Forty Million Tonnes and Counting
Forty Million Tonnes
and what do we get?
Almost a song lyric
written for those who don’t get older,
the uncounted ones lost in the rubble of Gaza.
Forty Million Tonnes of homes, roads,
and infrastructure converted into rubble
that will take uncountable years for us to clear
and still longer to rebuild towns and villages,
to replant crops and trees.
And who are the ‘us’ - the ones who will pay.
The same ‘us’ as did it before
and will do it again
unless perpetrators are held accountable.
And while this goes on, year upon year
‘they’ will feed those surviving
living still in that wasteland of rubble.
The same ‘they’ as did it before,
are trying to do it now
and will do it again
unless perpetrators are held accountable.
And how will we, us, they and them
deal with the hate engendered.
It will have to be dealt with,
then what will we do
as we count the cost
once again.
First published in Dissident Voice 21 July 2024
Somewhere Else the Birds Are Singing
He managed to open the shutters a little way
but the gap was smaller than he expected.
He eased his head and shoulders inside.
The rest of him,
his arse and legs,
remained outside
covered in a blanket
then, as dawn broke,
covered once more
by a blanket of early spring snow.
He was hungry.
He was always hungry.
Somewhere the birds are singing
he thought
somewhere else
the birds are singing.
first published in Hunger X March 2024
Nothing
In those streets
of men and boys,
in that country
for men and boys,
she feels like a person with no face,
her face space covered,
her identity occupied
by a swirling mist of confusion
like nothingness being born.
Sometimes
she wishes for a blank space
that she could fill herself
with a Magritte apple
or even a woman
even herself
un-blanked
and visible.
Now, in those streets
of men and boys,
in that country
for men and boys,
she feels like a person with no voice,
Magritte’s apple is choking her,
muting her
so even in her home she whispers
her songs and curses.
Only in her head does she shout
that something will come of nothing,
that something must come of nothing.
First published in New Verse News, August 28, 2024
