Ville de Paris - Défi au djihad

City of Paris - Defiant to jihad

I have known this before

I will not countenance its return.

You terrorists come in many forms

Jihadists, you call yourselves.

I knew you when you were Nazis.

I knew you when you were Stalinists.

I knew you when you showed

the unacceptable traits of

bloody republicanism.

I grew up and came of age

hence my tricolour emblem

Liberté

Égalité

Fraternité

You do not know your history

You do not know my character

and personality,

my Nationhood.

You have no concept of nationhood.

You have no concept of peace.

You have no concept of love.

You are devoid of compassion and mercy,

and unconditional love

But I know all these things

I harboured my people 

my Boulevards

when occupation

forced me to concede defeat for a time

But not complete defeat

For by grace I moved across the water

and under the banner as free Frenchmen

women and men alike

mark that if you will...

we carried on the struggle

until the humiliation of 1940 -

when a vulgar army paraded down

my thoroughfare

and raped me - oh yes

The Avenue des Champs-Élysées -

was reversed when we defeated

the scourge of terrorism

My own army marched again

The Avenue des Champs-Élysées

My Allies too

My Friends

My Honour

My Freedom restored

You jihadists have no friends.

You have no concept of friendship.

You have no concept of relationship.

You hide your loss of intellect

behind bellicose religiosity

a vile ideology

that would have the Middle Ages

squirm

More to the point, you have not a clue what your verses actually require of you

But you will not know victory

You have seen this day

the whole world turn against you

in unanimity of purpose.

And as with the misfortune

of awakening a sleeping giant,

so now you will be removed

from every place in which you lurk.

You have no home,

You have no land,

You have no peace,

You have no hiding place.

You have sown the wind

Now you shall reap the whirlwind.

Secularism and Faith ironically

go hand in hand, here within my Avenues and Boulevards

along the Banks of the Seine

and even in the Seine!

But that is beyond your penile imaginations

You are the belch of a broken evil demagogue

Civilisation will rise above you

I will seek you out and defeat you.

Longue vie à la France

Longue vie à la Paris

Vive la liberté

Longue civilisation en direct

1 October 2021

All Rights Reserved

© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Penned in the week following the first Paris Attacks in November 2015

Image Courtesy of Google Images and with all rights reserved to the photographer