Featured poet and artist: Tony Demoncy

17 January 2022

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Tony Demoncy is a disabled poet and artist. A survivor of bullying, child sex abuse, psychiatric abuse and other traumatic events, he grew up in a house filled with books and art, and has read avidly on topics ranging from Science, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Disability Rights, and more.

When a child, Tony’s mother tried to turn him into an artist but he never thought that he had talent. Tony eventually found his artistic talent and muse in his 40s.

Tony has been writing poetry since childhood and has written poetry of many varied hues on themes of heart and soul, liberation and oppression, science and mysticism, disability, politics, hope and despair.

He lives in Surrey where he draws and writes his poetry and is a client of various organisations which provide support to disabled people and survivors of child abuse.

A Humanist and Intersectional Feminist he has an interest in Science and Politics, Disability Rights, Survivor Rights and Human Rights.

A few selected poems by Tony which he has kindly shared with us:

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
Everyone 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.

Tony Demoncy, 02/05/2011

We Have Found Our Voices

Some have found their voices
Fighting this injustice
They speak for us who’ve lost our voice
To ring the bell of justice

We’ll no more be silenced
We’ll not be swept away
or forced to die in misery
We must have our say

We must make them hear us
Hear our song of truth
This rampant weed of prejudice
Must be killed at the root.

Tony Demoncy, 19/05/2011

Protest Disabled

So protesting wrongs is now a crime
More so if one’s disabled.
One is made to do hard time
As fit one is mislabelled.

Police take notes and pass along
Dates and names and faces
Stasi-esque; an awful wrong
They take away all traces

Of rights, of voice, of agency,
Our speech is chilled and frozen:
Reported to DWP
Our pittance stopped and stolen.

We are declared to be base frauds:
Disableds aren’t permitted
To challenge wrongs like other folk:
We’re not yet manumitted

We are the chattels and the slaves
Of those who are the masters
To suffer from their whips and staves;
Their diktats of disaster

We must be kept down in our place,
Not challenge the corruption:
We’re not allowed to show our face;
To challenge the disruption

That stalks this broken, tortured land
From blunders of the mighty;
A boot stamped on the face and hand
Of all who should be free.

Tony Demoncy, 28/07/2019

I am Just as Human

Look at me,
Look at you.
You are Human.
I am too.

We may be different,
We may have different needs.
I deserve as much respect
Though we move or think at different speeds

Though I am disabled,
Though you are not,
I am just as Human
You may have forgot

About how to treat me
As equal, deserving
Of rights and respect
Of love and caring,

I am not less,
You are not more –
We are both human
With gifts and flaws

I am just another person
I have needs and rights and dreams
I am truly fully human
With all that is and all that means.

So, treat me not with less respect
Treat me not with hate or contempt
I deserve as much from life as you
We may be different but I am human too.

Tony Demoncy, 11/09/2020