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Hillsborough – it must never happen again

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Yesterday, the nation stopped
Its hustle bustle, its frantic
Pace of life
To pay its respects to those
Who so painfully lost theirs
Hillsborough 1989,
A memorial stone in our hearts
The day English football
Fell silent, quiet and grave
As the sombre rivers of tears
Flowed like burning ashes
From the corners of our soul
Oh horrendous images
On the weather beaten and haggard
Creases of tortured faces
Never ever again
Wrinkles of foreheads
Now scarred by time
But never forgotten
Agonised and contorted
By something beyond
Our and your comprehension
The day 97 families were ripped
Apart from the central core
Of their lives
When sons, daughters, fathers
Mothers, nieces and cousins
And uncles too
The Hillsborough disaster
Like a severe punch in the rib cage
So many needless stretchers
And ambulances, death
Sounding its sonorous sirens
But it could have been avoided
So easily
Hundreds and thousands
Of Liverpool and Forest fans
Locked together like proverbial sardines
For years and years
Decades and decades
It seemed like madness
Show them to their seats
Pretend it’s a West End theatre
Where luxury and comfort
Are the only concern
It’s not rocket science
Football supporters seated
Comfortably in their sweet
Cocoon of safety
Instead Hillsborough
Witnessed Liverpool and Forest
In an FA Cup semi final
It should have been football
At its purest and most composed
Instead all hell broke loose
Ugly death carved on a simple
Saturday evening
Never ever again
Cherish life
Always joyous.

Notes

Here’s my eulogy to Hillsborough.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/hillsborough-it-must-never-happen-again/