PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

In the name of life, death;
in the name of peace, strife;
in the name of justice, unjust suspension of rights;
in the name of plenty, starvation;
in the name of order, chaos;
in the name of kindness, refusal;
in the name of contentment, terror;
in the name of all people, the deaths of some people;
in the name of free dissent, dictatorship;
in the name of the future, the past distanced;
in the name of mercy, reprisal;
in the name of innocence, innocents murdered---
(I remember four adolescent girls, a prepubescent boy, and his dog);
in the name of revolution, revulsion;
in the name of Marx, I left these marks;
in the locomotive of history, I ran them all down, I crushed them beneath the wheels;
in the name of my brother, personal, privileged vengeance.

Jack, if you can hear me here, hear this:
in Whitechapel, I learned from your sole error
only five murders does not constitute enough terror.

Adolf, Benito, Francisco . . . if you can hear me here, hear this:
you owed your powers, your pomps, and your popularity---
the great wave of reaction you rode to its crest----to me.

In the name of revision, the people pull my statues down and piss on them.

In the name of their faith, the people pray now
to the girls and the boy (but not the dog) as saints.

In the name of all that is holy, I burn, sear and scorch
in darkness and endlessly worsening agony---
unimaginable even to someone like me.