Betrayals

“From each according to ability,

to each according to need.”  A noble cry,

and “What have you got to lose but chains?”  So why

slave-camps, torture (body, mind) to compel

blind, obedient conformity, the dreamed ideal

hardened into a stony tyranny?

Just such a vile perversion of good thought

used to fill Smithfield with the smell of flesh in fire

as Protestant, Catholic, turn and turn about

burned one another in the name of

the same God, whom both sides could declare

(even believe), to be a god of love.