WOMEN'S
RESISTANCE
GALLERY
Contact Me
United Kingdom Amy Beviss
Sister's Unite
When you look at me what do you see,
a mirage of beauty, desire, carefree,
oppression wont hold us down,
so you might sit back and frown.
But we will fight for our freedom,
to defend our kingdom,
when you look at me what do you see,
A lover, a mother,a daughter maybe?
Sisters unite,
to join this cause, this fight,
and then they will see,
and watch us all be free!.
They judge us upon what we wear,
which is used as a tactic to scare,
but soon they will see,
why have no control over me!.
United Kingdom Becci Fearnley
Colony
He wants to talk to me, I can tell.
Carriage swollen with sweat
And combustible tempers.
His hands thrust firmly into jacket pockets
Watching openly as if
Surveying property.
I lower my eyes like
An Indian bride and pretend I’m
Invisible, lost in translation and tie-dyed
To history, a martyr.
I simmer vivid language I’ll never speak.
He’s twice my size and other eyes
Are watching.
That turned up, touched up aggression
Of confessional ownership;
Unfolding the copper wiring of historic
Civil rights to find that, in his eyes
The contours of other bodies still belong
To him. Insert flag here.
No one says anything.
On another continent, a conversation
Roles through reconstructed heritage
And the wide seat of a fire-side drive.
‘There is nothing wrong with the women
The women are shy.’
Here are two things you do not discuss with a westerner;
Religion and women
Because the culture starved creature
Cannot get his supple-skulled head around either.
We western girls are exposed
To those rolling eyes in the shadows
The thin-lipped raise of eyebrows
With the gaze turned away
Not shy, but frightened of contagion
As if liberation was something you could catch.
The women greet us without looking at us
They smile without meaning it
Their manners are small
But their hands are steady
The women, I want to say, are not shy.
The women love their skin and the redness
Of their upturned palms
The harmlessness of motherhood
And maturity.
The women are not shy.
The women forge a collective identity
On a palette of fire in a chimney-less
Brick house, using rice as mortar and stability
As scaffolding.
The women are a hive, lining their construction
With shared tragedies;
Absence from husbands
Stillborn children
Rape and the backs of big hands.
The women are not shy
They make long shadows even at midday
Muscular, with their skirts hitched high,
Brandishing machetes at the idea of rebels
And colonisation
And even mixing cement with a bleached spade
With their usually lowered eyes newly upturned
With interest,
The shadows we cast are small in comparison.
The women are not shy.
The women find strength in silence
And the stickiness of ash-coloured hands.
The women are wilderness and crossed fingers
Dipped into contaminated water in the pool
By the path to the top of the hill.
The women cook meat still soaked in blood
And watch the executions with their eyes
Unendingly open.
The women are not shy.
They do not turn away from us because
They are afraid.
They turn away because they expect us
To follow them.
Because under the bare feet of these women
Is a small place where secrets are kept
And they are not to be shared.
United Kingdom Samantha Jeffery
Artistic Intentions
Alone, with him,
he creates a vast
drawing of me -
‘Hymen to Scale’
he calls it,
and hangs it
on our wall.
United kingdom Emily Alice Maria
She has so much potential,
they said,
meaning well
but they lingered
and dithered too long-
closed their eyes
and watched television,
left her fate to some
puppet instead.
Meanwhile,
she escaped,
briefly
into herself-
acknowledged
her bruised wings
and dreamt of something better
than this.
The hope of revolution
panged inside her,
like menstruation;
fertile-
but when she spoke
her words were catapulted into dust;
she needed us to listen.
United Kingdom Alanna Petty
Fresh Off The Grape Vine
He plucked me from the vine,
Peeled back my skin
And taught every perversion he knew
Until I was addicted
And he too.
Stuck me with a thorn;
Bled me dry.
I fell into the rose bush.
Pricked every branch
As I made my way down.
Watered the whole of Eden
With my dripping juice.
And now, I lie, a raisin
Sinking deep into the Waste Land.
And all is quiet.
All is dark.
The Hornet's Garden
A hornet
in a garden of
honeybees.
One plucked
from the Devil’s garden.
One that spreads poison
from thorn to thorn.
One that stings the roses
to make them swell
like the bodies of the dead.
Don’t touch me.
I can hear it buzzing.
I can feel it sting
the life out of me.
It’s working.
In a week or two
it will drown.
And life goes on.
After Eden
It goes on all night.
He snores just like Lucifer,
growling in my ear.
There’s a type of snake
Whose poison destroys the world.
Eden has left me
purple from bruises;
a red wound between two legs
to fuck the Devil.
Gasps, moans and whispers –
pleasure; a battle well fought –
echo still tonight.
“Look at the Heavens.
Raise that pretty head of yours
and howl at the moon.”
United Kingdom Laura McKenzie
Abused
Crack.
Seething spit roast skin.
Silent scream of
feather light fright.
Inferno of anger
slamming sharp and thick.
And there,
horizoned on her pallid glow,
clots a blackberry swell
of indigo.
United Kingdom Bethany Neal
Realisation
It slowly came to my attention,
that I don’t need to have children.
I will not be defined by the use
of my womb and breasts.
I will not be defined by
my attachments to men.
I will define myself:
I am a woman.
No more, no less.
United Kingdom John Wilks/ Roz Tabula
And I Raise The Nile
She was a living God. Her likeness stood
full fifty cubits tall; her stone visage
as if hewn from a mountain’s face. And yet,
her name was struck from every monument,
the very glyphs re-carved to honour one
who followed: a lesser deity, son
of the Moon, whose city was soon swallowed
by the desert. Wind-blown and eroded
for five thousand years, his was a kingdom
gone to dust, famed only as a ruin.
Our guide flicks his cigarette at the sky,
to fall in the massive ashtray of sand
that forms the border of this land. He hawks
an arc of phlegm in rough pursuit. Wipes clean
his mouth upon his jacket sleeve and tells
the story of the Goddess With No Name,
though all records of her reign were erased
in a fire to rival the Library
of Alexandria for its wanton
waste of knowledge. See these scorch marks, he points:
Once, these blackened walls were bright with silver
leaf that outshone the Milky Way. By day,
it clashed with the gold raiment of the Sun
and caused enmity between the sibling
Gods of Dawn and Dusk. I bring light and life,
proclaimed the boastful brother. And I bring
the cool of evening and the peace of dreams,
whispered his sister. I ripen the crops
to feed our children. And I raise the Nile
to irrigate the plains your passing burns.
I wander from the group and seek the shade
cast by her disfigured features. I know
how such stories end, when there is no truth
but what is spun from the broken psyche
of survivors. Come back, miss. It’s not safe
for ladies to walk alone. Our guide calls
and beckons me back to the bus. His eyes
squint and trace my curves with the same motion
his hands described the Goddess. By a trick
of perspective, I grow as tall as her.
United Kingdom Tom Cornett
Ayla's Last Prayer
Ayla watches the pink sunset through the dirty window. She thinks of the man who came into her life and spun her world into chaos. His beautiful brown eyes captivated her and his voice was like a gentle storm. "Love is as two doves sailing on winds of destiny, embracing their nature." When he touched her, it was like soft little fires sinking through her skin. She had never felt such bliss because her life was set in religion and tradition. Her life wasn't hers at all.
She reached high, placed her finger on the window and made a small spiral. "This is me,"she whispered to herself. "I began and I will end. I do not want to end. I am only 29 years old."
Ayla heard the laughter of children and pulled herself up higher by the window sill to look outside. They were kicking a soccer ball back and forth on the street. Her children were just a little younger than those boys. Her fingers hurt too bad to hang on the sill. She had to let go. She sat on the small stone bench and felt the tears begin to flow. She caught them in her hands, not to let them touch the filthy rags they had draped her body with.
She thought of her husband who was such a cold and vulgar being in private but portrayed a loving husband and father in public. Her wedding was like following instructions of a technical manual. Her wedding night was no different. Her mother warned her of not serving his needs. Her mother was a miserable soul and so possessed by her father's every wish.
Ayla once was late serving her father his lunch. She stopped to pet a cat. Her mother took her left shoe off and beat her hands while she laid them on a wooden table. If she moved her hands, the beating went to her face. If she shed one tiny tear, her father would be told and he would beat her far worse.
The sun disappeared below the high window sill. She though it was like the right eye of her father when he would glare at her while going down the steps by the half stone wall.
The only love she had ever known was with her children and the man with brown eyes. She desperately longed to hold her children again. She knew that another woman would raise them and hoped the woman wouldn't be cruel. The man with brown eyes stirred in her heart. She gave up everything to be with him for a few hours. Yet...in those few hours she was a free woman. She was free to give herself and free to take a man she wanted. She clinched her fists and whispered passionately,"I loved...I got to love. I broke their law...but I....got...to...love."
She could hear the door squeak open and a man walking down the corridor. She looked up at his scornful face as he grumbled,"Time to meet the Satan....whore!" She asked him for just a moment. He grimaced and nodded, "yes," as she faced the wall under the window. She put her hands and forehead on the cold, filthy plaster.
Ayla whispered this prayer,"Please, I beg...let the strongest men cast their stones first. Let my death be quick. Let me not cry. Please, I beg...let me not cry. Let my last thought of life be the smiles of my children and the beautiful eyes of love."
United Kingdom Rob Newlyn
Freezing Hell
‘Sam, what are you doing here?’
She peers around her front door, bleary-eyed and still in pyjamas.
‘I’m sorry. I really am.’
‘Please! Absolutely no way. I told you …’
‘You said “when hell freezes over”.’
She narrows her eyes. ‘Yes. And?’
‘So come and see.’
Curiosity triumphs in the end, and I lead her over to the large fissure that has opened up along the quiet suburban road. We peer over the lip.
‘Urgh it stinks of egg.’
‘Just a few seconds. Can you see now?’
‘Holy sh…’
‘I told you.’
She is silent, gazing down into the darkness. Deep below us the little red figures glide around on ice and snow fields.
‘Sam, what have you done?’
It was a simple-enough job, once they’d agreed; just some re-direction of air flow. The authorities in Hell were very pleased with the results. Apparently fire and toasting-forks have long since outlived
their usefulness and very few clients are accommodated on those levels. The rest is all airport terminals and Swedish furniture stores of infinite dimensions – the modern face of eternal damnation. And demons are rather good at figure skating.
‘Well?’
‘But Sam, we’ve been through it all …’
‘Just one more chance.’
She calls me the next day. She needs some shelves putting up and will let me take her out for dinner afterwards.
Not long afterwards there’s an irate call from Heaven – something about rising temperature and clouds evaporating. I put them on hold.