‘Fiona’

I saw you in court

tried to imagine how you may be feeling

putting yourself out there

a victim

and then he turned up

a few yards away

you weren’t expecting that

how would that feel?

‘He’s been in my head for 15 years,’ you said

and there he is again

in front of you

he’s behind glass

but there was glass between you

before

in that cab

they said you were not

a credible witness

‘A black cab driver 

just wouldn’t do that.’

But he did

and you have lived with him

in your head

for 15 years

believing that you let all the others down

those hundreds

who went through that

after you

because someone decided

you were not believable

© Jackie Biggs

'They said a black cab driver wouldn't do that'

Why was John Worboys granted parole? His victims need answers.

Jackie Biggs has had poetry published in many magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her first collection is The Spaces in Between (2015). She blogs at: The Spaces in Between. Twitter: @JackieNews

Statistics of hope

Count to three: one two three, there’s another

one two three, and another displaced person,

one every three seconds, somewhere in the world.

One two three. In Chad a woman travels in a cart

30km to a mobile clinic, collapses 300m short.

A doctor checks Bless, a seven month old girl,

suspected malaria. One two three

In Tripoli: women are detained, 30 in a small room,

one blanket each, they’ve been there months,

it may become years, no access to law, no medical care.

Fifty-eight refugees adrift in the Med in one small boat.

412 rescued from the water, escaping

Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh.

One two three: one little boy sits alone

on a floor in a corridor in a former resort in Greece,

now used for refugees needing mental health care.

In Nairobi 400 people each month arrive at one clinic.

In Nigeria 45,000 refugees pack one camp

for displaced people from Cameroon.

One two three. Gloria, aged 11 years,

displaced in Malawi, HIV and TB positive.

8,000 in a camp near Raqqa, Syria,

there for months, years.

Hundreds of thousands from Myanmar

seek shelter from the monsoon in rice fields in Bangladesh.

Drowning in hope, they wait for permission to move.

One in every 113 people on the planet is a refugee

in 2017

Someone is displaced every three seconds

One two three. 65million displaced people

in the world, now, one two three

Debora Njala, 18, HIV and TB positive, in Malawi, says:

“I will achieve my dreams and the future is bright.”

One two three. A man, a woman, two children

in a camp in Lesvos, not allowed

to leave for mainland Europe.

The father, Karon says:

“It is my true dream that my children will live

in a country without war, without bloodshed.

This is the only thing I wish for.”

All it takes is the will of the developed world …

one two three …

*

In the time it takes to read this poem 100 people in the world will become displaced.

© Jackie Biggs

A Year in Pictures 2017

Jackie Biggs has had poetry published in many magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her first collection is The Spaces in Between (2015). She blogs at: The Spaces in Between. Twitter: @JackieNews

Iceberg

Listen

hear me

as I break apart

Early morning

My massive frozen body

begins to soften

hard edges smooth away

waters around me are warming

my surface dissolves around the waterline

ablation takes my top layer

as I vapourise

drop by drop

into whispers of air over cold ocean

Melt ponds form in my centre

drip by drip

water seeps, murmurs and bubbles

Fissures form

among my crags, wider and deeper

until a gulch widens

pulling a crazy crevasse

chasm becomes abyss

my central ridge

fractures

I am breaking apart

my groans echo through the seas

mix with the songs of whales

as I am riven

my disruption makes waves

ice chunks break off

float away

I am splitting

sinking, rising again

and suddenly

crack crack crack

a battalion fires a million barrels

into fine clear sky

ack ack ack

the roar of planes

one after another

after another

after another

air rushing rushing rushing

whoosh whoosh whoosh

shells explode and smash

mortars rumble

water sucks gushes

as I rupture

as I break and breach...

         These are the sounds of the Earth

© Jackie Biggs

Large iceberg breaks off from Grey glacier in southern Chile

Jackie Biggs has had poetry published in many magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her first collection is The Spaces in Between (2015). She blogs at: The Spaces in Between. Twitter: @JackieNews

What shall we tell the kids?

If we tell you about the wild blue oceans

and all the beautiful seas,

miles of deserted beaches,

of dolphins, whales and seals;

must we tell you about melting glaciers,

plastic debris, choking pollution,

rising sea-levels,

acidification and bleaching of coral reefs.

If we tell you about huge tropical rainforests,

and wonderful temperate woodlands

of beech, oak and birch, elm and ash;

must we tell you about deforestation,

raging fires, unrestricted destruction.

If we tell you about the joy of tumbling streams

and rambling valleys,

the peace of wide slow rivers;

must we tell you about toxic run-off,

dying fish, increased rainfall,

extreme flooding.

If we tell you about magnificent mountains

and rolling hills,

how it is to breathe the freshest air

in all the big wide world;

must we tell you about benzene, xylene,

cfc, carbon and sulphur dioxide.

If we tell you about wildness

of badgers, otters and ospreys,

swallows, swifts,

hedgehogs and hares;

must we tell you about missing butterflies,

and dying bees, the BSE and bTB.

We will tell you of all

                     the lovely things,

but must we tell you

must we tell you

how we have wrecked

how we have wasted,

this Earth?

© Jackie Biggs

My granddaughter will be 35 in 2050. I grieve that she will know silent and empty places

Jackie Biggs has had poetry published in many magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her first collection is The Spaces in Between (2015). She blogs at: The Spaces in Between. Twitter: @JackieNews

Sound of Hope

bodies

wrapped in sheets

are carried out

one by one

through the night

people are weeping

shouting

calling for help

a criss-cross of cries

hundreds clamour

in a hubbub of crowds

suddenly

a man raises his arm

his hand a silent command

all fall quiet

silence runs in the roads

all you can hear is hope

breath held

in voiceless prayer

they watch

wait

dumb

unmoving

concrete debris piled

buildings tight layered

block on block

floor on floor

someone is hitting a wall

deep down there

knock knock knock

hush hush hush

knock knock knock

hush hush hush

and a fireman whispers

Viva! Viva! Viva!

Alive! Alive! Alive!

© Jackie Biggs

Mexico earthquake: Death toll rises as search for survivors goes on

Jackie Biggs has had poetry published in many magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her first collection is The Spaces in Between (2015). She blogs at: The Spaces in Between. Twitter: @JackieNews

Culling Humans

They are culling the people now,

the ones that, they say, don’t play a good part

in the wonderful ‘big society’.

They must be made to pay, they say,

the ones that are a ‘drain on the state’,

the ones that can live no other way.

Elaine Christian drowned under the strain

of the ‘work capability assessment’.

She was found dead in an English drain.

There are many more who have elected to die;

people like her, who see no other way

to live with this Government and its lie.

Christelle Pardo and six-month-old Kayjah.

They cut her benefit and left her destitute.

She jumped with her son. They died under a car.

Richard Sanderson could not go on

after a letter from his council told him

that his housing benefit was now all gone.

Grandma Stephanie Bottrill couldn’t pay her bedroom tax,

she told her son to blame the Government

and walked in front of a lorry on the M6.

Martin Rust was ordered back to work.

He knew he could not go, and

the only answer he had was to go berserk

Amputee Craig Monk became fatally depressed

when they cut his benefits -

he hung himself when his HB was reassessed.

David Groves faced a medical ordeal;

he died of a heart attack

while he searched for a way to make an appeal.

Leanne Chambers jumped in the river.

They told her she’d have to work, and

there was no more money they could give her.

Stephen Hill died of a heart attack

after they said he was well enough to work,

and there was no reason he couldn’t go back.

Mark Scott was left completely penniless.

Declared fit for work, his benefits were stopped.

And like all the others, he died of hopelessness.

They are culling the people now,

the ones that, they say, don’t play a good part

in our wonderful ‘big society’.

We owe them a full roll call,

but we cannot know the names of them all.

Jackie Biggs

 http://rt.com/uk/206247-benefit-cuts-related-deaths/

October 2014, update here: http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2014/10/21/uk-welfare-reform-deaths-updated-list-october-21st-2014/

 . 
Jackie Biggs is  from west Wales. She has had poetry published on websites, in magazines and anthologies. Some of her poetry appears on her blog: http://jackie-news.blogspot.co.uk
She performs her work at live literature events all over west Wales.