"Les 14, 12-06-89"

What angers me the most:

this host

of perspicaces,

their grace

and their intelligence—

their stubbornness of sense

and promised light

not quite

not even close complète—

cut quick, un fait

pas accompli;

not given shrift

to lift

what they would lift if they'd

survived that day,

to do what they would

do if they but could,

to diriger,

if they’d continued they

(quels projets there?

what découverts?

what contribute?

or, moot,

how simply live?

what colour and what texture give

their own, small worlds,

pearls or no pearls?)

But murdered

??????????????????????????for féminité—

plus simple: la leur humanité,

et l’existence la leur—

oui, pour la vie qu’elles osaient conduire,

for selfishness of not-all-men

but one! and many men before and then and since, again,

whose anger was not this,

but piss-poor cant and cowardice

and the false grief

of leaf

and false aggrieved

and a belief believed

but never regardé,

et jamais verifié.

Killed for a fantasy, and sombre:

all lumière quenched to serve all ombre.

Oh that such tragedy would light the way

to an impossible, possible new day.

Jonathon Penny, 2023