After All 

 

Once, in Ireland one million died,

and one million more fled

for their lives,

the equivalent of the population

of Gaza

before…..

 

And no help came

when the potato crop

was blighted.

Still potatoes were exported,

the farmers betrayed

whilst landlords did well.

The colonialists did well.

They always do.

 

So, Ireland knows how betrayal feels

in the depth of its turf,

in the depth of its being,

its rock, its stones,

its body filled bogs,

its bleached bones

knows that

change comes

only

with survival.

 

So Ireland leads

its history shows its time

to speak out

to send Aid

to make a stand

un-welcomed

again by the most powerful.

 

After all Ireland knows

how lives are blighted.

Suffer The Little Children 

 

Poets are dangerous.

 

Naming the dead

leads to arrest.

 

The killing

of some,

by some

is fine,

 

unlike

the threatening

nature

of reading a poem.

 

And the unmentionables,

the nameless

children,

must suffer silently.

 

Poets are ‘The Brave’

in Scotland today.

 

Poetry is dangerous.

context – A Scottish pro-Palestine activist faced charges for “threatening and abusive behaviour” after reading a poem about children killed by Israel. Bill Williamson, 74, said he had been at a weekly Palestine vigil outside Dunoon Burgh Hall on July 4 2026, while he was reading out “Don’t Mention The Children” by the Jewish writer Michael Rosen through a megaphone. —The National (Scotland), July 19, 2026