(The following three poems were written by former Temple member Teri Buford O’Shea in the years since the deaths in Jonestown. Her complete collection of poems for the jonestown report may be found here.)
Revolution
Traitor!!
He roars
I shake
Like an old washer
In the spin cycle
My knees
Turn to rubber
I collapse
I am afraid
To die
I am
A coward
My best friend
Betrays me
I have abandoned
The Revolution
The Revolution
That creates
Despair
Hopelessness
Poverty
Sleep deprivation
The Revolution
That steals
My freedom
Myself
My child
Never to be born
The Revolution
That estranges me
From those I love and hold dear
That makes my best friend
My most feared enemy
I am afraid
To die
I am
A coward
The truth
Would get me
Killed or worse
My comrades
Grandstand
Against me
for His bemusement
I wonder
Who among them
Secretly wants
To leave
I will never
Know
The party line
The party line
The party lie
Truth
Buried somewhere
In the jungle floor
Far from
My cowardly
Reach
How much
Can it hurt?
To tell the truth
Oh! God!
Deliver me from this body
Pain
Searing pain
Deliver me from this spirit
I clench my teeth
So as not to
Betray
Myself
But I am brave
I do not tell
The truth
I give
The party lie
What a coward
I am
What a liar
I have become
Why can’t
I speak
The truth
And LIVE
Bitter Jungle
Death cries from the bitter jungle
blaming you for our
fear, pain ,horror, our collective cowardice
Believers we were
trapped in your hypnotic thoughts
to live and die at your discretion
Afraid to rise up against you
afraid that your magic would destroy us
not recognizing the power we held among us
We distrusted
each other
too much to save ourselves
I did not fight
I was not brave
I did not care, if another day would come
You were not God
not Buddha
not Gandhi come back to life again
Cries in the jungle night
Betray you now as they could not before
And join together against you.
We are believers no more.
After the end of the world
After the end of the world
I drank milk, only milk
First in tiny sips
Then in large gulps
But it was only milk I had
After the end of the world
After the end of the world
I put the pieces of shattered glass
Together
And watched the sun rise
In its mosaic of reflections
Blue, rose, lavender
I heard the past talk
In silence
After the end of the world
I drove fast to nowhere
And nowhere
Became my home
After the end of the world
I can watch the new sun set
From my own screened porch
At the beginning of the world