The gates clanged and they walked you into jail 
More tense than felons but relieved to find 
The hostile world shut out, the flags that dripped 
From every mother?s windowpane, obscene 
The bloodlust sweating from the public heart, 
The dog authority slavering at your throat. 
A sense of quiet, of pulling down the blind 
Possessed you. Punishment you felt was clean. 


The decks, the catwalks, and the narrow light 
Composed a ship. This was a mutinous crew 
Troubling the captains for plain decencies, 
A Mayflower brim with pilgrims headed out 
To establish new theocracies to west, 
A Noah?s ark coasting the topmost seas 
Ten miles above the sodomites and fish. 
These inmates loved the only living doves. 


Like all men hunted from the world you made 
A good community, voyaging the storm 
To no safe Plymouth or green Ararat; 
Trouble or calm, the men with Bibles prayed, 
The gaunt politicals construed our hate. 
The opposite of all armies, you were best 
Opposing uniformity and yourselves; 
Prison and personality were your fate. 


You suffered not so physically but knew 
Maltreatment, hunger, ennui of the mind. 
Well might the soldier kissing the hot beach 
Erupting in his face damn all your kind. 
Yet you who saved neither yourselves nor us 
Are equally with those who shed the blood 
The heroes of our cause. Your conscience is 
What we come back to in the armistice.