Poetry & Fiction – Pike & Hurricane

Tender Ideas

Tim Klaenfoth — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 16:25:44 +0000

I still haven’t come down

Down from where I wanted to be days ago

From where I could have been years ago

And from where I should have been forever ago

I don’t hear a thing anymore

But the beat of the marching drum

Headed down the path to a future so vivid

Glistening much brighter than this one ever could

By Tim Klaenfoth

Picture by our photographer Tania L.

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The legality of abortion

Elena Wasserzier — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:50:09 +0000

On the 28th of September, the Amnesty International Student Association of Malmö University hosted a movie screening about the fight for safe abortion rights in Ireland, since the date also hallmarks the international day of safe abortions. The association made use of the occasion to remind people all over the world of women’s reproductive rights.

Additionally to the movie screening, a song written by Robin Atiken about “the legality of abortion” was performed. The song renders facts that can be found on the official website of Amnesty International and it constitutes a display of circumstances and reality for women across the globe.

The lyrics are presented below:

The legality of abortion is seen as somewhat crude

but listen as I sing, it will help you out dude

A quarter of pregnancies,

end in this procedure

So take that at your leisure.

If safety’s your worry then listen don’t hurry

25 million unsafe abortions,

Are done each year

This whole issue brings me a harsh tear

It it were safe,

Women would be saved

Are you hearing me quite clear?

A medical error called

the “chilling effect”

Where the line of abortion is not

scientifically checked

Post abortion care goes down

That makes all of us some clowns

If you shun the operation

A stigma will be the occasion

Our culture will be shamed

And we’ll all be to blame

CHORUS: x3

Why fight?

It’s a woman’s right.

If you disagree you can choose as you please.

People are delusional, when they think we have already achieved equality in regards to the sexes. This is not the case and the world still struggles to change old patriarchal patterns towards equity and equality for all. Even as recently as 2020, reproductive rights remain a major element in women’s fight for equality in multiple countries across the globe.

As depicted in the movie “When Women Won”, Ireland has just allowed the right for safe and legal abortions in 2018, which is only two years ago. Before that, women had to travel to England, literally cross a country border, to receive a safe abortion and be able to decide over their own body and their reproductive rights. The referendum which was adopted on the 28th of May 2018, granted the repeal of the almost constitutional abortion ban.

This illustrates that the world is very far from the progress women’s rights advocates aspire to see. Literal baby steps are taken in regard to women’s reproductive rights, because Ireland is not the only country which is late in history. The USA, for example has shown in the last couple of years that history can also go backwards in its timeline, when a couple of states, e.g. Virginia, decided to ban abortions and to deem it illegal. When this did not work out completely, the state aggravated its abortion laws, which made it a lot harder for women to seek an abortion when needed.

However, Virginia was eventually sued over their unfair abortion laws by Planned Parenthood, Center for Reproductive Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. The lawsuit considered the following laws as “burdensome and medically unnecessary”:

Second trimester abortions must be performed in a hospital;

Abortions must only be performed by a physician;

Medical facilities providing more than four first trimester abortions per month must undergo strict licensing requirements;

Patients must undergo an ultrasound and counseling 24 hours before an abortion, requiring them to make two trips to a clinic; and

Abortion is a class 4 felony if the requirements are not followed

The plaintiffs claimed that “the Commonwealth of Virginia has spent over four decades enacting layer upon layer of unnecessary and onerous abortion statutes and regulations.”

The list goes on: El Salvador and Nicaragua, in Central America, still enforce discriminatory laws that ban abortions in almost all conditions. More than 40% of the world’s women in childbearing age live in countries where, abortion is medically either very restricted, not accessible at all or banned and illegal, with partly grave penalties as a result of violation of the law.

Related articles:

Politics of fertility

Politically conscious art as backlash: Amanda Palmer’s “There Will Be No Intermission”

Picture Credits:

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Victoria Pickering, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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2048

Amanda Bujac — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 15:09:31 +0000

“Dear customers, the shopping center will close in 5 minutes.”

I smile at my last customer as I disconnect her device. “There you go, enjoy your listening!”. She thanks me and as she turns around, the smile on my face fades away. I watch her leave.

She joins the group of people waiting in front of the elevator.

I’m tired.

My eyelids drop heavily on my eyes, erasing their existence and replacing it with nothingness, but it’s the same. I open them. Now, she’s on the other side of the glass. They descend slowly as if going to hell.

Suddenly, I find myself in empty silence. It is so comforting I close my eyes again. Five minutes ago these walls were vibrating and now I am completely alone, I’m resting.

A sound makes me startle and open my eyes. I see an old humpbacked man standing right in front of me.

“I am sorry, sir, we are closed.”

“I know, son”, the old man replies, “but I’m in an urgent need of something. Look…”

His hand reaches into his pocket. He reveals a small bottle and puts it on the table. He takes off the cap and motions me to lean closer.

I look inside with curiosity. My eyes sink into the depths of a black viscous liquid.

“It is ink”, says the old man.

“Where did you get it?” I ask with bare surprise.

“It doesn’t matter, you see, the problem is I cannot use it. I need a pen, that is why I came to you.”

I am stupefied. Not only do I not sell pens, but I also can’t remember seeing one in the last fifteen years.

“Sorry, sir, I’m afraid I can’t help you. We sell only e-books and audiobooks in this store.”

All at once, the man’s face looks bitter. Now he seems even older, almost dead. I look at the little black ocean again and feel a hot stream rushing through my veins. I run to the other corner of the room and start searching through the drawers. After I find what I was looking for, I run back to the man.

“Try this”, I say in quick breath as I give him a digital stylus.

He looks doubtfully at the heavy metal stick. He then reaches for a piece of paper and deepens the stylus’ tip in the black liquid. When he starts drawing letters on the white surface, I feel hypnotized by the movement of his hand.

In a flash, the man’s face brightens up and he laughs:

“If only she knew what I have used to write this letter…”

I raise my eyebrows.

“So, you want to send a letter to a friend? I could have helped you write them an e-mail!”

“We can’t”, the old man says with a note of sorrow. “I heard they read e-mails. They will have some questions if they see I have written it in Swedish…”

My heart stops for an instance and I feel my knees weaken. I look to both sides with alarm, hoping there is no one around. Or maybe I just misheard?

“Excuse me, sir, I think I heard you wrong, I…”

“You heard me right, son”, he says with a grave tone now. “I want to send a letter to my country.”

“What do you mean?” I ask with despair wondering if he is a mad man. “We are all born in the same country!”

“Countries always existed and always will exist”, he says firmly.

“No!”, I cry while feeling deeply offended. “If countries exist, then war and hatred exists. We have a better world now!”

“Who lied to you, son?” the man says harshly. “Open your eyes! You think this is a better world we are living in? They have opened all borders saying this would bring people closer, but that was their bloodiest mistake. Back in the time, people were speaking different languages and could still be kind to each other. Now, they have established one universal language and no one understands a thing they say!”

“We are all friends now”, I scream to his face, “because we are all equal!”

“Who is your friend?” he asks me in a mocking tone. “You are as lonely as a sparrow in the rain! We all became strangers to each other. In the company of others, every man is alone.”

I look him right in the eye, full of anger. Who is this man and why did he come to me?

He continues:

“The emptiness of not having a land, a nation, a culture, we try to fill with material things. We buy them at any cost, because someone promised us these things would make us happy, but belonging to no country is unhappiness itself.

You are also from the North, I can see it in your blue eyes. I bet you grew up there as well, so you must know what I am talking about…”

“Shut up!”, I cry. “Shut your mouth!”

With both hands I cover my eyes full of tears. The hoarse voice is replaced with the sound of my heartbeat. Open your eyes, open your eyes, I keep hearing in the back of my head. Open your eyes.

I open them.

The old man is not there anymore. He is not in the hall nor in the elevator. He is gone.

I look at my hands and see they are soaked in coal-black ink. I look at the piece of paper on my desk and read out loud:

“Kära mamma, jag saknar dig. De kan inte förbjuda oss att älska vårt hemland.”

by Amanda Bujac

Illustration

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On the Edge

Merle Emrich — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 15:09:17 +0000

Between clouds in time lapse

A glimpse of a distant memory

Of the future

Of soldiers – wanting souvenirs

As if they were on holiday

Experiments on climate change

On the small scale

And patient despair

I stomp on the edge of reason

Scream into the abyss of sanity

Hard warnings

And acts of kindness

Perhaps we don’t know

We’re making history

In our ignorance

But still I have hope

For all the weird kids

Still I can see laughter

In your eyes

Why not change it

Challenge it

Disconnect from it

On all levels

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Edvard Munch, (23), pixelsniper, CC BY 2.0

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The Box (Poem)

Amanda Bujac — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 15:59:36 +0000

Hello there! We’re glad to see you,Make yourselves comfortable, folks,

It’s us, your old and trusted friends,

The voices from the box.

Together, we’ve been through a lot,

Those football nights and tears of joy,

Your children love the magic box,

So does that silly wife of yours!

It’s been a long day, it’s alright,

Worked at that shitty job till late,

You hate it from the depth of heart,

But those bills ain’t paying themselves.

[Advertisment time:]

♫ ♫ We would like to present you the fruit of innovation –

The telescreen.

Please calm down your exaltation!

You will never again struggle with finding your remote,

‘cause there is only one channel, and you just can’t turn it off! ♫ ♫

We have so much news for you,

Brought from all over the globe,

You don’t have to leave your house,

Just free your mind and listen close:

The world is a dangerous place,

We have foes and we have friends.

Friends have money, foes have bombs,

And sometimes they change their roles.

Our president is best

at explaining who is who,

As he says,“no one knows

the game better than I do”

“China we love. Israel we support.

There is no Iraq, it’s not a country at all.

With Russia we’re cool. North Korea beware.

They keep doing threats on us,

I bomb the hell out of them.

Mexico is not our friend.

Mexico is killing us.

Mexico is raping us.

Therefore I should build a wall,

It better be f***ing tall.

And don’t worry, ‘cause, you see,

No one builds walls better than me.

I’m concerned about the country.

The country simply goes to hell.

The American Dream is dead,

I’m lifting it from the grave.

Know that I will bring it back,

Stronger than it’s ever been,

The country will rebuild itself

So fast your poor heads will spin.

See,

no one is better at the military than I am,

No one knows the system better than me,

No one knows taxes better than me,

No one knows trade better than me,

No one is stronger than me—

We are,

We, people,

We are

–

Knowledge is power.

You have your eyes to see.

Preserve clearness of mind.

Turn off your TV.

By Amanda Bujac

Illustrations

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Apocálypsis

Merle Emrich — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:05:19 +0000

the uncovering of what one could not see before-

a path out of the darkness.

rarely have i seen a gift

such as your eyes of indigo

that see the kindness of the world

and turn a wasteland into fertile ground.

rarely have i known a darkness

that does not bare within

the discovery of hope

or a new beginning.

rarely have i come upon a truth

that could not be rewritten,

never has there been a lie

that could not be resisted.

rarely have i seen a gift

such as your eyes of midnight blue

that gaze upon deserts and destruction

and in this wasteland let wild roses grow.

Poem by Merle Emrich

Illustration by Sofia Evers

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