Poetry: Anthony Anaxagorou ' The Crimes Of The Land'

The Crimes Of The Land

It is impossible for a wave to catch fire
and burn.

There are no mines hidden in ebbing tides.
There are no soldiers crouched in the surf.

The nature of the sea will not invade
your living room space, it will not erase
cultures, rip out your phone line
or massacre families.

The sea wants healing.
The sea gives salt.

Whales know nothing of guns or drones,
dolphins will not imprison or interrogate
uncles, fish will not violate women
and coral will not call you what you are not.

The sea preserves with its depth
and laments, its eyes a body of ancient tears.

It offers its skin to those running, those fleeing
what it has never been – war.
It is life, future, escape. Its politics transparent,
its rhetoric fluid. It calls for trembling hands.

Fear is loaded and crammed on its back.
Families huddled inside the shelter of prayer.

On a wooden float it carries hurting hearts
to places which will not welcome their beat,
where people are again met with further disdain
and no entry and wait

while on the shore fall those the land betrayed,
and like a series of lips the sea’s sombre crests
swell up to kiss the final grace of a child
who lays dreamless and unturned in the sand.

Anthony Anaxagorou

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Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.