Sounds of a demonstration 

 

The distant cacophony 

of loudhailers 

carried by the gentle wind 

into the green park 

it’s starlings scattered,

searching diligently 

for bread bits fallen

from the visitors’

tables and laps,

with their coffee stains,

onto the ground 

below as the 

sound of rhyming 

chants float through 

the air like 

soft drums on a 

stage miles away:

recurring patterns 

unclear words and

phrases of some

distant land - perhaps? - 

and, is that, ‘children’

‘broken by bombs’

in the lust for land 

it appears to say 

but the vocals 

change and the wind

seems to float pushing 

the sound waves 

into the gentle trees 

that slowly bend 

and lean to the

rhythms of mother 

nature - mother ?- 

making the tree

branches meander -

flags of green linen

marking their space 

here in the stillness

of a public park.

Michael Martinez 2024