Damn-Sad

(on the execution of Saddam Hussein)

In iron irony at "Camp Justice,"
condemned by an unconstitutional court
of puppets, taunted by his guards, Saddam
is to an untimely gallows brought.

And Bush, who hailed the hasty hanging as
"the end of a dark era," can not see,
between the blessèd Savior's death and this,
the shocking, shaming similarity.

So have they made a martyr of a monster,
eclipsing one dark era to immerse
Iraq into a deeper shadow still,
as William Blake had prophesied in verse:

"The hand of Vengeance found the bed
To which the Purple Tyrant fled;
The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head
And became a Tyrant in his stead."

Dec. 30, 2006