J.C.

Turn

She was not your enemy,

Not if you had thought about it

For longer than a minute,

Or had lifted your eyes

From the sites online,

Where every word is a knife

In some soul’s back.

Or worse.

She was not your enemy.

She was a classic striver,

Little person, big ambition,

Trying to make things better,

To help all people

(For we are all people)

Go forward to a place,

Where we all might survive.

She was not your enemy.

And even before

You set off down that hill,

You were jailed already,

In a past that never was,

Locked into a greatness,

That was simply not great,

Not for most of us.

No, in those great times

You would have dripped away,

In a trench, or other hole,

Some paupers’ prison.

You would have dreamed maybe,

Of a liberal do-gooder,

Who might fight for your rights,

For your tiny life.

You would have longed,

Don’t you see,

For someone like her,

Someone who gave a damn.

And in another trial,

Through different eyes,

She would have been your salvation,

Not your enemy.

RF 2016

The news, as ever, comes thick and fast and in amongst it all a woman died in Yorkshire on 16th June. We lived in that area, her constituency, for a few years a decade or so ago and maybe for this reason her loss is large in my mind even with all the other news that is flying about (some sad, some distressing, some confusing, some exciting... such is news, generally speaking). Her name has been in the news (and will continue to be there somewhere I am sure) and there will be other poems (by laureates and such) but for now, here is my offering. And a picture of the sky because right now I couldn't think what else to show next to a poem about someone being murdered in the street.