This is my lament for London and its young lives lost:


Did you see a tarnished surface
that made you look again
Was it reflected in the lyrics
in the anthem of the Thames

Was the traffic still diverted
Had the Borough lost good men
Were mothers dry from crying
at the anthem of the Thames

Did you see the children drowning
Was the tide too high from rain
Were the barges towed in silence
past the anthem of the Thames

Were the songs drowned out by shouting
Did the words turn boys insane
Did the drum beats beat past midnight
to the anthem of the Thames

Was it echoed through the arches
Did the shadows hide the stains
Did the wounded walk til morning
through the anthem of the Thames

Will you still be here at day break
Do you claim this grey domain
Will you pray for restoration
of the anthem of the Thames

Do you get me?

No shame, you know.
Just small self doubt
a violent chin
and contention for identity
for happiness
for unafraid space
with a smile and Stanley.

Do you get me?

I think back to when it happened,
to that beautiful day that suddenly became so dark
The day when it all happened,
the day he destroyed who I was
Leaving me shattered.

I fought. I cried.
But it didn't matter how loud I was.
Nobody came to help me.

I still wake up crying,
Freeze when I see him,
And I’m still scared,
every **** day.

I still think I see him,
even while I'm safe at home.
I close my eyes and tell myself it’s going to be ok
But I can't help but feel him.

A year later I still feel him.
His grip on my wrists, the smell of alcohol on his breath,
The weight of his body pressed against me as I tried to get away

He just continued,as I cried.
It didn't matter how loud I screamed,
Nobody came to help me.

Young hands fumbling
through inherent motions
with graceless inexperience.
He's never done it before.

Put on a
brave face
to mask
the panicked breathing.

Sweat rolling in waves
down an unwrinkled brow.
Heart thumping loud
to escape a hairless chest.

An adolescent
still wet
behind
the ears.

His body has outgrown
the blissful freedom
of childish naivety.
Ungainly limbs,
programmed to a new purpose,
usurp that serenity.
Silent expectation.

The time
has come.
He fires
his gun.

"You're a man now, son."

But he's learnt to **** a man,
before he's even so much as
kissed a girl.

Victors grab spoils of
War waged, and won; The fallen
Claim nothing but rest.

it had taken bones,
reshuffled and pounded to pieces
fingertips,
scorched
from molding cast irons,
worn, from unsewing and re-sewing heartbeats
and wrists,
white from scarring,
for me not to break
at the slightest touch.

Tonight, I wish I knew who to blame, the crooked nuthatch responsible for the eggs I can see strewn even through sky from over hillside. Shattered before their time, now spilled sunny-side up, with innards beaten and assailed to the open air. Where, like a pact, each curbs their own messy shine before meeting eye to stormy eye.

I’m unaccustomed to it all. This unspoken honor system (or was it embarrassment all along?). I’ve never seen a people so wary to count their chickens before they hatch.

In the daytime, I still don’t know where I am, but am flooded by the fact that I have to see it. Where honesty with heft enough to knock the wind from any stray body is convection (sorry, convention), stowed near the bullets in every back pocket.

But what a good thing it is, to have a friend at the other end: muted in her gleaming, but gleaming just enough.

At least these lights are good for something.

Broke my heart
To see you
slaughtered
Like animals

Not all were saints
Mistakes in life were made
JUSTICE
Had not been served
Silence before your pleads
Could be heard
Your death
Will not go unheard

those eyes are scarred
from damaged winds
on pavement singed

rent scenes recite
a diatribe
how do you live

holes dirtied leak
torn shadows sigh
they shelter filth

you cull the heat
until dice turns
to excise rage

with scalpel sharp
reprieve in sight
a poor man's

prize
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©