Post your poetry on the recent terrorist attacks in England in the comments section at the end of this post.
The Light of New Hope
By Connie Phillips
I.
Bombings, beheadings, bizarre wanton slashings;
Babies are burning, their mothers all dead;
Fathers are bleeding, and die ’mid the ashes;
Buildings come crumbling down on their heads.
Chaos and darkness descend and engulf us,
Swallowing all that exists on the earth,
Black holes colliding—their hunger voracious,
Seismic destruction the imminent curse.
II.
Yet there’s hope in a light at the end of the tunnel—
In a glimmer of light the horizon displays.
From within, it will come growing stronger and brighter
So we’re no longer lost, at the end of all days.
It’s the bright Light of Truth and the warmth of Compassion;
It’s the great joy of Tolerance blooming in all.
It’s extinguishing darkness and death and destruction:
It’s the light of new hope—a new era now dawns.
Connie Phillips is a former English teacher and editor living in Massachusetts.
Attacks in London, Manchester, and Wider
By Damian Robin
Peonies rescued from storms in Sheffield
I.
SHEFFIELD:- broken bushes, rain in clumps;
Crashed-down scented blossoms felled in lumps. –
LONDON:- wheels plough walkers on the Bridge –
Three men running, lashing deep blade thumps.
London Bridge is NOT falling down.
Parliament stands up. The high-held crown
Shows what’s dropping is broad Evil’s mask.
What’s more fitting than Creation’s gown?
Borough Market calms and settles down.
Unruly blood still runs out of the town.
Tears will cleanse. And though they fill their task,
Tears can never shoot or slash or drown.
Manchester echoes news that is not new:
Evil loosens, terror’s wraps undo.
Dark to light may need a cutting edge.
Birth lets blood but builds up heritage.
II.
For sev’ral hundred miles out of the capital,
the wind has crashed against cold windows, trashed down branches,
and cracked pink peonies as big as Liberty Bell.
A friend can not go home. The door next door’s been blown
by well-trained gunmen in her garden, armed police
specific in their tasks, not rampant, firm as stone.
Though Sheffield scrapes with knife crime, gun crime, body crime,
this is the flat-rate violence of sin’s release,
mild mutilation in the background all the time.
The Law’s out now to grab a terror criminal.
Backed-up survailance brought them here. What are the chances
of living near someone who’s deemed an infidel*?
The bad are close, the good are close, with both unknown.
To make the self-destructive hatred cease,
benevolence must flourish, we cannot live alone.
* Although ‘infidel’ has stuck on non-Muslims, it is an archaic word for a person who has no religion or whose religion is not that of the majority. Over five hundred imams in London have said they will not bury the killers and the Mayor of London (also a Muslim) has said they are not Muslims.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-attack-imans-no-funeral-prayers-terrorists-refuse-500-muslim-clerics-islam-isis-burial-khuram-a7776861.html
Policeman aims a firearm at the window next to my friend’s door.
U.K., June 2017, mark.
Slit a throat. Remove a head.
Deliberately make them dead.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Cut some corners. Snip some cost.
Don’t think things through — what may get lost.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Evil armies kill direct.
And Evil’s chalked up through neglect.
Make a mark in the Dark.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Click a torch. Flick a flame.
Illuminate The Holy Name.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Make it more than forest fire.
Make it drown despair’s desire.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Make it known how good will breeds
Through true religions, faiths, and creeds.
Make your mark in the Dark.
As smoking, soaring towers clear,
Make it roar. Make Hell hear.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Make it bright. Make hearts feel
How deep divinity is real.
Make your mark in the Dark.
Write your name across what’s base
So true good names can take its place.
Write your name in the Dark.
Make your signature a spark.
Write your mark across the Dark.
Make your mark. Write out the Dark.
https://manchester.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/297004
Manchester Remembers
Special Meeting of Manchester City Council (Weds 12th July 2017) to reflect the terrible events that took place at the Manchester Arena on 22nd of May
Amendments and agendas put aside
to mark the memory of those who died;
the damaged lives of that emergency;
a lot alive but still in tragedy;
and some who’ll never shift their injury;
and loved ones locked in pained expectancy;
and those who implemented protocol;
and those who carried out the protocol;
the hard worked plan of mass fatalities;
the worked-up plan for mass of casualties;
the transport and the food and beds for nights;
the turning wheels, the closing eyes, the lights;
the logging of the details, lives and times;
one homemade bomb, more than a thousand crimes;
ordinary people and extraordinary care;
the mass of feeling, piled in St Ann’s Square,
of those hit where they did not want to be
and heaped with grief that I will never see.