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No Matter Where

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No matter where your hatred stems
Or where you spread your lies,
Beneath your feet the earth condemns
These lands you terrorise.

No matter where your hideouts hide
Or where your burrows bore,
Pointless is your suicide;
Baseless is your law.

No matter where your masses chant
Or where your fighters flock,
Immaterial is your rant -
Unnoticed is your shock.

No matter where you instill fear
Or where you inject pain,
A thousand more will not adhere,
And spit you out again.

No matter where your weapons land
Or where your fuses stop -
Irrelevant your motherland,
Your father's name, your lot.

No matter where your chests erupt
Or where your guns expel;
Your senseless drones, perverse, corrupt;
In faceless, soulless shells.

No matter where you plan your plans
Or where you plot your plots,
The blood that stains upon your hands
Will in your vessels, clot.

No matter where you take your hate
Or where you lay your crimes,
Catastrophes that you create
Will fortify our minds.

No matter where you throw our dead
Or where you dig your holes,
It's flesh you take in your bloodshed,
Not freedom, love, or souls.

No matter where, no matter when,
No matter how or who,
Your reign of terror, bound to end,
And to it, bound, are you.

Copyright © Simon Austin 2016

BelgiumBrusselsDeathHatePoemPoetryTerrorism

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Comments

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Thu 24th Mar 2016 11:25

This is good, and certainly topical. Did you ever check out the possibility of 'couplet format', if only to make the poem presumably 'shorter', and maybe even more impactive? Although these successive, compact verses do have a machine gun 'rattle' to them. Just a thought.

The final two lines are great.

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M.C. Newberry

Wed 23rd Mar 2016 18:42

Well-wrought - with considered construction that has a
powerful message.
There is unease insofar that these lines could be
adopted to suit any viewpoint - the mention of "drones"
adds to this wider context.

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Alexandra Parapadakis

Wed 23rd Mar 2016 18:05

This flows so well & speaks a strong message

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Harry O'Neill

Wed 23rd Mar 2016 15:55

Simon,
Although - at this time - we read this with reference to the present troubles, the unspecificity of the (well handled) stanzas would make it usable against any kind of
terrorist group.

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