Eleven explosions of sound in the silence;
One split second sequence relived eleven times,
Deafening in the temporary stillness of
A thousand people remembering what they
Did not experience.

They cannot see the images relayed to
Eyelid screens that are always on,
Rolling news that replays shattered moments
In glorious HD, memories embedded like shrapnel
In skin and bone and brain.

Even when they look up from their cosy lives
To join in annual reverence, they do not
See: they do not believe in ghosts and demons
That haunt crater eyes and desert souls,
Expanding like mist into all the gaps
In a life, expanding like ice in all the cracks
In a hastily built wall until
It no longer delays the flood.

The waters will never reach them, perched
Atop the moral high ground they pay
A pound a year to occupy; a small price
To pay for freedom from responsibility
For taking parents from children
And children from parents.

Eleven explosions sound in the silence:
They go unheard by those whose
Gratitude for the past prevents them
From seeing the present; those who look
Too closely at history to see it repeating.

05/27/2017

Posted on 05/28/2017
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince