Arms And The Boy
In our time all the world’s worst
clichés are actualised in stark paradox,
explosive irony.
I am swimming in happiness
rain cocooning my window pane
when TV presents the boy
whose eyes whose eyes
I fall through the scream as if to land
among proud and elegant peoples
divided by civil, uncivil arms.
Dispossessed of the West they thought they knew.
Dis/oriented, where do they turn?
Women and kids cleaving, cleft, bereft.
Institutions crack under cloud cover.
Shovels at a narrow grave.
“The image that struck me most
was a fourteen year old boy
just skin and bones. The men were
burying him when
crossed, his last gesture,
an ache up arms’ inner
two tears ran down his cheeks.”
That boy survived but cannot speak.
Language is lost in war, though lies thrive.
from Barbaric Cultural Practice, Quattro Books
Penn Kemp 