Droppin Well
On the night of 6th December 1982
the Irish National Liberation Army left a bomb in the Droppin Well Bar,
Ballykelly, where a disco was taking place. Seventeen people were killed,
eleven soldiers and six civilians. Thirty others were seriously injured.
I was just going to work
when I drove past it
the morning after.
The air was heavy with horror,
rescue crews still working
to find the last of the bodies.
I swear I felt the dead
hanging in the leaden sky,
as if too shocked to move on,
still asking - what
happened?
Why? What for?
Still asking. Still asking
Still asking. Still asking
I was hesitant as to whether to post this, just written today, but a memory that has stayed with me always. The feeling was so powerful and I'm reminded of it every time there is a new atrocity anywhere. I would be really grateful for any feedback/reactions
ReplyDeleteDear Moyra, while I could tell you that my Muse is never as finicky as I am (which is quite true), this is a horrible memory to have stuck with you for so long. I can imagine some of the pain of that. Nevertheless yours is a powerful and important poem - especially as it testifies to the aftermath. To all the sectarian violence that continues to this day, to the insanity around the world. And to all the horrors that have befallen people caught in that. You speak for them.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rob - it is avert small pain compared to that felt by those directly caught up in such horrors but I am very pleased that you feel the poem speaks a little bit for those victims x
DeleteEdit - a very
DeleteMoyra thank you for your powerful poem. I think these are very important stories and poetry is a very poignant form for the telling of them. They're all significant whether victim, loved one or witness. Witness - however direct or indirect. It adds to our understanding of trauma, how it can effect the whole community and how it can have longlasting impact. Love to you.
ReplyDeletesometimes stories become poems... or songs
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz - I have never been someone who writes directly about 'the troubles' and was nervous of perhaps being seen as appropriating trauma that belongs to others - but you seeing me as witness was liberating in that regard. Maybe I will write more from that perspective. Without doubt no one who lived through the 70's and 80's here was left untouched.
ReplyDeleteMoyra I do know a little of how you might feel. I was there for the Troubles but only for a moment of what others had to endure - I left late 1969. At one level I 'own' it but yet have largely only experienced from a distance and through others. I met Edna Longley in passing on my visit in 2009 and she talked about survival guilt which I was aware of and also of migrant guilt - that was a revelation. I write about conflicts in other parts of the world from time to time (second hand) plus other traumas and am always deliberating over how appropriate or 'useful' it might or might not be. It's a dilemma. I like the argument that we are adding voice though.
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