A Song for the Survivors of Grooming Gangs
Clutches of cowards stain once restful ways
Where doors opened on twilight and sweet calm
And families shared joy at close of days,
In Oxford, Oldham, London, Rotherham,
Cologne. The numbers of the wounded rise.
No mercy stays
Rogues’ bodies or their dying souls. Few care
To halt them or to blame them. Windows glance
Impassively at quick, passing despair.
Autumn shadows touch the radiance
Of evening sun and darkening, grey skies.
Confident none will draw them to account,
Rejoicing at the shadows in scorned eyes,
They think the bitter flood tides need not cease
Until their desolation is complete. They mount
Towards a sunken whirlpool. Victims know
How few will hear their sadness. Little peace
Will come to young, bruised girls in their sorrow.
My mind recoils, as when a harsh wind sends
High surf against a stone retaining wall
Above a beach. The wall shivers and bends
And crumbling veins of mortar break and fall
So that the sea’s victory is achieved.
And I recall
Policemen, policewomen I have known,
Who laboured far outside their duty’s bounds,
Who ventured through the streets of frost, alone,
When quiet warfare spread its cruel sounds,
Or with favoured companions who believed
In all humanity, even the torn,
Always the broken, and were not deceived.
They served the purpose many more disdain,
And found themselves bewildered, stunned, forlorn.
They laboured in the mire to their own cost,
Paid out with incommunicable pain,
Spirit expended, given to the lost.
They salvaged children or they gathered them
Into body bags or into their cells
Waited for measured evidence to stem
Questions of what crazed drugs had cast their spells
Or knives spread blood. And they consoled the first
Of parting bells,
Grieving of suddenly betrayed mothers,
Fathers, aunts and friends. They lived through much,
Knew many things. And I think of others,
Officers who surrender to the touch
Of tired whispers leading them to the worst
Politicians’ evasions. They ignore,
Humanity and duty’s vows reversed,
Their mission to resist and to drive back
Unhallowed kidnappers’ unholy war
Launched against the vulnerable and free.
They yield to storms of merciless attack
On hours of light and human dignity.
They palter with barbarians, to protect
The shadows of a ship long passed to rust,
The rubble of a harbour long since wrecked,
Ashes of coastal taverns thrown to dust.
Women must dream or try to dream and sleep,
Hoping to trust
Once more somehow the years that devastate
Their hopes of love. And lovers, parents, friends
Must try to sleep or dream, waking at late,
Uncertain hours when tranquillity ends
And shock returns with unavoidable, deep,
And sharp visions of savagery. The shores
Lap against the pouring foam of steep
Breakers, angry seaweed and cold spray,
And strangers work towards the patient cause,
Below the jagged cliffs of streaming sand,
Strive to restore the memory of play
With kindness and the comfort of a hand.
The wall tumbles. The foam soars high. The waves
Hurl shards against the sky, and sunbeams draw
Flashes of salt from breaking clouds and caves.
Town councillors and officers at law,
Journalists and prosecutors hide
The truth in straw,
In Oxford, Oldham, Rotherham, Cologne,
London. But hearts persist and lives rebuild,
Perceive the morning and make worlds their own,
Despite the breath of hate that would have killed
And shamed them. Victims walk unbroken, ride
The turbulence of agony to new
Tomorrows and beginnings. Justified,
Courageous past the night of cowardice,
Survivors live great stories. All are true.
None who sacrifice children to their grey
Misery shall triumph. But their malice
Grows and returns, and beaches wash away.
Michael Robinson lives in Australia’s southwest. He has published in numerous print and on-line journals. His awards include the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and the Tom Collins Poetry Prize. His books are The Tiger in the Vineyard (Ginninderra, 2015), The Music of the Streets (Ginninderra, 2017) and The Wounds of Faith (Immortalise, 2023).
I never would have guessed Australia would suffer such indignities as that which has become pervasive throughout the world in the tolerance for gang violence, just as I am horrified of their continuing existence and feral behavior in America! Your poem resounds with the cries for help from the victims and spotlights that which must be terminated with extreme prejudice (to use an American intelligence phrase, You end with hope for the victims who rise above the turmoil in the end and move on to have fulfilling lives. There is much to recommend your poem past the disturbing turbulence presented as you inspire the world to do something about the situation and stir our senses for these senseless acts.
Yes, tragically we have these things in Australia also. It is distressing that not just in Britain but elsewhere too many people in positions of authority want to downplay such horrors. Thank you for picking up on the note of hope. Where there are crimes there are human beings who suffer, and where there are human beings who suffer there can be hope.
The subject is difficult, and you’ve courageously succeeded in writing a powerful and moving poem. Among other devices, you have portrayed great grief, violence, and sorrow with stormy images like “Bitter flood tides”; “sunken whirlpool”; “harsh wind”; “high surf”; “a harbor long-since wrecked”; “the pouring foam of steep breakers”.
Thanks for your very kind comment. It’s a difficult and painful subject indeed and that makes it all the more important to me to try to evoke something of its depth and seriousness.
Thank you Michael, for such a visceral reflection on just one of the many evidences of the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization. It truly beggars belief that these atrocities are going on inside many of the nations that historically have defended Europe from the very perpetrators they have now welcomed into their borders. We need another Charles Martel!!! A very fine poem indeed.
Thank you, Theresa. I wish it wasn’t necessary to say these things. But I’m very glad you have appreciated the poem.
Though your poem touches much with apropos images of storm, Michael, I am most impressed by the ending lines. There are indeed persons who “sacrifice children to their grey misery” not by direct infliction of pain, but with smiling advice to proceed still further into evils the children have learnt by bitter experience. As you indicate, this is malicious theft of the children’s real potential for restoration. May there be more light, dignity, kindness, and comfort to realize that potential, however severe the storms have been.
Thanks, Margaret, for your comment. It can be devastating for women and children who have suffered these terrible things to see governments and courts not taking them seriously. There are unsung heroes who work to support people who have endured abuse and their efforts can be both amazing for the people they help and draining for them.
Thank you, Michael, for being bold enough to tackle a subject few are willing to talk about at any serious length. Your poem, with its striking storm and beach imagery, gives us a poetic glimpse of the most heinous cover-up I’ve witnessed in my homeland in all my born days. The government drawing the firm conclusion that to speak ill of groomers, gang rapists, kidnappers, and killers is more contentious than the crimes committed, is beyond my comprehension. Michael, thank you for your bravery.
It is beyond my comprehension too. What claim to moral standing can anyone or any institution have who doesn’t utterly condemn these crimes and make every effort to stop them and the conditions that have led to them? Hence, perhaps, the need to speak out as best one can. Thanks for your sensitive and understanding response.
To Susan and Michael —
Let me tell you something that will perhaps allow you to comprehend why the police authorities, the judicial system, the mainstream media, the leftist cultural intelligentsia, the chattering classes in academia, and the Liberal-Labourite back-benchers will not condemn the grooming gangs, and their continuing rape, abuse, and molestation of young English girls.
Are you ready?
It’s simply this: They believe that the actions of the grooming gangs are justified. The above-mentioned groups believe that it is all perfectly acceptable payback for past colonialism and racism and oppression, and that white persons in the U.K. and elsewhere deserve it and are required to tolerate it. This is why the government will take no meaningful action to condemn the grooming gangs, much less stop them.
I wonder if anybody will have the nerve to try and deny this, or explain it away. Or are you all too afraid to acknowledge the reality of the anti-white hatred that motivates Third-World immigrants, and the complicity of the liberal-left in promoting it?
Joe, thank you for this. I agree for the most part. I would, however, like to add to the list. The majority of Parliament is responsible for these atrocities – every prime minister in power since 1997 (the year Tony Blair got elected), whether Left or Right, has allowed this to happen. Blatant evils have been swept under the carpet by five Conservative PMs who are also responsible for imposing consequences for “hate speech” – This stubborn refusal to acknowledge and deal with these crimes has shocked me. The betrayal of those looking to their very own Government for justice has brought me to the realization that every previously-trusted institution should be viewed skeptically. I have now reached a point where (for me) the crimes against these innocent children and the families ruined by the horror allowed to continue for decades, is a not a Left or Right issue. It’s a Right or Wrong issue. The majority of us have a been endowed with a conscience, and all those ignoring it should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
I also know the view I hold is because I’ve witnessed the ceaseless promotion of ideologies that are incompatible with humanity. We are in a cultural war, a war where each country built on Judeo-Christian values is a country that needs to be “enlightened” by those who have an agenda to push… and that soulless and hateful agenda, that is most certainly anti-white and motivates those who care nothing for fading Western-world values, has nothing to do with conscience. It is a mindset that is tearing history, truth, and beauty to shreds and is leaving many minds and hearts cowed, scared, and scarred.
My heart aches because of it and I will admit to still trying to get my head around it. I always speak out and will never let excuses for evil slide by me, yet I still feel guilty for not doing enough. What more can I do?… I am guessing time will test my the strength of my backbone. My conscience pricks me every day.
Thanks for tackling this grim subject with your poetry. Australians always seemed such sensible people, and it’s hard to understand how you have apparently succumbed to the same woke madness that afflicts Europe. Poems like yours may help to stop the rot.
It’s not an easy subject by any means. But some things need to be said. Particularly, for me, because I’ve known and worked with people who have suffered from these and other dreadful crimes. Thanks for your comment!