The Great Leader and Doubt

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

While smart bombs and rockets hit out training camp
and blow tents to smithereens
we sit in caves and wait for it to end.
A find way to spend taxpayers dollars someone quips,
we laugh, the great man grins
his young lover smiles too
but looks worried
like one who knows
too much knowledge can be dangerous at times.
We are hypnotised by the vast power of our leader,
it must be god given
if so we shall follow him to victory or death.
He has the lazy movement of one
in total command
and his eyes are deep pool of cunning.
But when I can’t sleep at night
and sit outside my cave
and look at the wondrous landscape of our land
a doubt, from the depth of my being,
reaches surface
and I shudder
for I dare not whisper my dark thoughts,
not even to myself,
that if this man is evil
then I wish he was dead.