A photograph sprawls across the
newspaper’s front page, hits hard.
A stream of people pass under
trees along a gravelled path
lined by high leafy shrubs,
some talking on cell phones.
They are led by a heavily armed
police officer looking right to
left, then back again, for gunmen.
Further back beside the path
another armed police officer looks
back over those still oncoming.
Many people have been shot
in two nearby mosques, no one
knows how many gunmen,
or where they lurk.
So armed police escort
walking wounded the short
distance from one mosque
to the hospital across the park
while many ambulances
transport the severely wounded.
lifecameos 
A brilliant contrast between what the title evokes and the realty of that particular walk.
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Thank you. The photo covered the top half of the page, large broadsheet style. The first thing I saw was all the trees and shrubs. Then I saw the armed policeman in the lower left quarter of the picture, which gave me a heck of a jolt. I was not expecting it even though there were so many photos around the shootings of the previous day. That gave me the idea for the poem. Given there were so many ambulances needed it made sense that the walking wounded would have been walked to the nearby hospital.
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I seem to remember the open spaces near affected Tube statons were used for wounded after the London 7/7 bombings.
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That would certainly make sense. It is so horrible the damage and loss a few people with guns can cause.
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Or a bomb in a backpack…..or the litter bin you are just walking past. At one point all the litter bins in London were removed because of the latter.
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J > A good example of how poetry can reflect more thoughtfully on events, rather than the worn-out cliches used in TV, radio etc.
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Thank you. The photo gave me a big jolt as I looked at all the trees and shrubs first, then saw the armed policemen at the bottom left of the photo.
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a sad day
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Yes indeed.
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