War Zone Tours

Issue FiveIssue Five PoetryPoetry

Written by:

Views: 37035

By Lizz Murphy

 

I CAN TELL YOU WHAT IT’S LIKE

I can tell you what it’s like ears and eyes out on stalks neck cricking over one shoulder or another    heart in a vice of fear rifles ar attention on every corner   tanks and jeeps changing the colour of your afternoons people you have known running for their lives work mates afraid to sit near your and maybe you them Family men turned guard and vigilante guns in their pockets women doing normal shopping dropped to the ground a bullet in the back    people on a harmless night out in pieces across the pavement I can’t start to tell you about the children    I can tell you what it’s like sitting in your mind-your-own-business living room listening to gunshot getting heavier and closer not knowing whether to go or stay    if your street will be cordoned off with barbed wire overturned vehicles the men with guns and should you be kept in or better not    Taking your name off the front doorbell so you can’t be categorised or bombed out  sirens on the increase helicopters low in the sorry sky     I can tell you what it’s like after ou leave and you have begun picing up your own pieces and every week you are watching on the news your country burning watching the news for people you know dead injured evacuated and some days you see them I can’t start to tell you what that’s like Just stay away from the war zone it’s not a sideshow alley there is no step-right-up    you have no business there

 

In response to the article ‘Russian travel company wants to sell tours to the front line of Syrian civil war’ published at news.com.au January 2016.

URL:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/middle-east/russian-travel-company-wants-to-sell-tours-to-the-front-line-of-syrian-civil-war/news-story/f68110a7e1a10c7e34a5837896afe83e

 

Artwork by Kathryn Lamont.