In 2020, we put together a “virtual exhibition”, featuring creative pieces by folks in our network, including photography, drawings, and poetry. This year, we’re doing the same.
Please note that images, videos and words below may be subject to copyright – please do not reuse any of the works below without permission.
Sue Thomas
Artwork by Sue Thomas, Trustee of Time To Talk UK www.timetotalkuk.org.uk
The Makers Group at OrganicARTS
All work by The Makers Group at OrganicARTS. Visit their website: www.organicarts.org.uk/projects/, Instagram @organicarts and Facebook OrganicArtsIde
Finding Strength In Small Things Project by Sound Minds
Short film by Sound Minds. Twitter: @soundmindsuk, Facebook SoundMindsLondon
Martin Vallis
Visit Martin’s website: martinvallis.com, Instagram @martinvallis1
Joe Kelly
“Carrying Hope”
Carrying hope for others who cannot.
Speaking out for others who cannot:
beaten and bullied by the gang,
the ones who have a duty of care but do not.
The glass partition where you are not heard.
Do you not notice how they treat us?
says a friend.
The vulnerable that are violated.
Systemic disfunction: the screwy
mess kept together with silence and fear.
The vile toxic mixture,
Omerta – the Sicilian code of violent,
caustic silence.
Does it run through all our institutions
from the top to the bottom?
Top down from Number 10.
Silence the voice, cut the funding.
Restrict the oxygen of free speech.
Surely the Emperor has no clothes
and is truly in the altogether.
Visit Joe’s website: wordsout.co.uk/joe_kelly.htm
Arun Paul Kapur
@ArunKapur333 on Twitter. See also: Arun’s Youtube channel.
Linda Lipski
@LinkaLipski on Instagram. Website: www.linkalipski.com
Tony Demoncy
Beneath The Boots Of Privilege
For those blessed few who live the life of privilege and power
It’s hard for them to see the lives of little folk as real.
Us poor ants who scurry ‘neath the boots of those who tower
Are deemed unworthy of the right to live and breathe and feel.
We must be told how we should live as reason is beyond us.
Our sufferings are meaningless and quite beneath contempt.
The poor aren’t meant to live lives of fulfilment they assure us,
Else they’d not be such feckless souls – it’s quite self-evident!
And so we work and slave and toil ‘til working is beyond us,
To fill the pokes of richer folk for whom it’s all a game,
For those who earn more in a week than we do in a lifetime,
And squander nations’ riches then tell us that we’re to blame!
The Song Is Never Over
The song is over
The lights are down
But there are always more around
Every corner, every town
Some discovered, more unfound
Heartache, heartbreak, fear and woe
Why can’t all of it just go?
We Are The Voiceless
We are the voiceless
No matter what we say
Those with Disabilities
Reviled and swept away.
A tide of hate and prejudice
Is sweeping us away
It’s hard enough to live this life
When one struggles day to day.
But apparently we are to blame
For all this country’s woes
We are made to seem fair game
Everone Our Foe
No one wants to tell our tale
No one wants to know
That we are being crushed here
With no place left to go.
Jessie Jones
Visit Jessie’s Viewbug profile here.
Great Gillett
@mamaladybirdladybird on Instagram
Alice Smith
Alice at 361LifeSupport – website: 361lifesupport.co.uk
Rachel Rowan Olive
From ‘Believing’ Zine
@RRowanOlive on Twitter. Website: www.rachelrowanolive.com, Etsy: RachelRowanOlive
Sue Ilsley
The Circus Clown
Have you ever seen a circus clown, their audience entranced
Did you ever look behind their smile and wonder if by chance
They were so very different to maybe you or me
And was it just a clever act for all the world to see
Did you ever want to find a hole and climb inside to hide
Or did you wear a public mask to hide your fears inside
Did you ever wish you were the same, circus clowns apart
Did you ever feel such loneliness clutching at your heart
Did you ever seek to comfort or make allowance too
In case some other perso n felt j ust the same as you
Or did you tell yourself instead that people passing by
Were really very confident and couldn’t possibly be shy
Did you consider for a moment, circus clowns aside
That every single person has doubts deep down inside
But some of us are very good at creating an impression
And we wouldn’t want the world to see beneath our brave expression
Did you ever stop to ask yourself which persona is the worst
The sort that’s quiet and obvious or the noisy extrovert’s
And have you ever noticed how people can be cruel
And wondered about their motives as they seek to ridicule
I’ve ask myself these questions but it hasn’t done much good
I think we could be like the clown
Happy, sad or just misunderstood
Time
I am doing busy time rushing here and there
Anything to distract the mind and how I really care!
Someone else’s problem, someone else’s need
Putting all the others first makes me a friend indeed
The television fills the time with fantasy and crap
Anything and everything what am I really at?
I am doing quiet time with nothing much to fill my mind
I begin to look, begin to start; to notice what is in my heart
The stomach churns with quiet fear, there is no other voice to hear
And all the stuff I put on hold reminds me that I’m growing old
The guilt, the pain, the silly mistakes; the judgements causing my heart to ache
My journey’s end is drawing near
Time has passed by and now it’s so clear
There was never the need for all of that torment
I am all that I am in the present moment
The past is gone and laid to rest, the future to come may present a test
I live the moment as it passes by and I do not weep I do not cry
For past mistakes and foolish things
For everything becomes the past and I live in the now
I am free at last.
Seagulls
Pale streaks of turquoise blue soft clouds of violet grey
The colours of the sky as I drove to work today
My heart was feeling weary and my thoughts were far away
Of times now lost forever; that seem like yesterday
I saw a flock of seagulls rise up into the air
Stark white upon the horizon; their hearts so free from care
The sky it turned to azure blue; my thoughts returned again to you
There is a space within my heart that can’t be filled now we’re apart
I wore a smile for others today; no words can stop me feeling this way
I heard seagulls calling high above; I miss your tender ways of love
The sky was pink and red and gold, the day was finished, had grown old
I could only imagine seagulls’ swirling as deep inside my heart was yearning
The darkness came and shadows fell; long fingers cold and grey
No more colours in the sky as I drove home from work today
Michelle Baharier
Visit Michelle’s website at michellebaharier.co.uk, email mbfcsra@gmail.com
Dawn Willis
@__dawni__doodles on Instagram
Apoet, Imnot
Views of a git:-
I have to admit
I’m often a git
And I have to admit
It worries me quite a bit
But I’m working on sorting that out innit
So that one day even when I’ve been an absolute git
I won’t give a monkeys
Tony Fisher
Visit Tony’s website anthonyfisherphotography.co.uk, Instagram @photony54
Eleni Chambers
Hazzard
This letter was inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous and my Inner Grandmother. For anyone battling with an addiction to a substance masquerading as a friend. wiredbetter@gmail.com
Dear friend,
This is a curious letter, as we are confidants of a common kind. I hear from you every day. Tap, taping on my thoughts whenever I am down, or in need of a company. Sometimes when you don’t appear, I get fearful and fantasise meeting you in delicious nooks. Hiding between sandwiches and croissants in a café. Squeezed into the gaps of aisle produce. Sometimes, nerves unnerve me. Crouching in the trolley park, I urge courage to pick me up and wheel me toward your embrace. Nonetheless, after a hard day, upon unsealing the lips of our fridge, as the cold air brushes past my face, I can be confident that you lay in wait. Dopamine hits pulse through me as I salivate in temptation. Laying in wait, so I may consume your weight.
And for this I write. I will mourn your absence, yet I fear our relationship more. My obsession with you has now entered consciousness. Our bond is dissolving my relations with other beings. The line between us is blurring. I’m losing autonomy. You the parasite, I your zombie slave.
We need to break up.
I spent the entirety of the day drafting this letter, in your surveillance none the less. Perched upon my hardened shoulder, coaxing me towards snacks and false security. But heeding your advice, leaves us in perpetual ambiguity.
Yes, it is time we break up.
This conclusion surmounted by rational decision making which may feel alien as we hardly follow logic. Preferring impulse and instant gratification. I wrote down a list of Pro’s and Con’s about our friendship which I would like to share. Perhaps, making the break up easier to swallow.
PRO’s – why I care for you.
Your biggest asset is loyalty. I have known you since I was 17…..15 whole years. My lengthiest friendship. Loyal and reliable. I trust you to never let me down when I need calming down. Stress, sadness, apathy, gluttony, anger, anxiety, and excitement. When emotions overwhelm, you are THERE.
THERE to calm me down. Providing containment, ironing agitation so I may claim reprieve. Tick tock the nasty thoughts stop. Anaesthesia for my troubles. Fulfilling a fleeting yet ravenous hunger instantly. How many friends can achieve that?
And now the Con’s – why I care for you – not.
You are selfish. We can never invite company to our dates, and if on occasion I try to, you treat them with a sharp tongue and sulk.
Your comfort is temporary. As soon as my emotions have been dulled, numbed, and my craving satiated you punish me. You make me feel guilty, ashamed, and fat. Without uttering a word, you force me to purge on all the things that a mere hour ago satiated. What true friend would do that?
Solace temporary; pain lingers. Our dance has made teeth crack, stomach bloat, throat clamp, ribs float, temples throb, discs bulge. Where are you to pick up those pieces?
When you leave ( and you always do) I become idle, numb.
As my most loyal friend, I thought your assets would be swiftly penned. But it was our crimes that poured upon the page like calories down the funnel.
Let me tell it to you straight bulimia. A real friend wouldn’t let us win the small battles with a quick fix. They’d challenge. We’d fight the war with courage, discipline and wit. A real friend enjoys company, doesn’t hound and persist. A real friend would not scorn the corporal temple.
Bulimia you hoodwinked me. Camouflaging yourself as my best friend when all along you were a selfish, cruel mistress. I am scared to let you go. What will I do without you? Who will I become? It is time to release you from your duties and find out.
With no regrets.
I claim the final morsel.
Be gone.
Unchange2Change
ON THE LOST ART OF BELIGERENCE can you fucking stand up already?
Self-Pathologisation Is The Weakness
That Gives Birth To the Sickness
Of Being
Ontology Will Resist
And Fight To Persist
In This Cruel Fucking World
The Only Way Out
Is Through Pain, Through Misery, Through Mayhem
But Hey Stop Feeling So Ashamed
Synchronicity Exists
It’s Not You to Blame
Fight Suffering With Compassion
Not Your Vision Of The Same
Man Hands On Misery to Man
It Deepens Like A Coastal Shelf
So Fuck Larkin
Stand Up For Yourself
The Reason You Choose Not To
Is Not Your Own Choosing
It’s False Consciousness That Makes You Keep Losing
It’s The All Hate Is Self Hate Appeal
Of AS Neill
That Leads To Shame
Self-Indulgent Fuckery and Blame
The Narcissist Is Not The Object
It’s You
It’s All You
Look In The Fucking Mirror and Listen
The Answer Is Staring Back At You
Stand Up And Fight
Or You Choose To Loose
You Close Change Again and Will Never Find A Way Through
But It Was There All Along
Jung Was Right
The Fire Still Burns Inside
We Just Became Too De-Educated To Decide
That We Were Responsible
For Operating The Universe Outside of Causality
Too Fucking Stupid To Realise Our Self-Hatred
Was The Cause
Not The Effect
Of A Flawed Society
That We Must Empower Ourselves To Change
But People Run From Synchronicity In Fear
The Possibility of More Meaning
Petrifies Us
So Much So That We Fight Against It
Transforming Possibility Into Prisons
Into Pain
It’s Not Fucking Rocket Science
It Never Has Been
The Answer Has Been There All Along
And I Ain’t No Preacher
But RD Laing Was Right
This Ain’t No Insanity
That’s A Totalitarian World
Just Listen Again And Hear the Word
Visit www.buymeacoffee.com/unchange2change/posts for more music, activities, essays and poems
Dick the Nutty Poet BPD
CURSED IS THE NURSE
CURSED IS THE NURSE FROM THE CRISIS TEAM
SHE LEFT ME TO DIE ALONE AND UNSEEN
CURSED IS THE NURSE WHO TREATS ME BAD
LEAVING ME WITH NOTHING BUT BITTER AND SAD
SUSPICIOUS AND MALICIOUS CLUSTER EIGHT
SUSPICIOUS AND MALICIOUS FOR CLUSTERS SAKE
CURSED IS THE NURSE WITH THE POLICY
WHO FAILED IN HER DUTY OF THE CARE FOR ME
CURSED IS THE NURSE WHO TURNED HER BACK
WHO BAREFACED LIED AND GOT THE SACK
SUSPICIOUS AND MALICIOUS CLUSTER EIGHT
SUSPICIOUS AND MALICIOUS FOR CLUSTERS SAKE
ASSISTED SUICIDE CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER
COMMITTED AGAINST YOUR SON OR YOUR DAUGHTER
ZERO TOLERANCE JUST FEEDS THE SLAUGHTER
MIND EXPLODING WITH THE POISONOUS MORTAR
SUSPICIOUS AND MALICIOUS CLUSTER EIGHT
SUSPICIOUS AND MALICIOUS FOR CLUSTERS SAKE
THE LACK OF CARE MAKES MY LIFE SHORTER
SLIPPING AWAY IN THE BLOODIED BATH WATER
ALL OF THIS FROM A BORDERLINE DISORDER
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
REJECTION
THANKS TO YOUR REJECTION
I NOW HAVE AN INFECTION
I HAD TO SELF HARM
JUST TO KEEP CALM
I HOPE YOU ARE PLEASED
WITH WHAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED
NOW GO ON SECONDMENT
AND TAKE SOME WELL EARNED LEAVE
JUST BECAUSE ITS SAID
DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE
IF YOUR OFFEND BY
A REFLECTION OF YOU
I FIND IT ALL OFFENSIVE
WHEN YOU ARE SO DEFENSIVE
HAS SOMEONE DIED
TO MAKE YOU RUN AND HIDE
YOU HAVE MADE A CHOICE
NOW I HAVE LOST MY VOICE
YOU HAD TO ROLL THE DICE
SO I WILL TAKE THE LAST SLICE