Station/An Ordo

Rank, that deep abyss between man and man
from Nietzsche

While the women and children are
Shopping down the town
On a still-lingering-from
-childhood
Saturday afternoon,

The teener with the frizzy hair
Lets it grow
To look like a Hottentot,

Plays the guitar
For his kid sister, is
Her big pop star, shoots

Dead the boy-faced policeman
Guarding the chapel in a bad
District down the road,

When apprehended, says

‘It was definitely not murder
Sir: Orders is Orders!’

© Padraic Fiacc, Station/An Ordo 1986

Padraic Fiacc dwells on the lightness with which teenagers were recruited in the service of paramilitary organisations.