Windows on the Sea - a collection of poetry.

Beat The Heart

This poem compares two cases I was on as a paramedic student. One scene involved a group of poor kids who'd stolen a car and been gunned down by the police. The other was a school bus accident from one of the most expensive and elite private boys' schools in South Africa. Both boys who died were the same age, but the handling of both incidents – by the police, by the media, by the paramedics – was shockingly different. One of the boys in the hijacking died quickly, the other survived 5 bullets and being brought down by a dog. He was sixteen. We waited for a police escort for two hours in which time the surviving boy was cuffed to the stretcher and received no pain relief medication (which is illegal). The title refers to CPR, which, if any readers have seen it, can appear quite brutal if you're not used to it.

I don't like to write too much about what I see, because it feels morally wrong to make art out of the deaths of strangers. Anyway, this poem and the previous were written in my first few weeks on the road in 2017.

The T.V. blares a kids' cartoon.
The bed is bare and bloody.
He's over there and dead too soon,
a bullet in his body.
Rich Boy, Poor Boy, does it matter?
Both circling the drain...
But Poor Boy stole a car, you see,
so he gets naught for pain.

Rich Boy dies last week
and Poor Boy dies today.
But both their bodies leak
as both boys "pass away".

The school bus took them flying.
The boys, with bated breath,
then waited without crying
for dying to be death.
Beat the heart, beat the boy,
beat him till he breathes.
Beat his broken body
for as long before he leaves.

Rich Boy dies last week,
and Poor Boy dies today,
but both their bodies leak
as both boys "pass away".