Inspiration
I am beyond proud of my son, Ollie.
He achieved a FIRST for his poetry assignments following his first term at university where he is reading a creative writing and publishing degree.
He got the highest grade possible for his performance poem ” The Joker”. He read this and another poem at a performance in front of fellow students for the very first time. You can view this on my Giuliana Fenwick / therapies for special needs business Facebook page.
The poems are written out below on this post.
I am crying writing this because this is the boy who was told he wouldn’t even be allowed a bite at the cherry for higher English GCSE in spite of being in gifted and talented sets for English throughout middle school. That decision all but broke him and was the first time the word ” disabled” was ever mentioned in our home – by him , through broken sobs.
It never was again. Authors wrote to Ollie after I sent his work to them , telling him he was a ” writer already `’ and to never let school or the education system define him .
Ollie is living proof that those with special or different abilities are so much more than a diagnosis or a label. And that you should never be defined by other people’s ignorance or limiting beliefs surrounding that label. No child should ever be written off or have their future broken . Everyone has a right to a voice and my son has found his at last. His broken wings are mended and he is soaring into the huge blue sky of his future.
I AM SO PROUD !!
*The Joker *
My father stepped on my back so hard, why so hard ?
A loveless chain of thorns he strung on each of our necks
The false purples cancelling out the Crimean flush in our chests
Like the love that was traded in, for the malice he wreaks.
Its vine decaying the good ones of virtue I have in my flesh vessel,
That vessel,
Your vessel no more.
” Dad, why are you waiting on the stairs at night ? What is that black box you clutch to your chest like an unseasoned Pandora’s Box ? Small, ticking silently in its mechanical heart .”
A past fever pumped pumped in my veins like a concealed guilt.
I knew, you knew, of the lies in you in-built,
The treacherous glee you hide but show in your cold blue eyes.
A hoar frost, dissolving on the tongue of an adder tasted with self-glorifying ill-will.
When a boy of 17 tells his father to stop lying , his father’s eyes crinkle as small as sunflower seeds
As though he got a sour taste of lime in his mouth.
He told me these words opening his jack-knife smile, ” I could never lie to you , I wouldn’t hurt you like that ” he said anxiously. Never is a hyperbolic word , NEVER, NEV-er, Never
I let out an inward gasp; the sound a balloon makes when popped by a needle.
Not the balloon that my Border terrier burst through to bite with salivating maul the soft skin of my shoulder –
No, no , no this object : spike, stake, spear has pricked me in my solitude, when I should be watching the corridors of my house for forgeries of coughing; the kitchen tap running ; the slow breathing on the walls , is all this inside my head ?
You tell me you are talking to someone behind a closed door and someone is listening outside : does not something feel funny about the air ? How it lies thick , pregnant and obscure in your oesophagus.
My father will talk of how he met ( trapped ) my mother ; red peacock butterflies in a jam jar ,
leaving her in the confines of clingfilm and glass . In these transparencies of space the butterfly could only glimpse the wasting powders on her wings.
A lidded sky, housetop, every morning and night is shut, the edges of a face looms in the sky, says ” come out, spread your wings’. Is it the Joker or the moon; that this seems to sing ?
*My Side Of Eden In an English Garden*
Flies, oil-specked, dance their night wraiths on the skinny buxus branches,
Another follows their soliloquy.
Tamarisks of air lance their hushful blows in the hive.
The doubloon above oscillates to the milky muse of the cool air.
Taking a breath, I look at the garden , spurning me looking poppies in their hundreds chase my cheeks in drapes of fire.
I try to silence all this noise , but am pushed asunder the red satin cloth, so that I am choking in this button-press of heat and redness – it’s unbearable.
Ouch ! Stung on the mouth by a deity ray, I retreat to the doorstep, cacodemons lie in dishevel on my burning hairs.
Afraid to cry, to anoint myself even more in this deadly rush, I close both the shucks of my eyes till the wolfing hour of day threshes them wide so that gold glimmers in their pods.
*To see more of Ollie’s poetry from previous years, please go to the homepage and click on About Giuliana. The link is at the bottom of this page. *
Here is one he wrote aged just 14, to give you a taster ….
*Guitar Strings *
Vibration shedding sound ripples
on the writhe, serpentine string of guitar.
Sound embracing illusional imagery
of spirals, bolts and spots of iridescent sequins.
Memory prolonged in the mind of tears,
muddy fingers dashing against fury
of field colour.
Heart throbs in the ends of each finger,
opened by the sudden pluck
conjuring sound waves to clasp your lips to be silent.
Guitar brings a dance at the finger tips to be
successor or entertainer for Shakespeare
who is weeping with laughter result.
Adventurous in rhythm of fingertips, cutlass,
sabre, scythe showing on mine
who conjure a collision of elaborate imagination
and instrumental tingles.
I , nor confusion, nightmare, horror,
but a magician cloaked in instrumental notes.
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