Insipid Voyeurs Poem by James Tipp

The face is angry and explosive driven by fear
Inside the car sit his family frightened, stunned
Today their world is turned upside down,
Without their permission or without consultation
Someone has ripped their lives apart completely
Thrown them on the scrap heap of humanity
Powerless people who have been bombed
Driven from their homes, made refugees
All this happens on both sides of the border.
Both lots of people who yesterday had ordinary lives
Today they have nothing but the cloths and the car.
They are filled with hate for each others leaders
Those who cause such pain in their name.
They will if not challenge feel hate for each other.
We on the outside sit like insipid voyeurs
The news man questions trying to get a story
To feed the watching millions behind glass screens.
We neither smell or feel the fear and pain
We are removed in our gazing like being at the movies
We are cauterised from reality hardened to reality
We are dehumanised by the medium of the media
Overloaded with peoples despair and powerlessness
We flick the button and watch Friends sanitised soaps
Unreal, undemanding and pain free my sojourn in unreality
Just a flick away from all that is painful and real,
In frustration at my own impotence I weep.