cursing Stalin

the Twentieth

or was it the Twenty-second Party Congress

changed course

almost in mid-stream

like in a Goya dream

and it finally occurred to many

life could still offer plenty,

beyond cursing Stalin,

who ate his own people 

without a fork,

enjoying his soup with heaps of steaming pork

while shivering mothers' froze

innocent of any crime

but getting ten years' time

imprisonment

in a punishment cell

(a deep dark basement hell)

or off to a labor camp

to die today or tomorrow

simply heartbreaking pain and sorrow

where nothing is right

daylight becomes night

almost dead

dreaming of being plump, rested, and well fed.