On An Odd Day in November
By David Roth
© 13th November, 2015
For the dead
in Paris
He stood holding a knife
to the pilots head
mumbling Allahu Akbah,
as the shining flying tube
raped Tower Two
consummating 1,362 feet
of steel, glass, concrete
and heartbeats
into a marriage of nameless rubble.
And the voice of the coward
cried out from his hiding place
nearly seven thousand miles away.
Called it jihad.
Called it justice.
He set the parcel in an
inconspicuous place,
waiting for the full rush of humanity.
Then he pressed the trigger
during rush hour
bringing destruction
to the innocent,
and silently slinked away
wrapping his hope
in the belt of explosives
wrapped around his waist,
mumbling Allahu Akbah
and fear filled his eyes
as the last sound he heard
that interrupted his martyrs prayer
was the betraying ring of a phone
sounded
just before his thumb depressed the
trigger…
And the voice of the coward
cried out from his hiding place
only seven miles away.
Called it jihad.
Called it justice.
No one saw him place
the bags that killed the train
and assassinated the buses
and the stone faced travelers
riding to work and school and play
like lambs led to the slaughter.
Perhaps he watched
mumbling Allahu Akbah
and something about paradise
when the tubes went dark
and the buses disintegrated
taking sons and daughters
of mothers and fathers
and the single son of Islam
who carried one more device
than the ones of which he’d known.
And the voice of the coward
cried out from his hiding place
nearly seventy miles away.
Called it jihad.
Called it justice.
They took them from a cell
violently, in the middle of the
night,
held council
and condemned them to death
for the crime of being Christian
in the wrong place;
at the wrong time;
of the wrong faith;
for believing in a God
of love
they hid their faces
turned on cameras, made a speech
and they s l o w l y s a w e d
their heads off
with dull blades
and cried jihad
Jihad Allahu Akbah
Twenty-one brave men of God
And the voice of the coward
Made a speech in his hiding place
nearly seven thousand miles away.
He blamed the Roman Crusaders
From a thousand years long past
“Climb down from your high horse”
The haughty coward said;
“Now go and give them jobs,
These warriors of Islam”
Then thanked the praying Immam,
And played a round of Golf.
And on the odd day in November
the eleventh month,
and two-thousand-fifteenth year of our Lord
in the old way, Anno Domini.
At a concert in the city of lights
and two-thousand-fifteenth year of our Lord
in the old way, Anno Domini.
At a concert in the city of lights
and a restaurant and a football
match
the 'Religion of Peace' came
knocking.
Not boldly, as men do, face to
face,
but from a distance, throwing
bombs,
firing automatic weapons from the
shadows,
at unsuspecting innocents
as is their cowardly style.
And
the voice of our Coward said 'hold on now!'
'let's
not rush and make rash judgments!'
because
alone among the world's real leaders,
the
spineless, tin-plated oiseau moqueur fears the words
“Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists.”
He
thinks global warming shed all that blood
in
the glittering Parisian night.
