Radioactive Weak

Poets, in general, are easy

For generals to arrest or kill.

It’s their weakness that makes them a threat,

Since if any such piddling persons

Can get away with thumbing noses

At the authorities of great states,

It makes powerful leaders look weak,

And we can’t have that. But even then,

At their worst, they’re not much of a threat.

Poets get arrested and murdered

Since, of all the threats posed to the State,

Poets are the easiest to catch.

They make the best targets, few and cheap,

And they seem glad of the attention,

When they survive it. Fellow poets,

The ones not arrested, can take pride

In belonging to such a brave tribe.

It’s only the patterns in language,

Of course, that last long enough to fight

Things through—poems against the powerful

Glow longer half-lives than power does.