They line up for the camera,
the remainder of families,
still in life as in death,
they don’t complain,
make no requests,
they will get nothing
and have nothing
but checkpoints,
high walls,
razor wire,
Israeli fighter jets
who strike at their children,
their mothers,
their fathers,
their grandparents,
their phones are listened to,
their faces are in a data bank,
and now the camera
of a foreign magazine.
pries into their soul,
the adults are still,
the children are still.
the camera sees nothing
but a quiet resistance,
there is no crying
of the young,
no wailing
of adults
no facial expressions,
no grief
no smiles,
it’s a calm pool
where the water doesn’t ripple.
A voice enquires of their losses,
but there are no losses,
their dead are still with them,
in their hearts and in their minds,
in Palestine.
Wilson John Haire. 21st May 2023.
Hiroshima Shame
G7 Summit 2023 Hiroshima
welcomes its devastator its occupier,
radiating the charm of the hyena
in not mentioning the supplier
who now pays a peace tribute at the Genbacku Dome,
with the world already full of these land-marks.
A remembrance of a blistering peeling skin syndrome.
Wreathed in cynical silence they don’t hark
back to their store of nuclear weapons back home.
With the world in danger because of the ambitious
they introduce a salesman of death and of the dumb,
in his army fatigues, and laden him without contrition.
Wilson John Haire. 21st May 2023.
Labour Affairs 