Boat People

Crimson waves of hatred race down the mountainsides, engulfing villages, towns, cities: a feeding frenzy of hate; a firestorm of hate.
Consuming love, compassion and humanity: a hallucination of certainty.
‘These people are our misfortune’, is the watchword. All must go. Men, women, children- force them onto the sea.

Attack dogs howling, criminal gangs, rotting boats and rolling endless seas washing them away from here
Boat people wide-eyed with terror, helplessly swept away from their home.
Children become orphans (their parents right there: undead corpses).

The empty seas make boat people into flotsum and jetsum: their boats landed but quickly towed away out into the void. The sea.
No water, no food, no medicine: starving and helpless, begging for mercy
But there isn’t any mercy. There are tourists and TV crews.

TV crews and tourists viewing the corpses
Snuff movies for the evening news
Snuff movies for the compassionate rich
Snuff movies for the international charities
Snuff movies uncounted, out-of-sight, out-of-mind corpses:
A moral dilemma. Let’s have a conference. Let’s wring our hands.

Boat people: tomorrow’s cliché.



1 Response to Boat People

  1. Peter Baxendale says:

    Your last paragraph sums it all up in a profoundly moving and perceptive poem. Well presented, Chris

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