An Old Poem (from around early 2012)

Maoism

Once by this house, and on this street,
We debated about the peasantry.
We used to quote the small, red book, and try
To hold up half the sky.

We fought for hours, next to the station,
About the right to national liberation;
And, calming down while walking home –
Through the fields – read Lenin’s tomes.

And though it might seem a contradiction,
Yet, said Mao, a life without contradictions
Was like a word rhymed unto itself;
Yet though it might seem that, between yourself

And I, that words were only spoken
Without affection, yet they broke
The silence that now consumes this street;
This street, like murdered peasantry.

Perhaps the mass line was a myth,
Yet, though myth, at least there was a line
Between us, between where we each would sit;
Now split apart, like Trotskyists.