.
When the trempola plays,
Sad Sarnia runs down the page,
Blood-stained revolution,
When freedom cried alone,
Unheard in the wilderness,
Of the damned,
And the yet unborn.
What blew the bakery,
Also blowed the baker’s brains,
Blew bread loaves to bits,
Blasted all warm biscuits to hell,
And the cakes,
I cannot describe,
Only that they were all dead.
The girl with no head?
Held her headless doll,
Neither wept no more,
All tears dead and lost,
In streets of anguished rubble,
The black corpses of cars,
In jumbled oily smoke,
Jammed in laments of violence,
In that first second,
Of grief eternal.
Today,
We raise the monuments,
Amidst the tended graves,
With speeches made,
The band does play,
Harsh notes indeed,
Each bomb blasting note,
Riles the ears,
Ordering gladness,
For what I do not know,
The vexed poet stands afar,
Empty pen in hand,
Empty pages falling,
From disfigured hands,
Who shall remember,
And how shall they know?