POLITICAL Poem: Elsewhere, by Jamie O’Rourke

In a crater surrounded by death a young man
pulls the pin on his grenade
and presses it to his ear –

elsewhere, some older men throw their weight around.

Down a street in Tripoli runs the blood
of a bright eyed teenager
shot by one of Libya’s brave liberators –

elsewhere, a prime minister makes a speech.

At the Yemen-Saudi border
some crimes are suppressed
and the corpses continue to pile high –

elsewhere, a prince makes a new acquisition.

Everywhere and elsewhere –
everywhere there are cries
and elsewhere voices cry out.

In Beirut some stray shrapnel
leaves a child who is deeply cherished
permanently disfigured –

elsewhere, journalists talk of precision strikes.

In a neighbourhood in South Lebanon
(in what was a neighbourhood in South Lebanon)
a young woman holds her young son
(a young woman holds what was her young son)
to her broken heart, and screams –

elsewhere, a mass murderer makes a phone call.

In a bar in the city centre
a man with a miserable income tells a co-worker
that the UN is a shining beacon –

in New York, a mass murderer makes a speech.

Here, some fuckers try to convince us
that their enemies are our enemies –

elsewhere, those fuckers kill people like us.