Month: June 2018

In a later world our leaders contrived,
At first by ineptitude, and then by design,
To have observed by the populace
One minute of silence, every minute,
Though we have long stopped wondering why.
Once, with mindfulness and prayer,
With cross-border respects, and a diligent care,
Distilled into a series of moments where we forget
Which victim fell, which unwilling hero died,
In our hordes. I accept that in this parallel script
I have streteched reality, my prerogative,
Such is my meaning if to the nth degree applied.

We will meet in appropriated spaces
Without flowers or trees, just wreaths
On top of wreaths; no sounds of handles turned
Or choirs, nor uncomfortable muscles stretching on
Pews of yew and seats where our forefathers
Fell asleep on humid summer mornings;
But tolling bells, alarms, constant alarms,
And a hum of buzzers bought from the East,
And then silence. For silence has a sound,
It reverberates with its own sense of place
And patterns, a recognisable cadence which rests
On the tips of our tongues in that public square,
As in our blindness we carved out a palette,
As in the voids we saw an awful content, matter,
Hurtling towards the verge of these fabrics,
An unleashed herd of unborn chatter.