I am and have always been a pro-active pacifist.. I long and pray for a peaceful caring world. A world of respect and sharing. Whats happened in London and Birmingham and Liverpool and what will be the rest of the country deeply upsets me. Violence sickens me. Mob violence terrifies me.
I feel for the people cought heavily in the cross-fire of this dreadful mess. But we have problems in this country deep rooted and difficult and they don't go away if we do nothing. They certainly don't go away when we erode what little we are hanging on to.
This coalition is idelogically intent on devastating whats left of an already crumbling infrastructure. Its doing a brilliant job. They have to go. I've seen something like this before but this is worse. It is even more destructive than Thatcherism. We have to be bigger than the media and violence.
We have turned our back on enlightenment. It can't be about fuck all anymore it has to be about something. We have to recognise the wider reasoning behind this awful situation. We have to invest in all our people and in all our futures. Peace...I hope. Gx
Let me tell you what fuck all is.
It's invisible, nada it's you don't exist or matter.
That's what fuck all is.
It's Theresa May plastic faced spouting nothing tangible
That's fuck all.
Fuck all is the offer on the table
It's the option of government
Fuck all is the Big Society
That's fuck all.
Fuck all would spit in your eye
If it recognised your eye
If it recognised your humanity.
Fuck all pisses all over the crap of you,
That's fuck all.
Fuck all is the BBC bullying Darcus Howe
It's the BBC calling him a rioter.
The BBC that's fuck all.
Fuck all ignores the question
It hides in denial
Fuck all loves us blaming
That's fuck all.
Fuck all takes your jobs
Bulldozes your youth clubs
Labels you lazy and nothing
That's fuck all.
Fuck all destroys more than we burn
It's the politics of the rich and evil
And yes I said evil.
A tramp dies of cold
In the shadow of a home
That's fuck all
That's evil.
People are fuck all
Poor people are fuck all
Angry people are fuck all
Addicts are fuck all
Students are fuck all
The unemployed are fuck all
The dispossessed are fuck all
The unemployable are fuck all
Single mothers are fuck all
The unlovable are fuck all
The abused are fuck all
The fucked are fuck all.
Fuck all will burn down your capital
That's fuck all.
[Written in the aftermath of England's riots in August. Published with permission from the author. Gerry Potter is a British poet and can be connected with on Facebook and elsewhere online.]