was a long time ago. I had made my own banner for the event. Those were the days when I had a sewing machine. There was no pattern for the banner, just a picture in my head. We had rehearsed all the songs and took a route around the centre of Rugby town. I was younger then and less worried about toilets along the route.

The second one, again a while ago, was a march about fuel prices and elderly people having to make the choice between being fed or being warm. I hadn’t known about it beforehand. I had been in town doing a spot of grocery shopping. That might have been in the days when there was a Gateway supermarket in the shopping centre.

There was a crowd outside, with banners. An assortment of organisations, some political, some social and some community groups. I remember the banners. Every group had one. I joined the march with two full carrier bags, feeling that it was a cause that mattered.

I noticed there was an absence of banners connected to churches and there were a lot of churches in Inverness. I had mentioned the absence of a specific church presence to one of the church leaders that Sunday. His response was, ‘We pray.’ I don’t think he said the words, ‘We don’t march.’ I felt that we had missed an opportunity to be a witness to an injustice and ‘We pray’ seemed a poor response. It’s not a poor response but neither is it the only response. Talking to someone who wasn’t a church leader, his reply was that it is our presence in those organisations that is perhaps a better witness. We don’t come out of hiding to join a march, but we join an organisation that touches our heart, and we join the march with them. That’s a good answer, a wise and satisfying answer. But who is to know if the church is supporting the cause or not?

At the weekend I met up with friends, the old crew as someone said, from Poetry inn Motion. We used to go places like museums, forests and botanical gardens. We also spent a few cold hours in a cemetery celebrating the life of Shakespeare, pretending to be angry crows. This weekend was the start of an exhibition on mental health issues. Artists from various workshops submitted pictures for the gallery at Eden Court. And overflow of pictures is at the Bike Shed in Grant Street. We had tine to look at the artwork in all kinds of media and then settle down to write something.

It wasn’t the quietest of venues. Eden Court were hosting ‘The Bodyguard’ and the community table we had hired was just beside the doors. Second floor, and in an open space that took in the other floors it wasn’t quiet. Hearing aids did not make a huge impact on the noise. After an introduction, and after the show began, I found a quiet spot in the café and had cake and coffee as I wrote.

I had a first line already, prompted by a picture of two people standing side by side, just torsos in suits and ties and hankies in pockets, each with a bullet hole into the heart. I’m not so good about understanding art. You take what you take, and everyone takes a different message. Ther was a sense in which the picture pointed to the heartlessness of the bureaucrats, the men behind the desks, and their heartless response to our cries. But then I thought of how it can be the seeker, the man or woman asking for help, that doesn’t get a helpful response. Here’s the poem -

A Protest Poem

He shot me in the heart

He did

The man behind the desk

He did

He met me with a smile

He did

As forms across the desk

He slid

‘Fill them in,’ he said

He did

A thousand questions

In there hid

Confused I was, he knew

He did

But nothing said, my stress

To rid

He shot me in the heart

He did

And hope within me died

It did

I discovered that there are too few words that rhyme with ‘did’. My memory couldn’t come up with many and neither could ‘Rhymezone’. I could have gone for free verse but I liked the impact of the sentences and that repeat phrase, ‘He did.’ Apologies for the ‘he’, as if it is just men. Women stand behind the counters too.

We have all been on the receiving end of the forms with what feels like a thousand questions. And the smile behind the desk. And the absolute unhelpfulness of some people that have the expertise but don’t always put it on the table. We have been there waiting and then we’re told we are short of something, a letter, a photograph signed by someone who has known us long enough. It really is a bullet to the heart when we are told to come back later. It’s not a clear path and the hoops we jump through are not at a convenient height.

I don’t think the right people have come to see the exhibition. To some extent there was an unanticipated audience from those entering and leaving the theatre from ‘The Bodyguard’, but how much time and thought did they give to the pictures? The people who can make the difference were probably not in the audience, but behind desks somewhere being unhelpful.

The Prime Minister is, apparently, itching to pour money into Maths teaching. He wants pupils shaped and stamped, with conveyor-like precisions, to join the work force. He has a definition of what it is to be a useful member of society, a contributor. But what of music and art? What of poetry writing and storytelling? Where do they fit in? There are things that we love to do that don’t fit in to his definition of useful. In the pursuing of them we become real people, filled out people, life-rich and so much more interesting to be around.

I find myself thinking about the creative arts, the plays, the poems, the pictures and photographs that make a statement. A glimpse is all it takes like a picture of two people standing side by side, just torsos in suits and ties and hankies in pockets, each with a bullet hole into the heart. A truth that could take a speech or a book to explain just slips beneath the skin. And once it is there, it itches like a splinter. It is a scary power to possess and one a government struggles to control.

But what do I do with the splinter beneath my skin?

I know what I do. I write a poem. I sew up a banner. I join a march.

What about you? What do you do?