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?
American Martyr or Terrorist Nutjob?
and a poem, of course…
Okay, well whilst I’m in no way advocating the actions of Joe Stack in Austin, Texas recently, I did take the time to read his ‘manifesto’ (suicide note) which you can find widely on line.
It made me wonder, what it really takes for an ordinary guy to lose it so completely? His letter, if you believe any of it, clearly shows you why. Of course he will now be vilified by the media and deemed a terrorist by society, but I challenge you to find five things in his reasoning that you disagree with. Everything he wrote I’m hearing said a lot by Americans these days. He reached the point where his life was not worth continuing and seems to have been attempting to do something to make change happen. So what does it take to step over the line, and how many more Joe Stacks are we going to see over the months to come?
Is he a martyr for the dying American dream, or a nutjob with a grudge?
You tell me.
Rolling ‘Isms by Carey Lenehan
Inspiration, expressionism,
as slippery as an oiled rope
or an iced eel,
as elusive as an alien encounter
and
equally inexplicable,
febrile and fluctuating,
so that every attempt
to clutch and secure it for nourishment,
admonition,
or rescue
is nullified
and fluttering fingertips,
stroke only the merest hint of creativity
before encountering,
empty space…
Idealism, as ephemeral as a notion
held in the head of an opium poppy,
or couched in the eye
of an insurgent child,
paraded in the hopes and dreams
of proud patriots,
trampled beneath burgeoning immorality,
no more now,
than a momentary glimmer
of human possibility,
eroded by reality
and the benefit of experience,
clouded by daily misery
or a sense that
no one is listening any more,
any effort to bring it into the light
fracturing the fragile fabric of conviction
before converting it to doubt.
Socialism, a downtrodden concept
of community,
embracing consideration and communal responsibilty,
derided and long undervalued
by a first world that refuses to diet
even though it is dying of obesity.
Sullying a sytem of sharing
egalitarian values,
demonised for suggesting,
that what’s yours,
might also be mine…and everyone elses.
God Forbid!
From this we scatter fearful,
and all the useful definitions in between
become blurred to insignificance
as we sink into a sea of greed,
or an ocean of self servingness
in its abject rejection
Capitalism, an ever turning wheel of torturous dispossession
carving a rut
through the fettered fabric of humanity
disavowing our intent
to do good
leading us astray with devilish temptations
Promises of endless richesse
beyond our wildest dreams
yet,
with surgical precision,
whilst we look the other way,
slicing and dicing the herd
determining who floats and who falls
by counting the zeros on a ledger
and saying
not only
that Greed is Good
but
that Greed is All
Nihilism, a moment of insanity,
a seismic fracture, sinking through mental structure
and a need to be noticed,
no matter what
because all that might once have been of value
has become meaningless,
and democracy
has failed.
The cost?
Broken dreams and shattered expectations
flying into the sun,
blinked out in a blaze of inglory,
rolling a fiery ‘Ism through the clouds,
towards the source of a pain that will never end,
sinking angry teeth into a world
that does not care
Desperate to be heard,
dying silenced.
This Is Not The World I Ordered
Who’s that knocking on my door?
Oh, it’s you? The armed and dangerous representatives
of unconstitutional authority.
And you want me to do what exactly?
Come with you?
For my own safety? For yours?
Because of your orders, which you didn’t question?
Ohhh, I don’t think so….
Let me explain, you see,
I didn’t vote for this Brave New World you Ordered,
I have no secret agenda, except to live in peace
and I really don’t want to join in with your silliness. Whatever it is.
Thanks all the same.
Let me know when there is a way
to get off the planet.
The problem is that I don’t see things the way you see things,
I don’t fear the threats you fear, because
these shadowy horrors which haunt your nightmares
may have persuaded you it is your right
to tag me,
bag me
and follow me around
with CCTV, but
these are not my monsters,
I did not create or provoke them,
I have no desire to force democracy on the unwilling,
or capitalism on the moral,
and I will not force them to live like us. God forbid.
You say they are a risk to me, well perhaps that is true
but it is because of your actions, not mine, that they feel this way
and experience shows that in my life,
I have been hurt more often,
by people who look and think like you do,
than by them.
You think I want to be
retinally scanned, facially measured,
and found wanting,
unable to fit into your plastic-fantastic world
and the pigeonhole you have genetically prescribed me?
Sorry.
If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.
I would rather have the natural world I was born to inhabit,
unpoisoned and valued infinitely,
where greed and corruption do not rule
and governments do not impose falsity as truth.
And if I’d lose a few luxuries… well, boo hoo.
So, I need your protection, do I?
Well, forgive me if I prefer to believe
that it is you,
whom I need protection from,
for you are the ones
who spent the money I worked for
on bigger and bigger guns instead of food for hungry people,
You dropped the mushroom bombs
on living humans and thought it was good.
That really wasn’t me.
I never bought a nuke online.
Look in my shed. See for yourselves.
Can you say the same?
So who exactly is the bad guy?
You want to do what exactly?
Take me away and vaccinate me?
Oh I see, you want to protect me against a disease
that probably exists because of the way
you fuck with nature and expect it not to pay you back.
But you see, I still respect nature, even if you don’t.
I always understood that your greed would bring consequences,
that keeping animals crammed like tin soldiers in a box
aligned side by side, miserable, ailing and dying in spirit,
would not be healthy for the food chain.
I always knew, that fishing with bigger and bigger nets,
would one day mean there were only little fish left.
It was never a mystery to me, why the world started to fail
We did it. You and me. Are they going to lock you up too?
I didn’t think so….
A new Flu you say?
Very dangerous. Well, aren’t they all?
Thing is, I suspect that you guys probably cooked it up
in some laboratory that my taxes paid for
but which I never sanctioned
because people like you think you can take my money
and do whatever you want to.
Like everything else, your magic,
is just another scam I refuse to fall for.
So that’s okay thanks.
I’ll risk it.
If it’s all the same to you,
I’d rather stay well away
from the mercury in your cure
and the formaldehyde in your kill.
I’m pretty sure you believe your own bullshit
but I don’t.
So thanks for passing by. But I’m going back to bed now
unless of course, you decide to shoot me,
in which case, close the door on your way out.
