For the dead in Paris

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 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.