Grenfell Tower on fire

Smoke

rushing

skywards

screaming

swirling

burning

blackening

poisoning

roaring

roiling

sprinkling light spreading debris sparkling

fire-wrapping the homes flaming

flaming the living core fire-wrapping

fire-wrapping the furnace of families flaming

flaming choking the children fire-wrapping

fire-wrapping blinding the babies flaming

flaming closer to the crying fire-wrapping

fire-wrapping the people who perish flaming

flaming suffocating the souls fire-wrapping

fire-wrapping searing the skins flaming

flaming shriveling the hopes fire-wrapping

fire-wrapping the black skeleton tower flaming

shaming blaming underneath blaming shaming

Mail-ing shaming blaming Mail-ing

lying regulation stuff “get-stuffed” stuff regulation lying

underneath ha-ha ha-ha “get stuffed” ha-ha ha-ha underneath

ash and cinders cinders and ash

Ruth Hartley

19^th June 2017

This poem is about the people who lived in the tower. Underneath it lies the refusal to make good fire regulations and a willingness to blame the victims. I do, however, want to honour those men and women of the fire brigade who undertook the desperately dangerous task of saving people’s lives and will always remember with grief and agony those they could not save. You can read about their experiences by clicking on the link above.