Shadows And Charades

Bombers growl over and dark sweeps the street
Clouds the shade and the pale in the patchwork of rubble
People and missiles are both seeking heat
Go hide in the basement and stay out of trouble
The sirens are howling - best answer their call
To the shadow, the place where the light doesn't fall

Check alma mater for targets and tables
Don't waste wit or wisdom on unthinking classes
Train up your elites from the thoroughbred stables
And churn out your drones with their requisite passes
Go switch off their braincells and just click 'install'
To work in the shadow where light doesn't fall

The scan found a shadow, it's here on the screen
It's cold like a pane with a slow-spreading frost
We'll conduct some more tests to find out what that means
But we'll do what we can do, no matter the cost
Its reach may be long though its caster is small
And throws shadows on faces where light doesn't fall

Stopping and searching, selecting by race
With suspicion, rendition, a night in the cells
The dull streets where we hang are a dangerous place
But still nobody listens 'cos nobody tells
They're kept safe by the searchlight and high prison wall
The shadow's the place where the light doesn't fall

So what of the matters the nearest to me?
Of the grief we accept as it hides in plain sight?
What's there at our feet is much harder to see
The blind spots, the worries that pass in the night
The injustice so close we can't see it at all
Our shadow's the place where the light doesn't fall