Just Right? For Whom?

Tags

acrylic painting, anthropomorphic, fairy tales, Freedom Day, Goldilocks, Liberty, Rule of Three, Three Bears

Freedom for some? What about the rights of others?

Goldilocks acrylic painting by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Rapunzel

Tags

acrylic painting, Fairy Tale series, Grimms Fairy Tales, long hair, Rapunzel, witch

Inglesham Church, Oxfordshire

Tags

Cotswolds, Inglesham church, lead thieves, Oxfordshire, St John the Baptist church, The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments, William Morris

The unspoilt church William Morris was inspired by when he founded the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments. A gem, sadly attacked by heartless lead thieves a couple of years ago.

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart. All Rights Reserved.

Pick up!

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anti-social behaviour, dog walkers, environmental care, fouling, poo bags

Seen on one of my walks last week. Take note, poo-ligans!

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Rokeby Venus

Tags

Baedeker, National Gallery, protest, quennet, Rokeby Venus, Suffragettes

Rokeby Venus: National Gallery, UK

 

unsuccessful MP   beautiful paradigm   refused breakfast

backward glance

ageing face   gawping men   mirror image

five slashes

almond-eyed Madonna   broad-shouldered detectives   opened newspaper

pretend sketching

broken glass

slippery parquet

thrown Baedeker

crowd’s fury

cooling-off room

six month sentence

force-fed

newspaper image   backward paradigm   ageing men

broad-shouldered Madonna

 

Miscarriage of Justice

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abortion, Assumption, El Salvador, Las 17, Mata Ninos, miscarriage, stillbirth

In El Salvador there’s an assumption,

in many cases, that a miscarriage

is the consequence of an abortion.

Girls who have been raped can lose their freedom.

A premature, or unviable birth

can result in a forty year sentence.

 

How can a country of that name sentence

women when it reveres The Assumption

of a virgin?  Supernatural birth

protected Mary from a miscarriage

when she experienced threats to her freedom.

State infanticide – worse than abortion?

 

Las 17, accused of abortion,

were subjected to a lengthy sentence

in a land whose motto includes ‘Freedom’.

Children, trafficked, may face an assumption

which can lead to Justice’s miscarriage –

Mata ninos -? Rather, victims from their birth.

 

After civil war there should be re-birth,

with an enlightened view of abortion

and understanding that a miscarriage

is, for women, a kind of life sentence.

Why should any state make an assumption

that stillbirths express a woman’s freedom?

 

Accused of homicide; denied freedom

because of complications with a birth!

To disregard is to make assumption;

logical process suffers abortion.

The powerful deliver the sentence.

 

There’s no calculation in miscarriage.

It’s spontaneous; there is no freedom

expressed.  The women uttered no sentence:

I now intend to sabotage this birth.

Or, Drinking this will promote abortion.

Blanket blame’s an ignorant assumption.

 

Denying freedom and pronouncing sentence

on those who suffer miscarriage, stillbirth

is, in itself, a monstrous abortion

and an assumption of omniscience.

 

 

Expulsion from Eden

Tags

Adam and Eve, encaustic floor tiles, Expulsion from Eden, Gloucester Cathedrsl

Gloucester Cathedral

by Candia

Lady Macbeth Dreams of the Crown

Tags

ambition, crown, dream, Lady Macbeth, phantasmagorical, Shakespeare, tragedy

A fantasy photograph by Candia Dixon-Stuart

The Red Chamber

Tags

Chaupadi, gahut, goth, Kalidasa, menstruation hut, Red Chamber, Saraswati, Vasant Panchami

Giclee Prints available of above image.

Another young girl’s death reported after being banished to a menstruation

hut.  She inhaled toxic fumes from a fire.

This poem is my outraged response to the barbarity of the practice:

 

 

 

My turn in this red chamber, wrapped in jute,

drinking bovine urine, for I’m impure.

I may not touch a plant, food, or a man;

I may not milk a buffalo, or bathe.

I’ve come here from menarche to this goth

and I’ll come here until my menopause.

 

I look at the night sky; try to count the stars;

wonder why Saraswati is angered

if any of us wants to touch a book.

She sits, pen in hand, on a white lotus

and leaves no trace of menstrual fluid,

her clothing as unstained as mountain snow.

The swan at her feet drinks milk at its will.

I’m told she is the best of mothers and

she dwells upon the tongues of poets too.

I pray she will preserve me from lightning;

keep all snakes away and send me to school;

pray that my mother will hand me flatbread

and not fling it at me, as to a dog.

 

Chaupadi.  I study my child’s face

and sip gahut to purify myself

from drunken animals who molest me.

I pray the rats will not come here tonight.

It’s cold – cold enough to kindle a fire,

but I must stay alert, for my sister

was found lifeless, smoke-choked, six months ago.

 

Tomorrow will be Vasant Panchami.

I hope the goddess will help my baby

to learn some alphabet, so she’ll read

how to rebel, without bringing bad luck

from past generations into the next.

Then her destiny will no longer be,

what we’ve all shared: the lowly cattle shed.

 

The Blood Moon has arisen over the peaks.

I pray for synchrony; for company

and hope that, at the chaupadi dhara,

I’ll meet another girl who’s not a ghost.

Oh, that Kalidasa would take a dip

with us one day and share our suffering!

 

Don’t sleep standing up. Just one more day now.

.

 

 

;

Don’t come out, Mr Cameron!

Tags

Brexit, Conservative Prime Ministers, Cotswolds, David Cameron, Referendum, shepherd's hut, writer's retreat

… all is not forgiven.

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart. All Rights Reserved