To Be A Terrorist
by Carey Lenehan
Ask yourself,
What does it take to be a ‘Terrorist’
To put cities and nations, under the fist?
Steal a passenger plane, take a bomb on a train
Killing bystanders, enemies, one and the same
What does it take? Too much hate, too much pain?
Very brave? Very angry? Very stupid?
Mental strain?
Here’s another ask…
What can it feel like to be on that train
with a homemade bomb at the base of your brain
Sweating finger on the button
Of impersonal destruction
Just a man, just a woman,
following instructions?
Maybe think of the future, of waking tomorrow,
safe and unharmed, with no regime to follow
What faith does it take to obliterate
Yourself and all those in your personal space
Workers and shirkers, mothers and sons
Husbands and daughters,
The old and the young?
What hatred is needed to render deceded
Innocence, sucking it’s thumb?
consider this….
Maybe…
Someone coerced you, fed you a lie,
Convinced you of Glory, a place at God’s side
Taught you to hate, see non-believers as waste
To be wiped of the face of religious debate,
Oppressors, digressors, capitalist proffessors
Opposed to your opposite religious state
So you clench every muscle, use belief to placate
as the train nears a point
predetermined by fate
What thoughts clog your head?
‘Is it true, when I’m dead,
I’ll be safe? I’ll be saved? Do I believe, in my heart
All those things that they said?’
What strength does it take for your finger to move
Press the button and BOOM, end all thinking,
for good?
Smashing glass, rending iron, sending soft
bodies flying, twisting flames, faithful games
Good lives smashed into dying
for the Martyrdom gained and herewith applying.
Perhaps not ashamed, for there are
others to blame,
What does it take to be a terrorist?
My friends…
all it takes,
is anger,
fear
and Faith
Like this:
Temporal Displacement Syndrome
by Carey Lenehan
Was I born at the wrong time,
unwanted, ill-fitting and out of place as I am,
in a world that doesn’t get me and which
I simply don’t understand,
Where death and cruelty stalk unchecked and I,
emotionally bludgened by endless injustice,
scream soundlessly,
surrounded by a herd
with such different ideas,
consistently flocking the other way
whilst I stay,
perplexed, on the open plain,
watching them go and wondering
why they want to?
Was I born too early,
meant instead for some distant era in the far future,
to a world grown well beyond the age of true enlightenment,
when peace is actuality
and common sense of the logical kind
is at last harnessed to a shining morality
of second nature to all, no matter
what colour their skin or shape their bible,
when respect for ALL life is a given,
and malice once and for ever banished from our
Oh so human hearts?
Because to me, anything but this belongs only
to a barbarous species
of which I want no part.
Was I born too late,
meant instead for a time of chivalry and valour
when the Gods and half Gods drew their places in history
on the edge of a sword blade,
eye to eye,
face to face,
not covertly through a long distance sight,
killing reduced to recoil
by dispassionless cowards incapable
of honest courage,
merely drone killers for a soulless elite
delivering death from the shadows
no longer heroes lining up
for an honest battlefield?
I dream of a time of real equality
with no differentiation between X and Y,
no rules seperating rich from poor that do not give
equal penalties and rewards to all.
Where starving children are a historical horror,
when profiteering and abject greed are no longer
our primary goal
When champions do not aspire
to base desires of material enrichment
but work towards the common good, unfailingly.
When we all do.
This is the world I was meant for.
Was I born at the wrong time?
Were you?
Poles Apart
© Carey Lenehan
We ran in the same streets, but we walk in different worlds
You and I,
poles apart, thinking, not thinking about understanding each other,
no chance of ever, seeing eye to eye
Equality unequally distributed, you see you
at the top of the food chain,
whereas I,
a mere reflection of yourself,
am somewhere down deep in the pond
Skin, stature, sex, sin, sisterhood,
you will never see what I see, only
the walls of the world
that fence you in to conformity
with me
on the outside because I,
dressed in the threads of exception,
find conformity too straight a jacket
You see the world numerical, divisible, distributable,
Whereas I,
who came from the earth and never left,
perceive symbiosis, unity, the absolute
art of the whole,
that radiant goddess
from whom you cut chunks
and pretend there flows no blood
You cannot make us alike, because of a deed,
a slash of pen on paper
You drown in misconceptions as we circle each other
swimming in different waters
bound only by a name,
same same, but different
You have lost the real world as you count profits
and study the Nasdaq,
allergic to green grass and fresh air
but I am still living there,
treading the wet earth between my toes,
watching the seasons change,
listening to the fading heartbeat of your cash cow
My earth will take me back when I am done
but where will you go to my brother?
Will you be divisible too?
Will your company count your profit and loss
and the trees
mourn your passing?
Will the pipelines shed a tear, will your office be refilled with
a clone of you?
Will we be equal?
Can you ever, be my equal?
