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Question To Dmitri Shostakovich
Pummeled by the ungloved, Bolshevik fist,
what comfort could you possibly have found
in the profession of an atheist?
Surrounded by so many remnants of
that ancient Faith, the Russian Orthodox---
(which Lenin and his crew could not quite shove
out of the common people's consciousness,
despite the persecution's long duress,
with outright murders and more subtle shocks)---
how could you have denied the blessed hope?:
it would have helped you, the much more, to cope
with those conditions that thrived to abound
within that joyless "Worker's Paradise,"
built by the Party on Lenin's base lies
