79/2023

constant
from all sides
the drip
of accusation
deceit
need
undeniable trauma

those who don’t listen
those who should be listened to

give some ground
there is no ground
just a trench
between ideologies

the world needs truth
but its voice is not heard
not because it’s too quiet
because it doesn’t pay
to be heard
because it can’t afford
the price it has to pay
to be audible and
visible

there is sun somewhere
behind the rain clouds

R 20/03/2023 18:18

Reading through that before I press the publish button, I can see it is clearly influenced by Remarque. I have finished the novel, and it’s a shocking document of inhumanity. However, I am only halfway through the book, because this German version came with lots of appendices (a war diary by someone who served with him, because no war diary of Remarque’s was found; parts of works in progress of the novel; the history of the novel and its first filming, documents about how the book was included in the Nazi book burnings – who says presnt-day Britain doesn’t resemble 1930s Germany?), so I need to read all those yet (rather than just leaf through them). And then I’ll need some trashy chick lit to take my mind off it all for a few days (not that my mind is ever far away from such things).

I should have written a poem about the incessant rain and cloud, but I didn’t have the heart to.