To Make a Better World

To make a better world
Book reviews are not enough,
Though they be of many tasteful words.
Songs may be more real,
Closer kin to action.
But more real still is time.
Will you give time?
And more real still is blood.
Are you prepared to bleed?
And more real still are flesh and bone,
Which bruise and break.

They hacked off slabs of her flesh.
They broke her bones, finger by finger.
The heroine of the revolution
Died in a pitiless place.
I do not want to be like her.
I do not want to die like that.
But book reviews are not enough.