PICTURE TERROR
H. W. Bryce
The principal pleads
But the schoolyard kids
Gather round the two boys
And cheer on the bully
With their inaction,
Urge the stripling
Fight! Fight! Fight!
The crowd fills up
With empty shirts.
Picture devastation now,
It is in the blood on the
Schoolyard floor, the teeth,
The spittle, the hate, the
Stentch of death as the bully
Takes down the stripling.
But,
The stripling fights back,
Fights back, fights desperately
Back, his spirit to survive this
Attack come alive.
And the schoolkids’ hearts
Are chilled, but, honour aside,
They dare not intervene
For fear of reprisal to them.
Picture determination now.
Picture raw couraage now.
It is the stripling’s bloody face.
Picture surprise, picture possible
Defeat…
It is the bully’s shameful face.
There lies no logic in the schoolyard.
There lies only disgusting reality.
Picture stress
It is in this father’s face
Picture fear
It is in this mother’s face
Picture terror
It is this child’s face
Picture desperation
It is the face of Truth
and Love and Righteousness.
— —
It was raining bombs
The wind was a rocket
The thunder was a tank
The dream ship of hope and
Its cargo of love sank.
It is brutality at its best
It is the worst of humanity
— —
Picture
Desperation now. It is the face
Of the pregant mother dying, being
Hustled out of a bombed hospital
On a stretcher, losing her baby.
To be buried later,
Alongside the death of humanity
Prayed over by the empty shirts.
Picture courage now, the face of
The ordinary man fighting for
Survival, the ordinary man tending
The wounded midst bombardment.
Picture the shirts bulging with heart
And pride and duty and action.
Picture a world without them.
Image: https://pixabay.com/fr/photos/drapeau-ukraine-guerre-paix-soldat-7036018/
