LAMENT for Western Humanity

In Memory of James Foley

American Catholic Journalist, who prayed the Rosary, died to expose the suffering of the people of the Middle East and was  beheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS)

By Lawrence Fox

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; 
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.”(Isaiah 53:7,8)

Messenger, your passion was for gathering, and war;

your empathy stirred, inevitably marching you toward peril -- both subtle and blatant.

Little did we appreciate the witness of your herald.

Valor impressed you, made you a magnet for dark ritual obsession.

Carnage, barbarity -- you relayed and became the story for our digestion.

Little did we grasp the deceit -- both subtle and blatant:

“It is a Religion of Peace!”

Colleagues, Citizens, and Politicians, so you persist at the gathering,

enthralled in a post-modern trance, digesting the horror

       without understanding the Islamist ritual context.

“Certainly theirs is not madness,” we pretend;

taking the Progressive Stance:

“Terror gestates only within the heart of heroic men --

seeking to redress injustices performed!”

But by whom and for what, and God knows when?

So, James, we rationalize the murderous atrocity,

missing what the merest Medieval knight understood:

Wrong reigns in a misguided Seventh Century religiosity.

Colleagues, Citizens, and Politicians alike ingest your ritual slaughter,

Frozen within a post-modern trance

(POTUS knew since January; CIA favored the Caliphate.)

No one admitting such butchery exceeds

Hammurabi’s eye-for-eye nor Shylock’s “pound of flesh.”

Your death is the natural conclusion of the Quran

Lies never subtle, always malevolently blatant.

Centuries ago in desert lands, James, your end was “divinely” ordained.

It is promoted and enshrined by the Prophet’s sirens;

never ending until the Truth is finally spoon-fed to their yawning hearts.

Your curdling sounds mixed with praises to the Prophet’s god,

their song – some think it lovely – is  relayed back for our consumption and,

your colleagues, citizens, and politicians persist at the gathering,

buried in a post-modern trance, refusing to grasp,

 “It is NOT a religion of peace.”  

Rest in True Peace beloved James Foley, Angel to Western Humanity, and pray that Rosary for us.

--edited by Susan Fox

To Understand this Poem You Might Enjoy Reading Another  Piece that Lawrence Fox wrote:THE GLORY OF ISLAM: Putting the Beheadings, Rapes and Crucifixions into the Context of the Quran

This is Lawrence Fox's latest piece: THE MIND OF ISLAM: On Family Life, the Messiah and How to Treat Non-Muslims