Somehow it’s got a special day to remind people to remember, as if the actual fact is not enough, and the faces of eternal suffering do not describe the pain, the sorrow the longing for it to have never happened, but the knowledge that it did and could again. .. Now we sigh and shrug […]
Is it still Aleppo now that it’s flattened into anonymous rubble? How much more destruction can it take before it is seen to be destroyed? Horror upon horror dulls the senses until the little children Covered in grey dust, fighting to breathe become commonplace To our eternal shame. This war, the warlords say, will go […]
The boy, aged five years, his eyes staring unseeing At horrors unknown His hands stained with the blood of his bleeding scalp Sits as still as death While the chaos rages around him And we watch and weep as the bombs fly and buildings collapse In another place, another time And the little boy sits. […]
The man said no worry, we’d be okay, I wanted to know how much we’d pay He said five thousand, you pay today. We broke the bank, found all we had Said goodbye to the cat, the children were sad I told them, when we got there they would be glad. We paid […]
Don’t take your car to the carwash It’s the new slave trade And the lads who work in the carwash Are their master’s slaves. They work for a pittance, if they are lucky, Sleep like dogs in whatever space they can find While our ignorance of the life they lead And the life they have […]
Ireland’s history, written in blood, Proclaims its children an eager sacrifice Oh Mother, dry your tears Too many years of sacrifice Many years of bloody cries Oh Mother, close your eyes To the screams of Ireland’s children Born to die, or live exiled Oh Mother, close your ears In twenty sixteen, don’t […]
The now familiar explosions shake the city and The pall of smoke rises this time over Brussels The panicking crowds run blindly through The blood soaked carnage hoping to be saved, While the evil hate-filled clerics and their succubi Sing praises to Allah, to the painful music of children’s cries. The teddy bear mountain grows […]
It’s a loop in my head, I can’t get rid of it Round and round it goes on an infernal merry-go-round The migrant crisis, look how they suffer Don’t turn away now the camera doesn’t lie. But wait. Now the migrants are not migrants. They are predators, preying on our generosity, our soft hearts. Their […]
This green and pleasant land of riches Draws the poorest to its shores Who then discover the greatest lie, There’s no welcome and the gates Of this nirvana are closed, the promises Of last years politics turned to dust. So, disaffected and unwanted they huddle These shabby masses, claiming our green spaces, Ungrateful for the […]
We are walking walking walking Along the road to nowhere And we never seem to reach a spot Where people care So we’ll go on walking walking walking Till we fall. We’ve left the land that spawned us Left behind the war and pain We’ve reached the land that spurns us So we turn, and […]
Her face accuses Dirty hands clenched into fists Determined mouth, set against tears Too much knowledge in this youngster’s eyes Her wariness tells of too many years Saying No man No don’t shoot I’ll remember you No Surrender
I am not a silent poet 