In Freedom's Name

Nero, Nero, blaze not Rome!
Shed your torch and just go home.

Rumble, stumble, walk or crawl.
Quash your flame, pray hear my call.

Quash your flame, there is no shame
for choosing peace in reason's name.

Don't pay heed to your menacing demon.
Cast him out like a mutinous seaman.

Hear the cries of people marching,
Feel their pain and know they're watching.

If you sail their sons to war,
while your own are safe ashore,

And you claim it is their chore
to even up your father's score

Then you'll open up a door
to every evil men abhore.

You'll be known forever more,
like "Nero" of the days of yore,

A drunken sot whose stock and store
is doom and death and blood and gore.

Nero! Nero! In freedoms name,
do "choose life" as you so claim.


Rabih Haddad
Monroe County Jail
February 27, 2003