THE sirens are ringing out
Did I wake up to 1939?
Bits of paper waved in the air
As a bomb rips through a house
 “We’ll hit them in their bank accounts”
But no statement can save a child’s life
The sirens ringing out
Wailing across a Kyiv square
A mother in Donetsk a sister in Odessa
A cold chill running down her spine
“It’s hopeless”
It’s happening again
The sirens are ringing
And it’s not 1939, it’s here and now
And from the west
A thick cloud of hot air, saving nobody. 

DAVID R MELLOR