Anger

£293,000 was saved

fitting cheap flammable cladding
to 122 flats
but only 71
people were lost
in the 24 storey
fiery grave.

 

You have to burn inside
with anger
when you hear that
but you can't put it out
with your tears.

 

Because sad things are forgotten;
sad things happen again and again
and are forgotten
again and again;
reduced to monuments;
momentary
flowers and prayers;
the 24 hour news
moving on.

 

Then things go on as before
in tower Britain;
clad in secrecy and silence;
the facade of national wealth;
people still trapped and dying
from their poor lives;
children still
shot or bombed apart
for the comfort of the rich.

 

But I didn't know the 71.
Who am I?
I should leave them in peace
and celebrate life and move on.

 

Because the death toll rises;
because they were only 71
in all the victims of the system
whose bodies keep piling up
every day.

 

I have to burn inside
with anger.
I can't let it go
out.

 

Because
its the system that kills;
not just callous people;
not just individual greed;
the system that burns people alive
as standard business practice
and the system still stands
and only anger
is ever
going to tear that system down;
only anger
that is the fire of change.

 

Maybe,
in the ruins of that system
there will be real peace;
maybe then
poor people will really live
lives of celebration;
maybe then
things will really
move on
and then

that is when
I can let my
anger go.