- "There was not enough god to go round."
- - E.M. Forster, 'A Passage to India'
Hidden,
Between dirty, greying, carcass walls
And acrid mould's perpetual drip,
In a house rendered; rent with contagion
And a bowing, wormy ceiling,
Is a clutch;
A pack of huddled people.
Lying in the shadows.
Hidden.
Wrought in contortion; foetal curl,
As dust-clouds scrawl through scraps of window,
Breathes a father - all alone,
Holding a carcass wife and children.
Who faced the swarms
Of shots. Of shells.
Dead. In the shadows.
I know this man,
person X,
Who tears in front of me.
His face dusty; pigmentless grey.
His heart harrowed; filled with war.
His face is on my screen,
His abject face screening
His hollow, caustic screams.
Which brought me to the thought;
Epithets and exocets don't mix
In a war-torn jungle/tundra/desert scene.
But by the time I'd had the thought
The screen had changed
And my interest began to wane.
I'd shunned the news for falsehood -
I'd chosen apathy.
An epithetic killer, none the same.
Between pastel papered, dim-lit walls
And the drip of the kitchen tap
In a three-bed rented house,
With a newly plastered ceiling,
I am lying to myself.
Hiding.
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