Poetry by George Parker
Don’t Believe Everything You See On TV
I am sick of being consumed,
our history exhumed,
used for profit-making news,
TV shows, cis-het actors taking roles,
able-bodied players thinking
all it takes to be us is adopting
limp wrist, disfigurement,
twisted kink, fake limp and limb difference,
playing with sincere insistence
our stories that are nothing
but tragic, the magic of nuance lost
in warped versions, Hollywood perversions,
silver-screen flickers designed to get knickers wet,
marginalised lives mined for content,
fetishized for sex appeal,
demonised for shock value,
mythologised to other us,
‘cause when we’re monsters onscreen,
it’s a lot easier to kill us off off-screen,
lives lost the cost of
our burnt and distorted history.
The trouble is,
people love stories
it’s how we make sense of the world;
from the moment our fist first curled around an adult’s thumb we
learned who’s a threat, who to bet on, who
to develop deep-set prejudice for based on
mental screenshots of those shot on screen,
screening everyone we meet for those who caused a scream,
made a scene, who’s hopes were left unseen and
who finally got their shot, that
final, fatal ‘mercy’ shot
on the silver screen last night.
Best believe: shots on the silver screen rip
through the fabric of reality,
bullets plunging into flesh,
one way cinema tickets unravelling
hopes and dreams, streaming intravenous prejudice live
for all to see.
And if in the first act you see a disabled person,
by the end they must be cured or dead.
Broadly speaking that’s what Chekov said, and ok,
he was talking about guns but
consider this the version for the crippled ones
the unwanted ones
the to be pitied, can’t be pretty, witty,
get a good job in the city ones. The ones
who have to remind society why
we deserve to be alive while that same society
strives to keep us down, to watch us drown
in inadequate systems and architecture, but they’ll
give us a lecture about how
disability is an issue of the individual and not society how
if we tried hard enough, ate green, practised downward dog and
got enough sleep we’d be fine.
Did you know 89% of alleged disability benefit fraud was
found to be unfounded, grounded in benefit scrounger rhetoric
peddled by politicians and the media and tv and cinema?
But the trouble is, people love stories.
And they’re profiting from the twisting of our narratives,
all around us parroting these parables of
so-called morality, allegories where ‘disabled’ stands for
sin manifested in flesh, saying from this moment on I should spend each breath
praising their god and begging forgiveness
that if I was just that little bit more religious
this wouldn’t have happened.
But you’re queer – a lot of you here
know what it’s like to be cast in that light:
the incessant gentle hum of hearts crossed and prayers delivered,
let’s hope none of us touch the filthy sinner whose
devil dealing sealed their fate – queerness and illness
too often easy to conflate with Satan
and a lack of morals, our own history now
just tales borrowed and warped
to form distorted monoliths.
These myths are still perpetuated in film and society, and
believe me, those fears are making someone a hearty
rainbow-striped, cripple-stamped dollar.
Last week I watched a man’s face transform
as he realised, he’d bought into it all,
that disabled meant ugly, greedy, needy. Why do I think like that? he asked me.
Well, from the Nazi idea of us as eaters
to Thatcher, cinema, The Sun, and preachers,
the press we get is that we’re creatures. Less-than-human.
Not people.
And the trouble is, people love stories.
Casual Eugenics
I’m sure when you talked about herd immunity, you
didn’t necessarily
have me in mind.
I’m sure when the country was debating the fate of this nation
deciding which of the population had enough worth
to be kept alive, you didn’t specifically think of me or my disability.
Still, it hurt – watching you weigh up all the pros
and cons, slamming protests,
protecting statues of bronze and the economy
while sacrificing thousands, casually.
You really didn’t think of me… or the other others who needed you.
These times of desperation are not the finest of the nation.
They showed how many of us, when afraid will begin a small flirtation with damnation, saying, It’s fine,
God, let them die, just please, not me or my relations.
We were the collateral damage for your pilgrimage to the beach,
but even the corresponding peak
in deaths didn’t teach you anything –
another week and there’s another image:
you, like a thousand grains of sand;
you, jammed into bars like red, ripe fruit in a jar, pint in hand.
These times of desperation show ours to be a callous nation,
brazen with determination to go on vacation,
faces impatient as they yell, It’s fine! God! Let them die,
but I deserve this occasion for me and my relations.
And I hasten to add, we paid the price for you ignoring sage advice.
I’m not pointing fingers,
but as someone who’s disability wears a cloak of invisibility
I’ve heard it all. What you think of me.
And others like me.
Or maybe it wasn’t you I heard,
maybe you were one of those who stayed quiet,
compliant, complicit with the explicit plan
to let disabled people take the brunt of this pandemic.
Don’t tell me that’s not eugenics.
Ninety-seven thousand of us lost a battle we were never meant to win
in a flutter of papers that prodded readers like cattle
into believing herd immunity was for the best,
with no thought of our community.
Us who you deem unfit for page three, equality or society anyway.
It’s easy to shout over those who couldn’t even come out of their homes and protest.
And perhaps that’s best ‘cause
I saw you there, blaming protests for deaths,
making scapegoats of those who wanted to escape white supremacy and rape.
Protests didn’t kill a hundred and sixty thousand;
sure, there was crowding but people spouting
this nonsense just use it for their own astounding agenda,
well, here's a fact:
Disabled people made up 60% of deaths in the pandemic.
You can’t tell me that’s not eugenics.
What killed them was a trident of a lack of compassion:
greed, ableism, capitalism – wielded by the establishment.
It’s indefensible, these deaths preventable,
but our government stood there and said its acceptable,
that we were expendable. And you just went along with it.
Society was never accessible but now
with ninety-seven thousand of us dead to a battle we couldn’t win,
you have a chance to begin again. Include us.
These times of desperation could inspire the transformation of this, our fractured nation.
We just need a new equation,
one without alienation or otherness, but
with something more profound than tolerance.
Now’s the time for innovation!
Equitable representation in politics would lead to unbiased legislation,
embracing all the variations of the disabled population.
Give us invitations to places we can travel to and accessible stations!
Keep streaming shows to remote locations!
Choose event destinations with consideration of integration.
And always, proper communication to enable education for all.
These adaptations are declarations of equality,
such simple affirmations of our belonging in society,
and with them, you’d see – we’re just like you and your relations,
deserving of life and all the wonders of creation.
Find out more about George's work at @a_g_parker
SICK ARTISTS CLUB
George Parker
Poetry by George Parker
Don’t Believe Everything You See On TV
I am sick of being consumed,
our history exhumed,
used for profit-making news,
TV shows, cis-het actors taking roles,
able-bodied players thinking
all it takes to be us is adopting
limp wrist, disfigurement,
twisted kink, fake limp and limb difference,
playing with sincere insistence
our stories that are nothing
but tragic, the magic of nuance lost
in warped versions, Hollywood perversions,
silver-screen flickers designed to get knickers wet,
marginalised lives mined for content,
fetishized for sex appeal,
demonised for shock value,
mythologised to other us,
‘cause when we’re monsters onscreen,
it’s a lot easier to kill us off off-screen,
lives lost the cost of
our burnt and distorted history.
The trouble is,
people love stories
it’s how we make sense of the world;
from the moment our fist first curled around an adult’s thumb we
learned who’s a threat, who to bet on, who
to develop deep-set prejudice for based on
mental screenshots of those shot on screen,
screening everyone we meet for those who caused a scream,
made a scene, who’s hopes were left unseen and
who finally got their shot, that
final, fatal ‘mercy’ shot
on the silver screen last night.
Best believe: shots on the silver screen rip
through the fabric of reality,
bullets plunging into flesh,
one way cinema tickets unravelling
hopes and dreams, streaming intravenous prejudice live
for all to see.
And if in the first act you see a disabled person,
by the end they must be cured or dead.
Broadly speaking that’s what Chekov said, and ok,
he was talking about guns but
consider this the version for the crippled ones
the unwanted ones
the to be pitied, can’t be pretty, witty,
get a good job in the city ones. The ones
who have to remind society why
we deserve to be alive while that same society
strives to keep us down, to watch us drown
in inadequate systems and architecture, but they’ll
give us a lecture about how
disability is an issue of the individual and not society how
if we tried hard enough, ate green, practised downward dog and
got enough sleep we’d be fine.
Did you know 89% of alleged disability benefit fraud was
found to be unfounded, grounded in benefit scrounger rhetoric
peddled by politicians and the media and tv and cinema?
But the trouble is, people love stories.
And they’re profiting from the twisting of our narratives,
all around us parroting these parables of
so-called morality, allegories where ‘disabled’ stands for
sin manifested in flesh, saying from this moment on I should spend each breath
praising their god and begging forgiveness
that if I was just that little bit more religious
this wouldn’t have happened.
But you’re queer – a lot of you here
know what it’s like to be cast in that light:
the incessant gentle hum of hearts crossed and prayers delivered,
let’s hope none of us touch the filthy sinner whose
devil dealing sealed their fate – queerness and illness
too often easy to conflate with Satan
and a lack of morals, our own history now
just tales borrowed and warped
to form distorted monoliths.
These myths are still perpetuated in film and society, and
believe me, those fears are making someone a hearty
rainbow-striped, cripple-stamped dollar.
Last week I watched a man’s face transform
as he realised, he’d bought into it all,
that disabled meant ugly, greedy, needy. Why do I think like that? he asked me.
Well, from the Nazi idea of us as eaters
to Thatcher, cinema, The Sun, and preachers,
the press we get is that we’re creatures. Less-than-human.
Not people.
And the trouble is, people love stories.
Casual Eugenics
I’m sure when you talked about herd immunity, you
didn’t necessarily
have me in mind.
I’m sure when the country was debating the fate of this nation
deciding which of the population had enough worth
to be kept alive, you didn’t specifically think of me or my disability.
Still, it hurt – watching you weigh up all the pros
and cons, slamming protests,
protecting statues of bronze and the economy
while sacrificing thousands, casually.
You really didn’t think of me… or the other others who needed you.
These times of desperation are not the finest of the nation.
They showed how many of us, when afraid will begin a small flirtation with damnation, saying, It’s fine,
God, let them die, just please, not me or my relations.
We were the collateral damage for your pilgrimage to the beach,
but even the corresponding peak
in deaths didn’t teach you anything –
another week and there’s another image:
you, like a thousand grains of sand;
you, jammed into bars like red, ripe fruit in a jar, pint in hand.
These times of desperation show ours to be a callous nation,
brazen with determination to go on vacation,
faces impatient as they yell, It’s fine! God! Let them die,
but I deserve this occasion for me and my relations.
And I hasten to add, we paid the price for you ignoring sage advice.
I’m not pointing fingers,
but as someone who’s disability wears a cloak of invisibility
I’ve heard it all. What you think of me.
And others like me.
Or maybe it wasn’t you I heard,
maybe you were one of those who stayed quiet,
compliant, complicit with the explicit plan
to let disabled people take the brunt of this pandemic.
Don’t tell me that’s not eugenics.
Ninety-seven thousand of us lost a battle we were never meant to win
in a flutter of papers that prodded readers like cattle
into believing herd immunity was for the best,
with no thought of our community.
Us who you deem unfit for page three, equality or society anyway.
It’s easy to shout over those who couldn’t even come out of their homes and protest.
And perhaps that’s best ‘cause
I saw you there, blaming protests for deaths,
making scapegoats of those who wanted to escape white supremacy and rape.
Protests didn’t kill a hundred and sixty thousand;
sure, there was crowding but people spouting
this nonsense just use it for their own astounding agenda,
well, here's a fact:
Disabled people made up 60% of deaths in the pandemic.
You can’t tell me that’s not eugenics.
What killed them was a trident of a lack of compassion:
greed, ableism, capitalism – wielded by the establishment.
It’s indefensible, these deaths preventable,
but our government stood there and said its acceptable,
that we were expendable. And you just went along with it.
Society was never accessible but now
with ninety-seven thousand of us dead to a battle we couldn’t win,
you have a chance to begin again. Include us.
These times of desperation could inspire the transformation of this, our fractured nation.
We just need a new equation,
one without alienation or otherness, but
with something more profound than tolerance.
Now’s the time for innovation!
Equitable representation in politics would lead to unbiased legislation,
embracing all the variations of the disabled population.
Give us invitations to places we can travel to and accessible stations!
Keep streaming shows to remote locations!
Choose event destinations with consideration of integration.
And always, proper communication to enable education for all.
These adaptations are declarations of equality,
such simple affirmations of our belonging in society,
and with them, you’d see – we’re just like you and your relations,
deserving of life and all the wonders of creation.
Find out more about George's work at @a_g_parker