My most recent, possibly unfinished poem.  To round off a year that started with Gaza, which we have all conveniently forgotten.

ON THE DECISION NOT TO GO AND SEARCH FOR REFUGEES IN BOATS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, DECEMEBER 2014.

A camera noses through a rusted hulk,

Sea-life swarms and clings on the fecund surfaces.

We shift our gaze, re-focus.

The fish quietly strip flesh from

Bodies, scattered like the contents

Of burst suitcases on the ocean floor.

They did as all our ancestors did –

Walked across tracts of desert,

Left where they were, to go somewhere else new.

Somewhere clean and clear

And no dead piled up.

But there was no such place, they’re all taken.

Their brave, pioneering desperation

Was not enough to keep them afloat.