In the contemporary poetry community, Jay Rafferty emerges as a distinct and compelling voice. Known for his humour and his powerful articulation of social and human themes, Rafferty’s latest poem, Beatitudes, exemplifies his unique blend of nationalistic fervor and staunch opposition to oppression. As both an esteemed poet and a co-judge for The Broken Spine’s annual poetry and prose chapbook competition, Rafferty is not just a creator but a curator of impactful literary expressions. His works, including Holy Things and Strange Magic, resonate with his deep commitment to love, freedom, liberation, and the unyielding spirit of humanity. In Rafferty’s writings, one encounters a poet who not only captures the essence of our times but also inspires a profound reflection on our collective human experience.
Beatitudes
I.
Blessed are they who, for want of a better life,
for want of their children’s safety, give all of their self
to the roads and corridors too often policed and hunted
and criminalised by virtue of existing. Those who work for
tuppence, who toil as one could never imagine, who love life
and freedom and safety more than anyone for there are no
real borders in this world to hold them, just men with chalk.
Men die and chalk is swept away with the rain.
II.
Blessed are they under shell fire, women, children, men,
soldiers, grocers, surgeons, journalists and innocents,
for their mourning will not go unmarked, their dead will
not be disappeared, their martyrs will not be rewritten as
monsters. They shall see the juggernaut of their enemy’s
corpse brought before history and exposed for the filth
that it is and always will have been.
III.
Blessed are women, trans, cis and other for their patience,
their endurance, their tempered strength wielded justly under laws
designed by the other, crueller sex, laws with barbs and death
sentences. But not the women who would hold their sisters rights
like reins on a wild creature. Not the women who would see
their sisters butchered or fettered or mutilated for the hair they show,
the cells they abort, the skin they leave bare and their refusal,
their refusal to remain silent any longer.
IV.
Blessed are the survivors for despite what was done to them
they are still here. Their victory is in their smile, in their laughter,
in the life that no one can stamp out or take from them and someone
tried. They are not survivors, they are so much more.
Their victory is their life. Love it. Love them for there are many
where there should be few.
V.
Blessed are the nurses paid too little for too much, forced
to scrap and strike for the smallest recompense. They are saints
in this life and forever will be, their names glorified, remembered
and praised where the gluttonous cretins of government, who would
pay them naught, are swept out like the passing of water.
VI.
Blessed are the children, born onto a poisoned world.
May they show us the mercy we did not show them,
may they forgive us our failings, our continued incessant failings.
May they breathe freely once in their short lives, away from gas
or smoke, or the rhetoric
of deniers. May they live to see a world safer and richer
and purer then the one that was left to them.
VII.
Blessed are the poetry readers for they seek something
they know not. They seek more than they see, something
more than can be put into words. They seek a call to arms,
religious guidance, a philosophy of love, a rally cry against
hate and intolerance. Blessed are they, for they will find it
all too easy.
VIII.
Blessed are we to see this day, to rise to meet the challenges
we set ourselves and are set to us, to overcome them
or to fall or fail or be found wanting. For we can do better,
we should and we will. We were blessed enough to see today,
we’re blessed to have been given the chance to make tomorrow
better.
(Rafferty, J, 2023)