Poetry – Page 2

*Photo Credit Larry Wilkes

Really excited to be April 2024’s featured artist at Good Shout Spoken Word in Peterborough.
Doors open at 6:45pm on Thursday 4th April, at Here We Aren’t, 18 Godric Square, PE2 7JL (w3w = ///modest.hats.worked)

It’s a regular event and happens on the first Thursday of every month (Except December & January).
Every month they have a featured artist, plus open mic slots on offer – sign up on the door.
Cost is pay as you feel, plus there’s a small cash bar.

Further details of this and future events on Good Shout Spoken Word’s Facebook page

Can’t make this… well there’s lots more grass roots poetry and spoken word going on this month – click here for a full list of all the poetry and spoken word events (that I know about), happening across the region in April.

Read on Friday 26th January 2024, in Stamford, as part of the town’s Holocaust Memorial Remembrance service. Warning: poem features graphic language about what took place at concentration camps. ‘Scratch marks on a Wall’

This is the same poem I read last year, which on that occasion, was filmed by Stamford Poetry, links to the 2023 recording can be found here

Scratch Marks on a Wall (Holocaust)

Scratch marks on a wall
The final testaments
Left by thousands
Of murdered innocents
For this was savage
Industrial murder
Planned, coordinated,
Delivered in orders
Thousands more
Died by their side
Millions of innocents
In genocide

Scratch marks on a wall
Their final act
Left by thousands
Suffocated in gas
For this was evil,
An atrocity,
Inflicted on millions
In such ferocity
That there should be such hate
Makes no sense
Millions slaughtered
For being different

Reaching out
Screaming out
Until the poison
Drowned them out
Shaved and numbered
Robbed of humanity
Stripped of clothes
Denied their dignity

The scratch marks
Like their graves unnamed
Yet, their clothes and shoes
And hair remain
Piled high in rooms
For all to see
A memorandum
Of atrocity
Millions viewed
As just pollution
Purification,
The fascist solution
Piled high in pits
Bodies twisted
Numbers on a list
In, Treblinka and Auschwitz
And all the other camps
So many to mention
Factories of death,
Suffering,
Concentration

Scratch marks on a wall
Too many to count
A tapestry of horror
Their last recount
A tableau of death
Made by thousands
In final breaths
With stretched out hands
Their lungs filled
With poison gas
The tableau remains
Of the murderous past
A reminder,
That we should not forget
A scar on history
A time of regret
So wear these scratches
On your hearts
Learn the history
Feel the scars
And wear these scratches
On your minds
So we should never
Repeat such crimes

And feel the scratches
When you see the news
And watch for the signs
In racist views
Each scratch is a warning
From all those slain
To not let this ever
Happen again

Scratch marks repeated
On top of each other
Made by sisters, brothers,
Fathers, mothers
The only gravestone
Of mass graves
Scratches on a wall
The last marks, they made

So many names
It would take a lifetime
To speak them all
Such was the crime

You need not know their names
To remember them all
As more than just numbers
Or scratch marks…
On a wall.

Bigotry Pretends – Live at Some Antics April 2024

April 2024 Features

SCRATCH MARKS ON A WALL (HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2024)