Photo courtesy of Joan Hillary

A poem for the people from the Grenfell Tower disaster by Trevor Hensley

June 2017

The building burned
The people screamed
The water poured
Then quickly steam

A poster said
To stay inside
But those who did
Most surely died

A blackened symbol
Reaching high
A silhouette
Against the sky

Loud warnings fell
On deafened ears
There’s danger here
They said for years

But no one heard
And no one came
Their voices crying out
In vain

So many lives
Now lost and gone
Their hopes and dreams
All lay forlorn

Just one more
Senseless tragedy
Made worse by
Man’s bureaucracy

And how we watched
Our hands tight tied
Those lives now broken
How we cried

Let’s hope one day
They’ll lose the pain
And rise above
The fear and pain.