A Salute to the Dead

Spare a moment to salute the dead;
(Grieve oh grieve for victims who died!)
Facing religious extremists in dread,
For their god their lives denied.

Death by Taliban bullets in Peshawar
(Lament, oh lament for those who mourn!)
Children once lived, but live no more.
Innocent youngsters slaughtered and torn.

Many now flee Islamic State –
(Sigh oh sigh for those who perished!)
Beheaded by blades of butchers who hate.
For evil that stalks, a demonic that’s cherished.

Those in Paris knew not their fate –
(Mourn oh mourn for those who died!)
Slaughtered by guns of killers who rate
Life so low and lives deride.

Remember the dying of war-torn Syria -
(Weep oh weep for the children of famine!)
Orphans alone from Guinea to Somalia,
Scratching existence from a soil so barren.

People of Baga, butchered and slain
(Wail oh wail! for those who perished!)
Slaughtered by Boko Haram profane.
People’s lives no longer cherished.

For all of us, whatever belief,
Renounce, renounce such hate demonic
That brings to many, abysmal grief - 
By extremist actions so diabolic.

16 January 2015


This poem was written early in 2015 after the massacre at Baga in NE Nigeria and following twelve months of  tragedies : the children of Peshawar, the slaughter of the local people and beheading of  western correspondents in Iraq by members of IS, and the continuing death and destruction in Syria.