Blood on the Bread OR No Street Cred, Only Shame
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
[Update 1/1/2018): Here in London during New Years Eve and early on New Years Day, four young people have died in unrelated knife attacks! More wasted lives, more families left grieving...]
[Update 21/2/2018: Two more young men, victims of knife crime, died yesterday near where I live in Kentish Town, London NW5. So tragic, and senseless!] Two more families and their friends left to grieve.
The villanelle below was written on June 29th 2008. On the previous day, another young person had been fatally stabbed on London’s streets. Tragically, the poem is even more relevant now than it was then.
Official figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in April 2017 showed a very significant increase in violent crime across the UK, much of it gang-related. Knife crime alone had increased by 14 per cent year on year by 2016 to levels not seen since 2011; a leap from 28,427 knife offences to 32,448.
The greater tragedy is that gang-related violent crime remains prevalent on the streets of many countries worldwide; such a waste of human lives where, more often than not, contemporary society fails to provide constructive alternatives offering potential solutions.
Whatever, these people commit violent acts by choice and the buck stops with them. If they have a conscience at all, they need to come to terms it, start steering a kinder course through life before they, too, become just another fatality statistic... and what kind of footprint is that to leave behind?
Society as a whole needs to be less complacent, more judgemental and remember hat actions speak louder than words; it is no time to be treading on eggshells for fear of offending the many high profile socio-cultural-religious bigots among us.
BLOOD ON THE BREAD or NO STREET CRED, ONLY SHAME
Don’t carry a gun or knife,
a young friend said;
show more respect for life
I want a career and a wife
(and a four-poster bed)
don’t carry a gun or knife
Let years of pain and strife
stand peace on its head?
Show more respect for life
Though gang rats run rife,
and blood on the bread,
don’t carry a gun or knife
Let me look, dress how I like
if it makes me feel good;
show more respect for life
Streets of fear, tears of grief,
saw him shot him dead;
Don’t carry a gun or knife;
show more respect for life
Copyright R. N. Taber 2008; 2017
[Note: This poem first appeared under the title 'Blood on the Bread'' in Poetic Expressions, Poetry Now, 2009 and subsequently in my own collection, 'On the Battlefields of Love' - Assembly Books, 2008.]
[Update 1/1/2018): Here in London during New Years Eve and early on New Years Day, four young people have died in unrelated knife attacks! More wasted lives, more families left grieving...]
[Update 21/2/2018: Two more young men, victims of knife crime, died yesterday near where I live in Kentish Town, London NW5. So tragic, and senseless!] Two more families and their friends left to grieve.
The villanelle below was written on June 29th 2008. On the previous day, another young person had been fatally stabbed on London’s streets. Tragically, the poem is even more relevant now than it was then.
Official figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in April 2017 showed a very significant increase in violent crime across the UK, much of it gang-related. Knife crime alone had increased by 14 per cent year on year by 2016 to levels not seen since 2011; a leap from 28,427 knife offences to 32,448.
The greater tragedy is that gang-related violent crime remains prevalent on the streets of many countries worldwide; such a waste of human lives where, more often than not, contemporary society fails to provide constructive alternatives offering potential solutions.
Whatever, these people commit violent acts by choice and the buck stops with them. If they have a conscience at all, they need to come to terms it, start steering a kinder course through life before they, too, become just another fatality statistic... and what kind of footprint is that to leave behind?
Society as a whole needs to be less complacent, more judgemental and remember hat actions speak louder than words; it is no time to be treading on eggshells for fear of offending the many high profile socio-cultural-religious bigots among us.
‘His [Jack's]
mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them
when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a
living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long
satisfying drink.’ - William Golding [Lord of the Flies, 1954]
Don’t carry a gun or knife,
a young friend said;
show more respect for life
I want a career and a wife
(and a four-poster bed)
don’t carry a gun or knife
Let years of pain and strife
stand peace on its head?
Show more respect for life
Though gang rats run rife,
and blood on the bread,
don’t carry a gun or knife
Let me look, dress how I like
if it makes me feel good;
show more respect for life
Streets of fear, tears of grief,
saw him shot him dead;
Don’t carry a gun or knife;
show more respect for life
Copyright R. N. Taber 2008; 2017
[Note: This poem first appeared under the title 'Blood on the Bread'' in Poetic Expressions, Poetry Now, 2009 and subsequently in my own collection, 'On the Battlefields of Love' - Assembly Books, 2008.]
Labels: gang culture, human nature, human spirit, knife crime, life forces, London (UK), machismo, mortality, peer pressure, poetry, society, street crime, victims, violence, young people
posted by R. N. Taber | 17:35
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