‘One Person Every Minute’ by James A. Tweedie

Joe Stalin led his country for just short of thirty years—
Three decades filled with purges, hunger, suffering and tears.
“To make an omelet,” he once said, “you have to break some eggs.”
By “eggs” he meant some heads and necks along with arms and legs.

Not counting war (or famine—which some people say he caused),
He killed off twenty million folks, the terror never paused.
In gulags, camps and prisons (which were bulging at the seams),
The “workers’ paradise” he sought was swallowed up in screams.

One person every minute—that’s how often someone died
Because Joe’s lust for Marxist pow’r could not be satisfied.
Including war and famine you will find, both by and large,
That fifty million Soviets died while Stalin was in charge.

Things got a little better after Stalin bit the dust,
But his socialistic dreams were soon corrupted into rust.
Elsewhere the Marxist terror lingered on with Mao Tse Tung,
While Pol Pot in Cambodia had a million shot or hung.

Today Red China, North Korea, Vietnam, plus Laos
And Cuba are all that remain of Marx and Engle’s house.
The people of these countries cannot be considered free
Since their leaders give and take their rights and freedoms by decree.

The moral code of China is to take what it can get.
If you don’t think it’s true just ask the people of Tibet.
And the “Vanguard of the Proletariat” sees nothing wrong
With transplanting hearts and livers taken from the Falun Gong.

The ash-heap of earth’s history holds many utopian dreams
That over time have sadly proved to be but empty memes.
Now insofar as ideologies both come and go
It was too bad that communism didn’t die with Joe.

James A. Tweedie is a recently retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He likes to walk on the beach with his wife. He has written and self-published four novels and a collection of short stories. He has several hundred unpublished poems tucked away in drawers.