Confession of Heresy by Alan Dugan

Confession of Heresy

Once I demanded annihilation and frenzy.

I applauded the smiles of thieves and had

a passion for debris. Lost in the traffic

of argument, I appraised skilled assassins

and preached the slaughter of the pure,

but now I’m scared and only critical

of what I once proposed to wreck: I see

vandals at the monuments I hoped to save,

experts, who exceed in self my strong words,

and call themselves the business or the state.

They grow up in the rubble of our wreck,

kill with a purist’s hatred of the strange,

and feed on death, until a liberal man

must blush like a rose for holding on to one,

turn grey, and learn to shout the slogans:

“Annihilation!”, “Frenzy!”, just to run

the gantlets of their streets in safety

from himself, them, or other enemies.