There is no silence when the drones have left the land we blessed
We crushed, splayed tiny beetles, wailing by the rubble tower
There is no street, no house, no place here that we once caressed
No water, no light, no heat, no food, just eyes of tanks to glower
Twisted metals, concrete pieces, buried memories, buried friends
In a haunted scream, held in gossamer thin tents and chicken wire
No eyes, no ears, suppurating, sore, crippled, bleeding for your ends
Our bodies ground into dust, your righteousness, our funeral pyre
Desolation, desecration, schools, hospitals and cemeteries, gone
Tears on our lands, buzzing death, guns and grenades rub us out
This story heard across the world, no safe place for us or anyone
You’ll not banish death by fearing what’s inside; your twisted shout
Fill our minds with bruising battles won? Your archers’ magic bow?
The thief will come, the final judge; you’ll be gone as we all know
.
Christopher 2026
Picture:
William Blake’s The Day of Judgment 1808 illustrating Robert Blair’s poem “The Grave”
http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/work.xq
.