A Tale for our Grandchildren

Once upon a time, there was a huge wave of blood 

that washed away the last remnants of humanity

from a once illustrious land.

A land now of corpses masquerading as humans 

who sinfully let down their fellows

by failing to take a stand.

Innocent people were slaughtered. Schools and

hospitals bombed. Children begged for their lives,

with corpses strewn all around…

We would’ve helped, if only, under our loud slurps

of Iced Brown Sugar Oat Milk Shaken Espresso,

their agonized cries hadn’t drowned.

Fathers watched their daughters’ heads being blown off.

Women were raped, newborns mercilessly slaughtered with knives

‘Trigger Warning’ was all we said, as we reposted clips

of children begging to be spared their lives.

She could’ve been our daughter, who fed on rubble 

for want of bread

He could’ve been our father who returned 

to a home burnt and a family dead

He could’ve been one of us, whose head

was chopped like a slice of steak

They could’ve been our sisters, paraded

naked on the streets

‘All Lives Matter’, we stoically replied

when asked what was our take.

Lives were claimed to satisfy monsters’ lust

Not one of us lifted a little finger in their aid.

Ours was an expensive silence, for

186000 lives and more, were the price they paid.

'Mute spectators' - rather, accomplices in history being made,

Their blood on our hands never will fade.

The history books, my children, will not tell you this -

“We have no power. It is the Government…”

we justified our cowardly choice.

We allowed them to silence, and be silenced. 

Now when the bigots come for us,

there shall be nobody to raise a voice.

The Tranquill Poet