Everything We Thought Was True Was Not True

Music: Pieces en Concert -- Prelude, La Tromba, Air de Diable.
By Francois Couperin.
Performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra at theFree Music Archive
under a Creative Commons Attribution/ShareAlike license.

Subscribe to this site on Substack

Subscribe to this site on YouTube

Subscribe to this site on Medium

Follow this site on Facebook

Follow this site on Instagram

Hear me read
the poem as
an MP3 file.

Watch me read
the poem as
a YouTube video.

Alpha List

Political
Poems

About This
Site

Poems for
Free

Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon

Everything we thought was true was not true.
Everything we thought was right was wrong.
The leaders whom we idolized were madmen,
Mass murderers, whose crimes we helped along.

We were the volunteers for genocide,
The dupes who gave out leaflets for the devil,
For whom obscene dictatorships were good
And our own democracies were evil.

We were the organizers of the poor,
The builders of unions, champions of justice,
Sacrificing self only to serve
A mortal yearning for significance.

We were blind in service to our passions.
We were deaf in service to our need.
Now we must drive the truth straight through our hearts
That we might die at peace with what we did.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.

Subscribe to this site on Substack

Subscribe to this site on YouTube

Subscribe to this site on Medium

Follow this site on Facebook

Follow this site on Instagram