Protest by the Pool

all in all they were another bomb dropped from the sky
no words in golden letters appeared flaming across it
no screams of agony echoed across a deafened hemisphere
the hand disappeared into the quicksand holding the last piece of the puzzle
we remained seated beside the bubbling sulphurous pool
thinking we had come back to what we were running away from

the moment, a split second eternity, before annihilation
hung over our heads like a heavy antique sword rusted over
knowing it was there our heads ached being held up yet held away
death was a part of the game, the universal game we realised we were playing
in the silence our thoughts floated alone over the smoke,
across the gaping pit, unable to join together in their abstraction
and we thought how
and we thought so many times had we come close
close to seeing the gaping mouth of the death chute
under the thin plexiglass road we were being led across

but noise they bombarded us with noise
they pinned us down with words
we who had never learned to talk

speech, their speech, was the weapon we never mastered
contempt leapt ready like a well-trained hawk from hands we feared
now silently bubbled forth all the screams we never screamed
defeated we sat
hands loose by our sides
we did not dream of what we did not know
that hands could become fists, screams of agony become shouts of defiance
for all we had was stopgap one-ear-shut, inpoured, unsifted knowledge

and so
the walls grew thicker between us
we each hated our self for being different
we never learnt there were so many of us
we never learnt it was not us who were different
and then the bomb dropped
and we learnt why