ARMAGEDDON

Selected, blessed and in his faith now dead

Like the Inca of old, to ritual sacrifice sped

Wrapped around his heart, with the bomber's gear

The cries of his people, sound aloud in his ear

Already dead, it makes his next act quite clear

For his people to live, he must maximise fear

The bus in his mirror pulls gently past

And he moves out behind it, but not too fast

Megiddo, the name of this small Jewish town

Nearby is Jenin and those houses smashed down

By tank and bulldozer and cruel seed sown

To grow the fuelled hatred, revenge cry full blown

And he is the choice to carry the war

To cultivate fear at Israel's front door

Calm Martyr Front, in pursuit of his quest

Apocalypse Horsemen ride here as the guest

Alongside the bus in the morning rush hour

Fifty aboard to see the Devil flower

As he triggers the bomb in explosions two

And a fireball ignites in the yellows and blue

The canvas for macabre, surrealist paint

Is the asphalt of blood and body bits taint

The rear seat blackened by intensities fire

Hides embracing lovers in a carbonised pyre

Thirteen soldiers die, and much civilian woe

Overlooked by the jail, filled with Palestine foe

Cheering on their warrior in his death embrace

And the pain given back to the hated face

Again, the fear breeds fear and hate breeds hate

And the tanks roll again over Jenin's crushed state

The poet reflects upon Megiddo's old name

Armageddon, the place of Revelations and Flame

Dear God when will they ever learn

When will they ever learn?

When will they meet this hate with love?

When will they learn to love?

Christian and Muslim and Agnostic too

Meet Jew in pain and atrocity new

As the Horsemen ride to seal a fate

In fear and flame and love and hate