Mr Wobblyman

It’s World Parkinson’s Day, which is all about raising awareness about the condition, the fastest growing neurological disease in the world. There is no cure, but medication can help to control/alleviate symptoms, which can be many and varied, both motor and cognitive. I know a number of people who have been living with Parkinson’s for some years, and I know it is not easy. Last year my partner was diagnosed with the condition. This poem gives an idea about just one of the many motor symptoms he had. Thankfully, at the moment, this one seems to be well controlled by the drugs.

 

Mr Wobblyman

for World Parkinson’s Day

His feet stick to the ground, he can’t move them at all

however much he wants to, however hard he tries

he is fixed to the floor, his shoes superglued to the tiles.

He tips forward, so far that I think he’ll hit his nose on the step,

but then he comes back up, tilts back, surely falling over now...

and up again, upright, and suddenly he staggers

in reverse, across the kitchen, not slowly, quite quickly,

in fact so fast I think he won’t stop and will continue out

through the back door, across the garden,

over the back fence into the donkey paddock.

But no, he does stop, he always does.

Just like the weeble-wobble tipple-topple man

who lived in my toybox when I was a toddler

he always comes upright, just like magic. So far.

 

https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roly-poly_toy 

#worldparkinson'sday

                                    

 

All the world watches

One and a half million refugees,

so far

have said their farewells

to men who have to stay,

as women hold bewildered children

and grandmothers weep.

 

A man sees his wife and kids 

onto a crammed carriage,

his tears stream as

he watches them leave.

You can feel the connection

between them pulling, stretching.

He will fight for his country

and for them.

 

And the man in the Kremlin says this is not war.

 

Sirens sound across cities,

families trail to underground stations

camp on platforms

sleep in stationery trains

keep each other warm.

 

Blocks of flats

crumble like the twin towers

burn like Grenfell

and no-one can put out the fires.

After the bombings

there are bodies in the streets.

 

And the man in the Kremlin says this is not war.

 

Hospitals, nurseries, schools

pummelled from the air

cluster munitions smash a kindergarten

ballistic missiles wreck a health centre.

There’s no water, no food,

no power.

 

People race to a city centre

where 50 buses wait

to take them across borders

but the ceasefire is a lie

and they are shelled in the streets

where they gather

like prisoners in a ghetto.

 

And the man in the Kremlin says this is not war.

 

His military shell nuclear power stations,

cut off the internet

block mobile signals.

Yet the words get out ... people meet...

And thousands of demonstrators

are detained at anti-war protests

across Russia

as the sound of dissent

is stifled.

 

And the man in the Kremlin still says this is not a war.

 

 

Breakfast with Dudley, Eunice and Franklin

 

We had breakfast by candlelight.

The kitchen looked like a church at Christmas

thanks to Dudley, Eunice and Franklin,

but it wasn’t romantic.

It was cold

even though it seemed to be lit by warm fire.

 

I fill a kettle from a tap as I look out

of my double-glazed window,

light the gas hob, make coffee

(I note it’s from Colombia).

And somewhere in the world I know

there are people cutting down trees

to mine the earth for more gold and copper

to keep the pockets of the rich filled up.

 

Somewhere in the world

there are people who have no candles

and they don’t get breakfast every day,

people who suffer floods or drought

fires or hurricanes or famine

who live without running water

or proper shelter from ever stronger storms.

 

Swathes of forest are burning

animals can’t  find food

our plastic waste fills waterways and oceans

bees are dying,  icebergs melt

sea levels are rising, islands drowning.

Somewhere in the world

farmland is turning to desert.

 

And here, we turn on the gas

to make coffee before we light the open fire,

and burn more coal.

And thanks to storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin

we wait with our candlelit breakfast,

for the electricity to come back on,

so we can run the oil-fired central heating,

recharge our phones and laptops

fire up the wi-fi and pretend

we are connected to the world.