The Grenfell Disaster (Based On Eyewitness Accounts) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Most tenants left the flats with just their lives
But other lives were left back in the flames

People were framed at the windows
Banging, banging, shouting, shouting helpless

Ten storeys up the victims knotted bedsheets
A child on fire jumped from the 20th floor

A woman dropped her baby from the 9th
I shouted ‘Everyone has dialled for help. It's coming.'
The look on each face was Death

The kids had high-pitched voices, they were screaming
I'll never block that noise out from my mind

The stairs were choked with smoke
The lights were flickering.

Dark and scary. Terrified old and young
Disabled struggling down the smoke-filled stairwell
Stepping over bodies, luggage, flame

Polystyrene falling down like snow
The stench of burning plastic, sizzling flesh

Cladding, like wrapping a person in cotton wool
Had tossed them helpless onto an inferno

Firemen walked towards the torch of tenants
Under riot shields to protect from debris

Everywhere the noise of sirens screaming
The flash of torches, suddenly gone black

Sieves can go straight down to 6mm
Can pick up small fragments of bone and teeth
Painstaking job

And then the aftermath, shock, grief, and anger
The months to come, to mourn neighbours and friends
The months to come to pose the question Why?