Dedicated to the victims of Grenfell Tower*

She stands amid the buzz of metal flies:
This obelisk, memento of the dead.
The sirens crudely mimicking their cries
As pilgrims in their guilt leave much unsaid.

A once sweet hive is now an empty husk,
Her armour was to be her Achilles' heel,
And as the cold grey sky fades into dusk;
I speak not what I ought, but what I feel:

Instead of words there comes a cry of pain -
A strangled howl and heavy sobs of guilt.
What can be said when words are all in vain -
Like rain, on this gazebo that we built?

While politicians bluster “Nevermore”,
We will remember them forevermore.