Jerusalem Ablaze

No, these are not pyromaniacs, sociopaths

fascinated with fire, compelled to surrender

to their urges for excitement in incendiary flashes

so that while their pathology leading to fiery

destruction oblivious in their sick minds of

what they commit to, these are an altogether

different breed that view themselves as victims

and as such entitled to surreptitiously set blazes

endangering all that lie in the path of fires so

fierce inhabitants must flee as do the animals in

the fires' path, destroying trees, crops, livelihoods

and lives. These are true psychopaths hoping to

destroy the lives they endanger, entitled to do so

because of their self-declared victimhood in the

belief theirs is a cause the world supports with

little regard for the true victims who suffer the

double pain of loss, terror and threats culminating

in violence and blame. The incendiaries proclaim

their undying love of the land that its owners have

painstakingly converted from desert to fecund fields

of arable land producing food for the inhabitants

of a nation occupying their heritage geography yet

contested by migrants from other nations demanding

the indigenous people leave or die, so the settlers

who purloined identification and iconography

of sacred belief as their own can claim the land.