Hiiumaa

bb-hm2

When the sun turns
away to southern lands
we find ourselves awake
on a strange, familiar shore
where t
hose who’ve gone
before sleep beneath moss
in forest
graves, and wild apples
jump the fences

Across the Baltic Sea
history comes full circle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wall

Ground Zero - Hiroshima

Ground Zero – Hiroshima

The rays simply destroyed body cells – caused their nuclei to degenerate and broke their walls.”

John Hersey – Hiroshima

Some lighthearted takes on this week’s WPC:

Standing Ovation, Seated

Scillagrace

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

Trapped inside a system of prejudice

South African Pass Laws

Yellow Badge

Palestinian Freedom of Movement

The Stolen Generations

Jim Crow Laws

Judenhut

Ethnic Cleansing

A re-posted poem –

Death Cap

Iniquity, depravity
crimes against humanity.

Conflagration, radiation,
man made this abomination.

Enormity, deformity,
war’s enduring legacy.

Experimentation, humiliation –
Who needs victim’s approbation?

Cessation, condemnation?
War has no such aspiration.

Obliteration, extermination,
then,
our final destination.

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For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post at WordPress.com

The Song Remains the Same

We were cigar-smoking sylphs,
we were angst-ridden waifs,
not quite role-model material
We were The Clash and The Cure,
Lena-Lovich demure,
but never Nirvana funereal

We were Flashdance and Fame,
we were Grease, Purple Rain,
not Dolly-sweet 9 to 5vers
We were Wham, All That Jazz,
Chorus Line razzmatazz,
Saturday Night Fever survivors

We were pathological humour,
the kohl-girls of rumour,
but never drug-addled chic
We were Dark Side of the Moon
and Kate Bush la lune,
living The Dreaming mystique

We were polka-dot punkers,
Spandau Ballerinas,
not tattooed suicide-grunge,
Twisted Sister crazies,
You were Thelma, I, Louise

But,
in the end,
only you
took that plunge

Silent Witness

In hands made
to heal, did the shaking
of a child’s delight become
monstrous crystal ball

Stalin
Hitler
Akazu

revealed
as snow settled

into blood
stains seeping
across continents,

and out
through your
fingers?

Did you
catch the shadows
in a father’s benevolent eyes?

Is that why,

Ana,

you lie cold
beneath the snow,

silenced by your
own hand?

He could not hide
in plain sight
from you

A History of Fear

it’s

the dark, those monsters

under the bed, first day

at school – bruce m trying to kiss

you in the sandpit

and hell-to-pay for jumping in every puddle on your way home,

men in hearses and dark

glasses – stranger-danger,

not running solo, nor flying, but

an umbrella on the wind – cruel and unusual,

old man on the street corner –

feathered hat, immaculately

polished shoes, threadbare clothes,

a broken headlamp in the rear-view

and unspeakable things,

and then, you know, the death of a parent,

DNA gone awry,

that your actions caused this –

suffering,

not of your own shadow but

rage, betrayals,

the sound

of your own screaming,

depravity of infant

body-bombs,

spectres – Margaret Hassan, the Falling

Man,

Afghani children smashed

into dirt playgrounds,

the death of dreams, sadness

of others,

hearts beating through walls,

and then,

somehow, nothing

much

at

all

least of all

death