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Very Important Invitation

close up of the centre of a flower
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VULVA! Did I capture your attention?
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Each of us have our own experiences, relevance, compliments & complaints to mention
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Race, religion, gender – cervical screening has little constraints it’s about prevention and
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You are in control.

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Investment in your health, time to talk, education about look & feel
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More talking about our bodies, knowing the facts and questions we have all tried to conceal
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Putting it frankly, simply and laid bare
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Out in the open and then you find yourself sat in the chair
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Red rosy cheeks, being asked about your periods, dryness, sex, safety and infections
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That’s an odd question
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And did the nurse forget to mention?
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Not only do we want to do your cervical screening but we want to check your safe at home too
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That’s the aim of our holistic game.

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Invest in your time to learn, to read, to look after what you need
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Now if you ARE in need we can promise you one thing can be guaranteed
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Very Important Invitation will be here to advocate, elaborate, commemorate
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Interested in you being in control and feeling at the centre of your care
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Tackling whatever your goal,
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And combining care and making sure you know…we are
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There. There to listen, talk, hear your view, change the future of experiences for you
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If there is someone you want to bring, someone you trust
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Oh – you mean they are welcome too? Yes
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No matter what, you are in control.

Laura Cobbold, Very Important Invitation Project, Suffolk GP Federation


 

Currently Popular Poems:

Change

As  I stand with my feet in the ocean, and look at the setting sun, I think of how many me's, have stood in how many seas, but always stared at the same one. A snapshot of scenes in the movie of me, at various times of my being. A new version of me every single time; the same star I'm always seeing. It fills me with curious wonder, for the places that I may go; And the life that has yet to happen, and the things I have yet to know. Jess

White Hawthorns

The day speaks of white hawthorn Sundays Long washed out road trips, reluctant relatives waving you off on arrival. Rain from decades passed, a swishing of glimpses. Parents cramped and fretful. Passing through a littered accompaniment of faceless outlines. Stretched out warming children, car sick, scrunch up weathered newspapers. Pungent smells of nostalgia, almost Springs bouncing forward hours. Eager sweet wrappers lunge for half opened windows to adorn the floating blossom clouds of hawthorn bushes, March’s winds step in much like a bone-chilled but amiable hitch hiker. A querulous sibling rolls over, sickening, falls out in a screeching of tires. Tearfully rain-splattered. Another weekend pulled out and pegged up, redolent of adolescences quickly traversed. Mark Ereira-Guyer

Splash

Splash Fresh waterfall. Right angled, ancient oak branches bending backwards. Reindeer grey lichen sponges holding droplets. Rippling whitewaters a current. River retreating Melancholy whispers. Sinuous waters flowing downstream. William

Lockdown My Gran

Behind the window, my gran she clasps onto life in the home with hugs unknown. I peer through the glass, inside she despairs the care assistant stares I think I swear. *****y covid-19 and plastic screens daily visits with my mask and wall of glass. Gran looks paler, the care home her jailor I can't say I love you but kisses I blew. I visited again, on Sunday morning until her death and last gasped breath. No chance to say goodbye, In the bed she did die Undignified end for gran my best friend. I think 'gran' every day, thoughts in my head It's helpful I find to write down my mind.  Susie

Lace-like Shadows

Dancing with lace-like shadows of forgotten worlds, the tortoiseshell creeps slowly, the last energies to lie upon the rough bark. With folded wings, Madame butterfly is no more til Spring. Charlotte

Sweet Diatoms

Sweet diatoms You make me smile Algal atoms Too small to see But for my eye Peering microscopically Your fiddly frames Of filigree silica Seem big to me Tim  

Reason for Joy

Grey clouds smudge the skies, like a small child learning to write his alphabet. Grey skies oppress me, bear down on me. Stumbling on cobbles, I climb hump-backed bridges, watch raindrops bounce, falling then sinking into inky waters. Light gleams from shop windows, falls in yellow pools on the pavement; white lights string out along the canal. Darkness descends on wet streets, feeding depression. The bitter wind probes my upturned collar, bites hard with its vampire fangs. Mid-afternoon. The curtain falls; the solstice has arrived, darkest before dawn. On the shortest day things can only get better. Julia Duke

That Coastal Feeling

The coast revitalises My lost energies Downtrodden to the sand Amplified by the wind. Respects returns Armoured by the origin Enlivened by the presence Of drifting dunes. The shoreline beckons With drifting sentiments Forgotten and vast reflections Rendered unbroken. Jeremy

Ballinasloe Station

Flood plains replenished and diminished, a deceiving here-and-there fluidity and the flat statement of stubborn water. Occasionally trackside trees are stranded, littered in swirling pools that soundlessly disappear. On the horizon, tall walls and radio mast mark the far-off asylum neatly screened with its avenue of trees. The people are hidden beyond the town, their tears reaching as far as the railway lines. The train navigates the flood’s edge like logic escaping emotion, trim engineering escaping danger, holding firmly onto the rails. (Ballinasloe was a major mental home in County Galway) Pat Jourdan

Decay and Madness

From the depths And gazing into the distance Strength not normality Fallen to the post. Long in sadness Decaying and madness. Kim