People Like Us

Cherry

By Ewan

Mon, 27 Jan 2020
  • 714 reads
4 comments
 

They come by boat,

fleeing persecution or poverty.

On both sides of the water

are barbed wire and huts.

 

But we are finished with that.

Every year we beat our breasts

and decry those who herded

the cattle to the slaughterhouse.

 

We ask ourselves

‘who could do such a thing?’

whilst people fill in forms

and tick boxes at borders;

 

whilst people paint the hindu cross

backwards on synagogues

spew vile threats into the ether

or shout ‘muslim bastard’ at sikhs.

 

We ask ourselves

‘who could do such a thing?’

forgetting ‘Nazi’ is ‘National Socialist’,

two extremes, perhaps, in one.

 

‘Who could do such a thing?’

People like us.

 

Certificate PG
Poem
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by drew_gummerson on

This is true....

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

yes

I've just change this to a PG Ewan (for the bastard - I know, irony eh)

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

"or shout ‘muslim b*****d’ at sikhs" At my son's school a boy calls everyone (including those who get sun burnt the minute it stops raining) who annoys him "P***i b*****d". I'm not sure it is even about religion or race, it's just hate finding a phrase

What I don't get is why media blames "people smugglers" when people drown or freeze to death. It is not the smugglers who make people travel in frozen food lorries or small inflatable boats when they can afford airoplane tickets

 

you raise lots of points

 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

The SA got it in the end. Adolf wasn't much of a socialist after all. Never trust an ambitious populist.

You've made me think of these things playing out on the floor of the Colosseum, with nobody thinking to look up into the terrace.

Thoughtful poem, and very timely.

Parson Thru