#ATROCITY NOW #Poem #Poetry #Photography Remembering #TerrorismVictims in #Tunisia

My heart drops

And my mind

Is filled with dread

As the news filters in

Of slaughter

On a beach

In Eastern Tunisia

——–

The birds

Alerted

Those in nearby

Hotels

Circling

Circling up

Disturbed

And squawking

In disarray

Above

The palms

——–

Kalashnikov

Hidden beneath

A beach unbrella

Fifty seven people

Trusting the safety

Of a land

Now cropped

By the stuccato bullets

Felling the innocent lives

In a trice

——–

Bodies of bathers

Couldn’t be more

Unprotected left

Strewn amid

Terracotta

Patches of sand

——–

Would anyone

Have listened

Had I pointed out

My observations

In March

That security gates

Are no protection

When the beaches

Are open

To the world?

Would they

Have fenced the beaches

Or placed a guard

On every

Tower?

——–

And what now

For those

Whose losses

Will never

Be replaced?

The face of the sweet

Young woman

In the paper

And the awful story

Of the family

Of four

Cut down

And leaving

A teenager alone

The wounded woman

Whose husband

Is no longer

Alive…

It is

Impossible

To summarise

Or honour

The immensity

So many lives

Devastated

And destroyed

——–

And I know

A swap of a date

Or local hotel

Might have left me

Lying

In morgue or hospital

Or mourning

The loss

Of my dearest…

——–

Yesterday

We heard

That eighteen

Waiting staff

Defied the coward

With a human shield

“We are Muslims

You will have to kill us

Before you kill

Our guests”

——-

And what

Of this oil free

Nation

How can your

People live

Without the ore

Of tourism

What will happen

To the waiter’s

Mother

When her son

Can no longer

Send her money

To her village

In the Atlas Mountains?

——–

Last night

The local people

Marched in sorowful vigil

And solidarity

With those

Who lost their dear

Acclaining

“Not in our name”

——–

Those who remain

In their resorts

Also acclaiming

Their accord

With the land

They visit

And so love

The woman

From Sunderland

And the couple

From the Midlands

Making common cause

The retired German couple

alone

On the little

Yellow train

Their faces stoical

And trenchant

——–

The birds

Are settled now

But little else

Is certain, sure

Or secure…

Tagged: Atrocity, Beaches, birds, death, Demonstrations, Hotels, Marhaba Hotels, Sousse, Terrorism, Tourism, travel, Tunisia, Tunisians, Vigils, Waiters

Posted in: Leadership, Photography, Poetry, Politics, Social Commentary, Story, Travel