Only I can see
All this
Like this precisely,
Through my dirty window pane,
Surface dotted with stains
From old rains
Drops
That fell some time ago
Memories of a life –
Old wine
Fine
Let’s call it ‘mine’.
Days when nothing seemed to happen
Over and over without end:
Time passing,
Heart beating,
Heart longing,
Lungs breathing
So-called ‘fresh air’
A time and space there where
Car tyres repeatedly hit tarmac like a drum
Waves on a distant sea
Privilege of boredom:
Me and then just
More me,
Getting nothing done,
Flooding with nothing
Piling up nothing like a butter mountain that no one else will ever taste,
Dull pain of nothing, utter absence
Of feeling, feeling nothing –
Let’s call it ‘safety’s vi-o-lence’.
Distinct but faint, I hear
Everything I do not see
The ‘other side of silence’,
Rumours of a ‘real life’, lovers free from fear –
It exists, they say,
Somewhere else,
Here but
Not here –
A location beyond the bubble:
Roaring
Gulls screeching,
Bees buzzing
Children in the playground laughing as bombs fall,
Live streaming light and sound,
All right here right there right now all,
Tiny hands reaching up from the rubble
Sunlight gleaming
Burnt baby faces uplifting,
Wondering why, wondering how,
Hungry hands still clutching,
Lips searching after water,
No surrender
No despair
Tasting, savouring
Food, polluted air,
Trying not to choke
Place of daring to hope
That
Not everything depends
On the struggle to survive the insanity,
Here, we find somewhere where love hasn’t died,
I read about it online: ‘genocide’ –
Is this the price we pay for that illusion,
The commodity we laughably called
‘Security’?
Would we have been so eager to escape this silent violence of safety
If (pause)
We had known what we knew all along, really:
Heaven looks like
This?
Yes To All Of It 