Poetry – Believers – A poem about religious fanaticism.

 

Believers

Madmen pose with

Hardware exposed

To elevate their egos

To eternity.

Foolish fools

Believing silly rules,

Eschewing girls from schools

Inflamed with

Dreams of glory.

Endorphins rage

Through synapses

Of the brave.

Adherents ecstatic

With grave zeal

and brotherhood

Of unity;

All built on a book

Of lunacy.

Opher 4.7.2015

Everywhere I look around the world and through the depths of history I see excited young men clutching weapons in one hand and sacred books or political treaties in the other all wild-eyed and crazed; all joined by a cause; all eager to impose their vision on the world.

They butcher and torture until they themselves are numb, callous and cold and their Messianic fire has corrupted into sadistic futility.

All are assured of one thing – their cause is inevitably short-lived. We have seen the crusades, Jihads, Pol Pot, Hitler, Rwanda, and a thousand other massacres, genocides and causes as religions and regimes rise and rapidly fall.

It does not stop the fanaticism. Fascism and the adrenaline of brotherhood of war is a powerful aphrodisiac. It fires the belly and confounds the senses. The crazed believers are prepared to lay down their lives for their pointless cause.  They are easy to recruit and indoctrinate – point and they will go,

It all harks back to those tribal days of young men on hunting parties whose lives depended on their skills, bravery and willingness to support each other in a common aim – whether that be fighting off a ferocious wild cat or bringing down a dangerous buffalo.

Young men, befuddled by hormones, eager for status and glory, easily drawn to a cause, are always gullible.

Young women, equally befuddled, seeking father’s for the eggs they store, are attracted to the strongest. They support the craziness – always gullible.

We are so primitive. We are transparent. Our intelligence, helplessness and stupidity are our constant downfall.

Perhaps one day women will be attracted to men for their neuronal skills and compassion rather than their muscle and brute force. The world would be a different place.