THE ART OF WHAT’S LEFT

by Matthew Murrey

 

Banksy confirmed he was responsible for the work with a post on Instagram, showing the graffiti before it was covered over. It has been interpreted by some as a comment on the arrest of hundreds of people for supporting Palestine Action by holding up placards at protests. Palestine Action was banned by the government as a terrorist group in July after activists damaged RAF planes. --BBC, September 10, 2025

What was just one raging judge 

bludgeoning one poor bloke 
lying helpless on his back 
has now been scrubbed 
into anyone, anywhere where 
faceless power hammers 
the harmless: families asleep 
in wrecked schools and sad tents, 
thousands on foot, on donkey carts, 
and in cars fleeing their flattened 
neighborhoods, starving hundreds 
shot while crowding for food, 
the badly wounded and bleeding
on their backs begging for mercy.
A gray afterimage of the mural 
remains on the courthouse wall 
like a blast shadow in Hiroshima, 
like a black-gray pall of smoke 
above human beings being burned, 
like some relentless nightmare ghost 
that ought to haunt us night and day.

Matthew Murrey is the author of Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019) and the forthcoming collection, Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026). Recent poems are in Dissident Voice, Escape Into Life, Tiny Wren Lit, and elsewhere. He was a public school librarian for more than 20 years and lives in Urbana, IL with his partner. He can be found on Bluesky and Instagram under the handle @mytwords.