In Battle of The Eighth, Zainab Boladale highlights how historically and traditionally women have always been the victimised by the laws that govern our society. The very same victimisation that can be seen in the arguments made for the 8th amendment.
Battle Of The Eighth
She is marked as the best sinner.
Hidden shame for centuries,
always an inner war being waged.
She cleans up the evidence at the end of every month.
Expert on how to wash the blood off her hands.
Strong, cut-throat yet she’ll always forgive.
Born naked, covered up.
Artilleries on her back.
The weight of man on her shoulders.
Standing, facing broken mirrors.
Folded up in boxes.
Only four corners with no exit.
She knows how to love herself, secretly.
Not another trademark for your needs.
These are the terms she puts up with.
When she refused to give birth.
Set up to lose the battle before it begun.
In the papers she’s never named.
Daughters of, Wife of.
Now it’s time to reclaim our names.
As we march on to Repeal the Eighth.
Women are the backbones of our history.
Women are divine goddesses,
who are capable of making a choice.
Zainab Boladale
Marguerite Doyle was thinking of the children in Aleppo – she is a mother too. It’s about who will judge the rest of the world.
Aleppo
There is a new hell
Deeper than the nine circles
The poet Virgil tells
Of educated men
Remote and powerful
Raining hopelessness and death
And Dante alluded
To subterranean dealings
With silent voices in collusion
While reason hides
The consuming Inferno
Is revealed to have two sides
Both ponder the sins
War and Indifference
On the scales of Mephistopheles
Marguerite Doyle
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