Anthem

Gold cherry
Poem of the week

By celticman

Tue, 28 Jan 2025
  • 395 reads
19 comments
 

To all who have not died but are dead

Cold, no heat within was proof

Man can stand yet have no rest

Nothing to see but have seen all

 

That echo of food, warmth and rest

Stirs the hunger, cold and untold pain

All the night barred out

All the light barred out

 

Shaken by the shuffling cry

No reason why

That familiar strain, one escape

One cannot die again

 

Unsalted as the unease

Salted as the cruel disease

That anthem for the forgotten

Unpeopled people unable to rise

Certificate U
Poem
Historical Fiction

Comments

Submitted by Kris on

Search & Rescue #SAR.....

We have volumes of printed BS & lectures, psychologist, writers, story tellers, film documentaries, political justice rights people +++++ That Cannot Capture the words or images of "Unpeopled people unable to rise".... so clearly, in a single phrase..... yes 

 

Submitted by celticman on

cheers for reading Kris. 

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

I thought of you yesterday when reading the terrible news about those poor children in Glasgow with their 'beastie house'.They seemed like your characters come back to life - so very sad that nothing has changed

 

Submitted by celticman on

dreadful, dreadful, dreadful, Insert. So sad. A 'beastie' house indeed. 

 

Submitted by Sooz006 on

Too many unpeopled people in the world. I'm a passenger assistant for children with extra needs and some of their stories are heartbreaking. The parents often need as much support as the kids The world can be uncaring in current times. But there's plenty of good, too. I worry about America. 

This would be perfect for hospital and police station walls, to remind us that there are real people underneath the real meltdowns. 

 

Submitted by celticman on

Well, Sooz, you've been there, done it and literally wrote the book (a few times). There is a very long list of what to call the 45th and 47th rapist President. I settled for just calling him evil. And, of course, evil, always has friends. Thanks for reading Sooz. And, as always, your encouraging words. 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

"Unpeopled people" made me think of the plan to remove Palestinians from the land for which they are named, make them refugees, taking away their identity. But as others have said, your poem is so deep it includes wider suffering

"Shaken by the shuffling cry

No reason why

That familiar strain, one escape

One cannot die again"

this is so powerful in its bleakness, the thought of escape being death, the only hope the end

 

Submitted by celticman on

Bleak, absoultuly. Our Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight. Our world is full of unpeopled people. It's a self-fulfiing prophecy, Di. Thanks for  reading, as always. 

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Like others, I was so struck by 'unpeopled people'. It's a universal phrase. I thought of the people of Gaza, and the Holocaust survivors urging us to never forget, and the 'undocumented migrants' being hunted in The Land Of The Free. And the poor bloody kids everywhere.

And like insert, I thought of your characters when I read about the 'beastie house'. I used to work for Children's Services. I've seen and heard some stuff. But some things are just beyond.

Great writing, celtic.

Submitted by celticman on

cheers, airy, funnily enough I was writing indirectly about Musk's hitler salute in a review of a book about a little guy, nobody really remembered because he wasn't middle class and he was poor, but he was first to 'liberate' Belsen. Liberate is such an awful word. It implies a Cinderella dance where everybody, that does not have PTSD, lives happy ever after. Which, of course, means nobody.   

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is our Facebook, X and Bluesky Pick of the Day. Please do share.

Picture by DeFacto, free to use at Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:In_Memory_Of_Loved_Ones_Lost_At_...

Submitted by marandina on

"That anthem for the forgotten

Unpeopled people unable to rise"

Powerful words and I too am taken with the notion of 'unpeople people'. There will always be a need to call out inequity and injustice because it will always be there. The struggle is real and we take the wins when they come. And they do come. Sometimes.

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

This is very moving, celticman. People crushed by their experiences and lack of hope, increasingly the world feels a bit darker.

 

Submitted by celticman on

cheers for reading marinda and jane. We know the world has gone darker. 

 

Submitted by Kris on

Its throttling up 4-1 hell of a ride.... and then the White House is gonna cook from the inside, I remain optimistic.... Patients.... Captain Blye  seemed like an endless voyage of misery too.....devil 

 

Submitted by celticman on

Good luck, Kris. Don't let hell take you. 

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Poem of the Week - Congratulations!

 

Submitted by ralph on

Excellent and restrained. 

 

Submitted by celticman on

cheers Ralph.