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Writing is about voices, and giving voice to those that have none - this could be a postcard from manywheres... Browse this Category | Browse this Author | Return Home Rating: N/A |
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Voices From A Broken Alleyway
You catch them mainly late at night,
they fade in, fade out of mind.
They long for satellite broadcast to the world.
Flit across the frequencies; remain remote,
controlled, sift the static. Somewhere in this cold
electric crackling you will find
human voices: contact. Hold, and listen…
Sun goes heavylowandbrown,
sinking over dirty town.
Decay is thriving in the City of Death.
I’ve watched him creep from house to house
from my hiding place behind the boxes
in the broken alleyway.
At night I watch the soldiers roam.
I watch them march from home to home
from my hiding place behind the boxes
in the broken alleyway.
Christ, don’t let them find me.
God knows what they want,
but He turns his head and lets them take it.
I’ve heard the screams and seen the flames;
every evening they return again.
You can’t hide forever, of course;
the one that dragged me out was about my age.
I saw myself mirrored in his face,
but not within his eyes.
For they told me that I must die…
And someone else told me that.
No one told me that this was wrong.
Instead they told me I was strong
and man, and kill I must…
They told him lies…
They told me this was just.
I saw myself mirrored in his face,
but not within his eyes.
His had tears, mine cannot cry
at the deaths at hand,
by my own hand
dealt out…
Few of us will survive the war
and none of those that do will ever
be the same as how they were before.
The milk of human kindness spilt
we’ve killed the human kindness cow.
Look inside, you’ll find no guilt,
no remorse, no recourse to any law…
the empty bottle people now.
Hollow and drained, it shan’t
be long before they crack,
like voices from a broken alleyway.
--George Selmer
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