Gideon Oknin Poet Lyric

Notes About The Poem

I mention terrorists who killed for Islamic State, but its important to remember that others use terror for other causes, for instance an environmentalist (Ted Kacxynski)mailed letter bombs to people he deemed anti-environment, and Tim McVeigh put a truck full of explosives next to a government building, and detonated it.   Some of my fellow Jews were members of the "Weathermen", who placed bombs, fully intending to kill, for a leftwing utopia.  And finally, in the process of writing this poem, I found a Wikipedia page on "List of vehicle-ramming attacks" which shows that there's been a lot more than I mentioned, and quite a few have nothing to do with Islamic State (though some do).

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Road kill

They saw a 19 ton truck rampage their way
Death came to France on Bastille day
86 French folk died that patriotic date
when Mohammed Bouhlei drove for Islamic State.

At a Christmas market also sudden death
She looked at an oncoming truck, drew her last breath
11 others died with her on what should be a happy time
Anis Amri drove the truck, was it war, or just a crime?

Death on a bridge over an English River
Khalid drove the car, no shame, not a sliver
A car can be a weapon - a use that breaks our trust
That in a peaceful day it couldn't happen to us.

Civilization depends on trust every day
Drivers stay in their lane; people don't get pushed off the subway
If you work in a building that bursts into flame
It could a killer finding a new use for a plane.

He was shopping in Sweden, then a stolen truck drove fast
The sight of it was to be his last.
Another holy warrior, felt that five should die
He claimed that revenge was his reason why.

Another rented a truck, drove it down a path
Manhattan cyclists plowed and split in half
A guy called Younis drove a van in Barcelona Spain
I shrugged at the dead, didn't bother to learn their name

Bourbon Street, New Orleans, a self-righteous guy
Saw a celebration, thought happy folks must die
He drove a truck, I'll spare the gory details
In an open society, terror never fails.

What's with these killers you might ask, you might not understand
You feel you didn't do nothing: you don't have a bloody hand
But as a member of a group, that's all some need
to wipe you off the map and take pride in the deed.

IF you march for a cause, that's OK, that's free speech
But if others do this kind of murder, that's overreach
Perhaps the peaceful types who ignore means for ends
Are courting their own death, where the sidewalk ends.
Barcelona, Bourbon Street—the same refrain:
A van, a truck, a cause, the dead remain.
I admit I don't remember one name.
Or feel the waste, the shame, the pain.

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