The witness knows the truth he shows
will never make a difference.
The king has set men proven bad
enough by being bought once

to be his congress and his courts.
The witness does not matter.
The proofs he brings are disallowed.
The judges just get madder

at him, not at the crimes against
the nation and the people.
Their verdict is to hang the witness
as an example from the steeple.

The execution day arrives.
The baying mob is festive.
If Truth is honoured anywhere
it’s not this place, suggestive

of Dante’s rings, of auto de fé.
The witness, broken, bitter,
is trundled along in a wooden cart
behind the crazed king’s litter.

It is now, in the books you’ll read,
that the saving angel appears.
It won’t—not here. The witness lives on
only in fairy tales, my dears.