THE KNIFE ANGEL

THE KNIFE ANGEL

It stands in a churchyard with open hands
Looking down on the gathered in silent command
Dwarfed by the edifice of a Cathedral behind
With an open door consecrated, inside confined

Made from the blades confiscated and dulled
Twenty-seven feet tall benign and annulled
No more the elements reddened by blood
Art stands coerced, by this infantile shrub

At the Westgate violence is left on the street
Live and let live is taught at its feet
Respect is earned and never given by fear
Knife Crime is the maelstrom with no place here

In the Mall there is peace, a calm has come down
The cemetery full of the dead from this town
Yet if they could speak, they would say let it go
Young lives are not worth any insults they throw

The Angel is silent, it persuades by its stance
A paradigm statute of discriminate chance
Its constituent parts, a hundred thousand knives
As its legacy ponders on the loss of young lives

JP.