Friday Fiction: First They Came
Poetry should be challenging
Here’s a Friday Fiction, written by one of my author friends.
I recently read this out at a pro-peace public event in the centre of a town on a busy Saturday. I chose to forego the microphone and just use my voice. I didn’t want powerful words to be filtered by electronics. Some things have to be looked in the eye.
Steve told me it makes him happy that a poem “takes on a life of its own as soon as it’s out in the world, and I’m always happy for it to be shared by like-minded folk”. You’ll find details of his work further down. Peace! Karl
First They Came
First they came for the hospitals
and you did not speak out
except to say they wouldn’t, and anyway, tunnels.
Then they came for five-year-old Hind
and you did not speak out
except to say, regrettable, but anyway, hostages.
Then they came for journalists, professors, poets
and you did not speak out
except to say, awful, but right to self-defence.
They came for schools, mosques, aid workers,
anyone in the sights of a sniper
and you did not speak out
except to say, yeah, but most moral army.
Now they come for starving people in tents
and burn them, and you do not speak out
you do not speak out
you never speak out.
When they come for you
expect nothing but silence.
© Steve Pottinger, 14 October 2024.
About Steve
Old enough to know better. Still doesn’t. Likes it that way.
Poetry is about more – so much more – than competitions, but it’s probably worth mentioning that my work has been awarded prizes in the CultureMatters poetry and spoken word competition, as well as in Prole, Guernsey International, and (most recently) Poets & Players. It’s also been commended or shortlisted in Verve, Plough, and Arran, among others.
This is such a powerful poem, it should be read out in every school, every council meeting, every parliament meeting.