I am delighted to welcome Sarah Askew to my blog, with her poem, ‘Not A Minute’s Silence’.
Not A Minute’s Silence
A muted explosion
of stamping feet
on sticky floors.
Mouths shriek
against my ear plugs.
Ten seconds of madness
to honour the silence
of Monday’s voiceless concert-goers.
The walls shake around me,
inside me. I felt
the reverberations, the impact,
three days late.
Sarah explains the naissance of her poem:
I wrote this poem in response to the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017. Just a few days after the attack, my partner and I had tickets to another concert at the O2 Academy Bristol, which still went ahead despite the increased terror alerts, but with extra tight security.
So there was a highly loaded atmosphere, not to mention the incredible heat wave that had descended that Spring, and the place was packed. The walls were sweating, shoulders and elbows jabbed, and leather clad behinds refused to budge. At one point I attempted to find the bar for a drink but was soon forced to retrace my steps as I could wade no further through the immovable wall of bodies, faces invisible to me in the dark.
And then the singer, outspoken as she is, invited the crowd to take part in, not a minute’s silence, but ten seconds of madness, in memory of the victims from Manchester’s concert. They had gone out that night, she said, to have fun. We were asked to honour them, not with silence and sadness, but with noise and madness; to make up for the fun they never got to have. The band counted us down, and the foot-stomping, hand clapping, cymbal-crashing, vocal-wailing began.
I hadn’t realised quite how anxious I had been about attending the concert until I was stuck in the middle of such chaos. And then it occurred to me: what must it have been like for those people in Manchester – in Paris, in London, in the middle of any terror attack – to be in the eye of such a storm of noise and panic and confusion. The chaos surrounding me was safe, controlled, expected. Theirs had been dangerous, sudden; fatal.
And, despite the fact that I was very much in my own bubble- ear-plugs in, eyes closed, feelings (up until this point) about terrorism in general, pretty much on mute – I found that I was crying. Relief, sadness, fear, shame, all washed over and through me and I remembered why I myself had given up singing with a band just a few months before: I hate chaos.
When I reflected upon this (uncharacteristic) flood of emotions at my poetry group the following Monday, this poem arrived…
Sarah (aka The Pocket Poet) is an award-winning poet and writing for wellbeing enthusiast based in Wiltshire. She has lived with various mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and OCD for as long as she can remember and has always used writing as a therapeutic tool to promote self-awareness and self-expression. She runs writing for wellbeing workshops for groups and individuals and also offers a bespoke poetry writing service for those looking to give a personalised poem as a gift.
You can find Sarah at:
http://thepocketpoet.weebly.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThePocketPoet
Scarborough Mysteries 