Where Has Our City Gone?

Where Has Our City Gone?

written by: Maggie O’Brien

@MaggieMobrules

Father! Where has our city gone?
Is God angry? What have I done wrong?
Father! Why is mother always crying?
Why are there rockets and missiles flying?
Why so many bombs and bright flashes?
Why is my schoolyard nothing but ashes?
I think I’ve been as good as gold.
I think I did as I was told.
I can’t imagine what I’ve done wrong.
Father! Where has our city gone?
And the babushka who fed pigeons in the square?
Why is she just lying there?
I’m asking, curious because
She’s asleep in a hole where the square once was.
Father! Father! Hold my hand
Father! Help me understand.
Why we are hiding from explosions that howl
Is the devil above us, on the prowl?
Tell me, do you think he’ll win?
Are we punished for our sins?
Father! Father! Make it right
I promise to pray harder, every night.

“Dear Jesus,
If I’ve been naughty, I’ll make amends
Please just make this horror end.
Amen.
And oh, yes!
P.S
Give us our city back again”

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Maggie O'Brien

Maggie O’Brien has an Honours Degree in English and Philosophy from Leeds University. She has spent most of her working life teaching the ‘disenfranchised’ in many parts of the world. She was born and raised in Southmead, Bristol UK of an English mother and an Irish father. She moved to Granard, Ireland in 1996 where she now resides. Active on the Poetry Slam circuit in Bristol throughout 1995, she was a guest poet at the prestigious Cheltenham Arts Festival in the same year and organiser of the Poetry Event at the Bristol Free Festival. She has also been broadcast by the BBC. (She is now also an author).

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