This week, Florida Poet Laureate and CL columnist Peter Meinke returns to verse in our pages to reflect on hate, and how those in power may turn it to their advantage. —Ed.
Ah! Well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
—from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
THE TURNING POINT
The Ku Klux Klan has burned the Cross
for decades now from South to North
but he’s reluctant to rebuke
the Klan the Nazis David Duke—
he knows they’re not an albatross
His base clings on like rabid moss
sensing they once again can shoot
young Emmett Till: That wouldn’t spook
the Klu Klux Klan
How can Democracy get lost
to gangs that rule by farce and force?
Charlottesville proves it’s not a fluke
that we’ve elected Cruel Hand Luke:
He’s the Warden but who’s the Boss?
The Ku Klux Klan
This poem, another rondeau, doesn’t need explaining, but I’ve felt from the very beginning of the Rise of Trump — the “birther” lie and the passion it unearthed around the country — that while any presidential contest is complicated, racism was the energy that fueled his unhappy and angry crowds back then, and still is today. —PM
This article appears in Sep 7-14, 2017.