How your eyes gleamed and your hair shone
They never mentioned that on the radio news
Nor how your voice sang like wind in a reed
They did count you however
And maybe they thought that was enough
In fact, every day the numbers climbed
From handfuls, to tens
To hundreds, thousands
And tens of thousands
Occasionally, they would add to the numbers
These words
‘Mostly women and children’
Then they stopped counting
But the numbers had already grown
Like towers
Your only monuments
Meanwhile
On my radio
On this radio and that radio
On millions of radios and radio shows
Informed journalists and expert guests
Discussed
Every detail and facet
Of what was happening
Except none of the experts
Was an expert in you
So, no-one discussed you
Nor were any of the experts
Expert in how it feels to die
By missile and concrete
By exploding missile and falling concrete
No-one told us
How you might have died quickly, or slowly
How you might have been exploded or crushed
No one reported a single detailed description
Of what it was like to die in a war like this
To die when perhaps
You were already dying
Already injured
Already infected
Already hungry
Already living in fear
And perhaps had been
For days, weeks, months or years
For a generation
We were left with just the numbers
No names
Of the ‘mostly’
The ‘mostly women and children’
No monument
Other than the numbers
But how your eyes gleamed and your hair shone
And how your voice sang
Like wind in a reed
How you played
And how you smiled
How you believed you would survive
While well-fed, gold-plated
Liars, pigs and bullies
With infinitely more
Wealth and power
Than you
Saw no value in you
No future in you
No brilliance or potential in you
Only saw you
As something
With which to sate
Their hunger
For revenge
For ‘victory’
Saw you only as an obstacle
To their monstrous aspirations
Even though
A single gleam of your eye
One hair on your head
One sound, one word,
One song or laugh from your voice
Was infinitely more valuable
Than anything they
Could ever aim to gain